The Beloved: the living, loving God

I stood inside St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice just a few months ago. The image of this gold encompassed house of worship is still fresh in my mind. It’s powerful. To behold something of this magnitude leaves you in awe. And yet, the love that our God gives, the love that our God is, is so much more beautiful than even this.

For many, the image people have of the church is often more like that of St. Mark’s or another ornate cathedral, a place where one goes to experience the beauty of the past. Centuries-old art and architecture attract thousands, if not millions of people from all over the world, yet on a normal Sunday morning, many churches remain empty. 

Many people may come to visit these churches because they are expecting to encounter beauty, but few come because they are expecting to encounter the living, loving God. What a shame that is, because he is always there. He is always with us. He has, is, and always will be the living, loving God. This art is only a depiction of the beauty that is the love of God for us, the beauty of his character, the beauty of his creation. This is only a glimpse. 

The amazing thing is, we, as followers of Jesus, get to bear this same beauty as we obey the command to love one another. 1 John 4:11-12 says, “Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” That’s powerful stuff. 

God is love. God sent his Son, Jesus, to this earth to live a perfect life on our behalf and die the death that we deserved out of that love. God then gives us that love and commands us to share it with others. As God lives in us, as we love others, God’s own love is brought to full expression in us. It’s not just an image or a cathedral clothed in beauty- though these are amazing works of art and worship- it’s God’s love being fully expressed through the actions of me and of you. 

And as we grow in our relationship with God, as he becomes more and more a part of our lives, our love grows as well. It becomes more perfect (1 John 4:17). We love each other because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Our love comes from him, so as we walk with Jesus, that love becomes more and more pure, more and more perfect. I just think that’s amazing.

We worship a God who is love and who asks of us that we share that love with others, that we embody that love. What a beautiful sight it is to behold people loving their neighbors, and even their enemies, with the love that has existed in God since the very beginning. 

Please connect with us if you’d like to learn more about our God who is love or about loving the people around you.