You ARE Beloved!

We throw around the word "love" a lot in our human history, and being loved and learning how to return love seems to be a profound hunger in us all. There's a hint here for you IF you pay attention.

I love the word “Beloved.” It’s the kind of word that bears an “antique” feel of sophistication and dignity, as well as expressing a sense of connection and intimacy that keeps it from being “stuffy” or “arrogant.” To be considered “beloved” by someone else is the heart’s cry of most humans! I want to be “beloved” and to have a “beloved.”

I bet you do, too.

But why? Why do we long for this? Why is it so common for us to want to love and be loved that whole genres of literature are dedicated to this?

I’m convinced it is because we are created in God’s image, and He reveals to us that He IS Love through our dear Apostle, St. John the Beloved!

Look at our Gospel Lesson today in 1 John 3:21-24; 4:1-11:

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

St. John calls his spiritual children “beloved” three times in this passage, and each time, he unveils three powerful insights into what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to be “beloved.”

First, John’s “beloved” believes in the “name of Jesus Christ.” What does that signify?

Well, Jesus means “savior,” and Christ means “anointed one,” so to believe in the name of Jesus Christ is to believe and fully embrace the Son of God as your needed Savior and the One Whom the Father promised our Mother Eve would come and crush the head of that old “serpent!” The “beloved” place at the top of their priorities, knowing Jesus, Who is Love, Himself.

Next, John’s “beloved” can tell the difference between truth and error.

Of course, that implies that these “beloved” have become so intimate with truth (by the way, truth is a Person) that the counterfeit of truth always stands out like a sore thumb! And this ability to discern flows from the consistent love these “beloved” have for Jesus Christ. This intimacy means that those who are “beloved” can always overcome the tug of this world towards the “spirit of error.” The “beloved” are so focused on their relationship with Jesus that they develop a keen discernment when something or someone is not like Jesus. This discernment flows from their intimacy with God.

Finally, John’s “beloved” proves they are “beloved” by focusing on God’s love.

These followers of Jesus understand that their ability to love one another flows from their paramount choice to love God first and remember that He also loved them first. Since God loved His world so much that He sent His only begotten Son to destroy death by death, we, if we believe this, have only one authentic reaction: we love one another like God has loved us! And this decision to refuse to identify anything as “love” that doesn’t reflect God’s love means we are free from the temptation of shallow sentimentality. This robust insistence that “love” always loves as God loves means I refuse to hurt people I say I love by pretending their self-=destructive actions can be ignored or excused because loving them means wanting for them what God wants for them: freedom from slavery of the passions so that they become by grace what Christ is by nature!

St. Philothea, the Righteous Martyr of Athens, is a saint who understood love from God’s perspective. She was born in Athens under the Ottoman yoke in 1522. She was a deeply pious woman married to a cruel man. He died after three years of marriage, and St. Philothea entered a monastery to live out her life dedicated to Christ. She was exceptionally kind and merciful, and many women who were enslaved and abused by the Muslim Turks fled to her monastery for refuge. She never refused to help, and this caused the Turkish rulers to be enraged. The rulers had St. Philothea dragged from her monastery and beaten. After her beating, she reposed a few days later, giving thanks to God for all things. She was 67 years old when the barbarians beat her to death and died in 1589.

Today, love is of God, and everyone who loves is clearly “born of God and knows God.” So, are you “born of God” and “know God?” We have every spiritual tool we need to wake up to God calling us His Beloved finally and to become genuinely “beloved.” And finally, embracing this ALREADY TRUE reality ( YOU are BELOVED!) gives you the strength to be a Normal Orthodox Christian.

P.S. The famed city of Athens honors Philothea, the righteous Martyr, whose relics it now reveres with joy; for while living in sobriety and holiness, she has exchanged all earthly things for the everlasting life through great contests as a Martyr; and she entreats the Savior to grant His mercy unto all of us.

Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV