Good and Beautiful and KindSample

The Greatest Task of Life

To abide in God’s love can sound ethereal or abstract, like something restricted for the spiritual elite. But it’s not at all. Abiding in love is for anyone who wants it. It does require something of most of us: a fundamental shift in our perspective. Many of us find it difficult to open ourselves to God’s love because the image we have of God is not compatible with such love. We perceive God as the Disappointed One, the Angry One, or the Indifferent One. It makes little sense to open ourselves up to any of those gods.

This is why the fundamental task of living in love and pouring it out to others is found in healing of our image of God—something Jesus came to do.

I have a challenge for you: First, release any image of God that is anything less than pure, self-giving, abundant love. Second, whether you understand it or not, abide in that love. Dwell in it. Live in it.

You see, my friend, in Jesus we discover the cruciform love of God. The self-giving love that stretches out to us, inviting us into His eternal embrace. His is the love that redeems us. His is the love that forms us to become the embodiment of wholeness for a world tragically fractured.

Opening ourselves to God’s love doesn’t just absolve us from guilt and shame. It is by that love that we are transformed into love. Abiding in His love is the greatest task of life.

In opening ourselves to God’s great love, we find the source of our wholeness—the kind of wholeness that mends our fragmented lives. To live from this place is the starting point for the transformation of our lives and the world.

My prayer for you is that every day you can grow in the depth, breadth, length, and height of this abiding love (see Ephesians 3:14-21). Because as we do so, imperfect though we may still be, we will find the life of Jesus. And amid this fracturing world, we will find ourselves—slowly, patiently—growing.

Growing good.

Growing beautiful.

Growing kind.

Spend some time in silence after asking God how He is calling you to love today.

We hope you have been encouraged by this reading plan. Click here to learn more about Good and Beautiful and Kind by Rich Villodas.