A

I am a Beloved Son of God.  God loves me.

You, too, are a Beloved Child of God. Everyone is. God loves you.  God loves us all.  Me.  You.  Even that guy.

This is reflected in Jesus.  Jesus died for me.  He died for you.  He died for us all.  For everyone.  God, loves us all.  Me.  You.  Even that guy.

B

I, too often, nearly constantly, honestly, forget all or a large part of what I just said or neglect it.

Sometimes I forget how much God loves me, for example.  Or how much God loves you.

Or I neglect that God loves everyone, the person with which I am interacting, or the person about which I am thinking, and do not honor the fact God loves him or her and everyone.

I forget or neglect God’s love for me and others in lots of ways.

C

The devotion I read this morning suggests that if I live always — even when suffering and even when seeing others suffer — while remembering and honoring that I and others are loved by God, that I and others are Beloved Children of God, then doing so will lead me deeper into the heart of God. (Nouwen, You Are the Beloved.)

I take this to mean that if I constantly remember and honor that I and others are loved by God that doing so will move me closer to unity with God. 

I understand it to mean that if I constantly remember and honor that I and others are loved by God that doing so will

give me better and deeper understanding of God

lead me away from despair

enable me to live life to the fullest

help me give life to and lift up others

give me a better understanding of scripture

help me to better understand and fulfill what Christ asks of me, and

help me to love others the way God intends.

I pray that I can remember and honor always that I am a Beloved Son of God and that you and everyone are Beloved Children of God.

Amen.

 

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Sources & Notes

Henri J.M. Nouwen, You are the Beloved, New York:  Convergent (2017).

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”  (John 13:34).

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)

“For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

Added:

This suggests even more that it is the ground that is cursed, for example, and not me and not anyone else living today.  This suggests that that Adam or Eve did or did not do something resulted in their Fall, which impacts me, but what they did or did not do does not make me cursed and does not make me less loved by God, and it does not make anyone else cursed and does not make anyone else less loved by God.  Curses don’t travel through the generations.  It suggests that “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children” (Gen. 3:16) is properly read with emphasis on “your” and “very” — i.e., it is Eve herself that has her pain multiplied, not that she and all women were to be free from labor pains before the Fall, but that hers were multiplied.  And not that all women, forever would have them multiplied and have them be very severe.  (harbah, arbeh, etc.)  In other words, it is not a curse on women today.  This is borne out in part in that some women today do not have “very severe” pains or “greatly” multiplied pains, for example.  When focusing on that God loves me (and you and everyone) and that I am a Beloved Child of God (as are you and as is everyone) an understanding of scripture passages that can be taken more than one way can emerge.  I suspect there are many more passages to which this concept applies.       

(Picture by Fotomaercu at Pixabay.)