Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Colossians 3:12 (emphasis mine)
What does it mean to be God’s beloved? It means you are dear to His heart. It defines your true self, your identity in God’s eyes. That rebel? Gone. The Prodigal? No more. In Christ, you are pure, whole, loved, and His precious treasure. No matter what your social standing, your family background, whether you are black or white, rich or poor, beautiful or scarred, He chose you before the world was created to be His beloved possession, His precious treasure. His love pursues you and me to the deepest depths, to the greatest heights, to the farthest reaches of this world.
Yet this love should be more than a comforting thought. It should be transformational. Knowing how much He loves me ought to impact the way I think – about myself and about others, the way I feel – how God sees me above the way I see myself, and the way I act – towards myself and towards others.
“As long as ‘being the Beloved’ is little more than a beautiful thought or a lofty idea that hangs above my life to keep me from becoming depressed, nothing really changes. What is required is to become the Beloved in the commonplaces of my daily existence, and bit by bit to close the gap that exists between what I know myself to be and the countless realities of everyday life. Becoming the Beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am thinking of, talking about, and doing from hour to hour.” 1
You are not just another face in the crowd; you are His Beloved. Know it. Believe it. Claim it. Live it.
1 Henri J. M. Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living