Beloved

Jesus, the beloved of God, came so that we who were hopelessly lost in sin, would be brought back into a loving relationship with the Father. - Phrases such as ‘adopted as children’ - ‘no longer aliens’ are precious statements. Jesus the beloved of God came for us! (Philippians 2:8) ‘And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!’

The Life Application Commentary on Ephesians 1:6 ‘...now that we belong to his dearly loved Son. God’s favour to us is realized by our union with Christ. We could say that God’s love for his only Son motivated him to have many more sons.’ The bond of love which exists between us and God is not reliant on us and the love we can produce it is love from God which brought us back to the place we should be, in Christ Jesus! (2 Thessalonians 2:13 NLT) ‘As for us, we always thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved [AV beloved of the Lord] by the Lord. We are thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation, a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and by your belief in the truth.’

So here in Paul’s writings is the fact that — the beloved of God came to our world to claim back, transform, bring the sinner who God had always loved, to the place where we know and understand once again that we are God’s beloved. I read a story in a paper this week of Mark Baylis who through quite amazing circumstances was reunited with his birth mother. Adopted at birth and brought up by wonderful parents, yet there was still the longing to know what had happened, was he really loved. The came the moment of reunion, suddenly the knowledge which changed his life. Despite being far away, separated, he was always the beloved. That story breaks down as an illustration in the context of what we are looking at, it served to highlight the fact that despite separation through sin, we are and always have been God’s beloved.

Lavished Love.

(1 John 3:1-2)

‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!...

We are told that in the 60s when the hippies were about, ‘flower power and free love’, many young people distorted those beautiful words, "God is love" to "Love is God" -- By that they meant, anything they called "love" had to be "god." (Something which they saw as supreme in their life. But love by any of man’s definitions is not God. God IS love!

Lennon and McCartney wrote, “No one you can save that can’t be saved... It’s easy. All you need is love, all you need is love,” The trouble was that they were looking to the god ‘Love’ and not to the God of love.

John as he wrote his majestic letter asked, “Behold, what manner of love” John himself answers that It was the most tender and beautiful that love could be. He adopts us into His family, and we are taught to address Him in the same way that Jesus His Son speaks to Him. ‘Our Father’! If we can measure His love, it has to be in the way of humans. We are adopted into His family. Can there be a higher measure of human love that can be shown when a family adopts a child, brings that child into the family with all the rights of a blood child? 2 [Beloved AV] Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ (Romans 14:8) ‘If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.’