February 5, 2020

Kimberly Cutter had a strained relationship with her dad. Her parents divorced when she was six and from that point on she had to meet and adjust to an ever-changing stream of girlfriends, wives and fads as part of her relationship with him. There was even a season of years when they simply did not talk. But that was then. Now, her dad was older, sick, and dying and he had basically had it with being old, sick, and dying and told her that he was going to end it all. After all, it was his life.

Kim was on a mission to keep him from doing this (at least the way he had planned), but was not sure what she could do. Then it hit her. Her dad needed to feel loved, so Kim decided that she was going to send him an email every day telling him, "Reasons Why I Love You." And she did. For the next 100 days she emailed him reason after reason after reason why she loved him, and while this had a noticeable impact upon him, Kim was surprised to find out how much of an impact that doing this had on her.

That is one of the incredible aspects about love. We not only have a fundamental need to be loved, but we have a fundamental need to love. We miss out on what it really means to be made in the image of God when we chose not to receive love and refuse to give it. Have you ever considered how rich, how incredible it is that we are addressed in God's Word as "beloved"? The prefix "be" is the shortened form of the being verb "to be" which means to be in a state of. "Beloved" means that we are in a state of, in a condition of, being loved. That is your name because that is your condition. You are loved by God. And he did more than email you to tell you this. He sent Christ.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because 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 have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:7-12

Grace, peace, and love,

Bob