Day 3 of Tour Devos - God Is Love

This is a series of Devotions I wrote for our church’s high school choir tour. I hope they bless you!

God is Love

What do you see in this painting?

 What emotions are depicted in this painting?

This is my favorite painting. This painting is The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt, painted between 1660-1665.

I discovered this painting on the cover of a book of the same name by Henri Nouwen, who is probably one of the best humans to walk the face of the planet. (Sorry, I love the dude.) The book is all about Henri’s interactions with this painting and what God revealed to him about this story and God’s love.

We read this verse on the first day,

1 John 4:8 - Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

But what does that mean? What does it mean for God to be love? Is it like He is an emotion, an attitude, a frame of mind, or what? John, in his first letter, tells us what this means.

1 John 3:16-18 - 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

What does John say love is?

Wow!

God is love. God’s action is love. God’s self-sacrifice for our sins is the greatest act of love in the world.

God is love. His work in the world is an act of love. He exudes love. The best love there is in the world is…

John 15:13 - Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

You could say John is obsessed with love. He talks about it a lot. In his letters and the Gospel and in the book of Revelation, Love is a major theme. The reason?

God is obsessed with love.

I say that humbly, because I don’t think God gets obsessed over things in the same way humans do. But to be obsessed is to be completely absorbed in something. God is love because Love is from God, we love because God first loved us. Love is central to our existence and capacity to interact with God and have a relationship with him.

And oh! how great God loves!

Come up with a list of examples of God showing love to others. 

One of the first verses of the Bible I memorized in kids’ church was John 3:16.  

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Beautiful. But verse 17 is so good, too.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God is love. God loves you. You are God’s beloved.  

We don’t use the word beloved enough. It’s starting to die in the English language, which is really sad. But don’t worry we have: rizz, sigma, skibidi, ohio, delulu, brain rot to replace beautiful words from the English language. (Old Person Zach rant: I worry about our future! Just kidding… but seriously.)

When Henri Nouwen, the guy who wrote a book about the painting, sat in front of Rembrandt’s art, he just couldn’t stop obsessing over the old man embracing his lost son. The man is bent over, arms extended, bringing the man on his knees closer to his chest. For Nouwen, it was this posture that encapsulated the nature of God.  

Henri Nouwen is God’s beloved.

You are God’s beloved.

You are in the loving embrace of a God who is fully, completely… love.

Who is God? Love

Who are you? Beloved

What’s the significance? EVERYTHING!

God loves you so much that He brought you back to him through His own work. The Father sent the Son to die for you and to give you life, and then, just because you accept Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in you. You are saved because of Jesus’ death, full stop and in the moment we accept Jesus through baptism, the Holy Spirit (God) lives in us. There is no special moment that happens afterward. It’s a humble, simple, and unspectacular moment with immense beauty. 

God loves you so much that He lives here with you. He is present with you. Some people like making the gift of the spirit into a theatrical experience. In reality, it is God simply being with you when you are raised to new life in baptism. In a very humble way, God being with us by dwelling with us is best described as Rembrandt’s painting. It’s God lovingly embracing us,  

Knowing who God is, is important because by knowing God, we learn who we truly are.

You

Are

God’s

Beloved.

Who needs to know that today?

Make a fun little piece of your own artwork that communicates the truth you learned today. Then send it to someone who needs it! Also send it to us, lccstumin@gmail.com