Dear Friends,
A major theme of the New Testament is the struggle to understand just how much it is that God loves humanity. It seems, in fact, that perhaps the central task of human life is to come to a full understanding of the love of God and that this is the ultimate solution to all of our problems.
Paul says in Ephesians 3:17-19, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (NIV). In other words, if we really understand how loved we are, we will be full of God - full of life and light - in every way.
John tries to explain just how loved we are in 1 John 3:1, saying, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (NIV). John goes on to explain that to embrace this identity as beloved children of God is to cross over from death into life. This is the original identity humanity was created for. (If you are a Bible reader and you doubt this, check out Luke 3:38, where humanity, or in Hebrew, adam, is called the child of God.) All of us were created as God’s beloved children. But we have forgotten who we are. As James says in 1 James:23-24, we are like people who look at ourselves in the mirror and immediately forget what we look like. When we don’t know what God is like, then we don’t recognize God’s face when we look at ourselves in the mirror. And having failed to recognize God’s face in the mirror, we fail to recognize God’s face on each other. And so we are able to hate or to be indifferent toward one another. When we truly know Love, we will look in the mirror and see both the image of the original lover and the reflection of the child beloved. Seeing ourselves rightly, we will look around us and see the same beautiful face everywhere around us. And we will love God’s children as God loves them.
Take a moment now, if you will, and look at your face in the mirror. What you are seeing is the self-portrait of God, the child God created in order that God might have a little person like God to love, just as we too have children in order to lavish our love upon them. Ask the Spirit of Jesus to allow you to see yourself as you truly are, as God’s own beloved child. Wait for the Spirit to show you the face of God in the mirror and to speak the love of God over you. You are loved beyond measure, the greatest treasure of the God who created the universe. Let this sink into your soul. As you finally look away, make sure not to forget what you look like, so that you can see the beautiful face of God on all God’s other beloved children.
Love in Christ,
Michelle
