NCC Daily

Beloved community isn’t easy or fun all the time. There are, of course, moments of joy, but they come out of the hard stuff. They come out of stubbornly loyal relationships working towards the renewal of the world together. And the strength to continue can only come from a grounding in the gospel.

Rejoicing in our sufferings establishes a posture of recognition of God’s character. It says that in the midst of everything, in the midst of everything, not some things, in the midst of everything that I am going through, in the midst of the situations; I know that God is bigger, I know that God is greater, and I know that He cares for and loves me.

What resonates with us when we’re talking about the beloved is that His love is constantly drawing us into deeper places, removing the fear out of our lives to become our authentic selves. Let this song be a meditation for you as you read to the words and listen to how He is drawing you into deeper spaces.

How quickly beautiful words become so politicized. When we receive this blessing we are reminded to have righteous anger towards things we see in our society that robs the image of God in another person, in a precious neighbor.

One of our most basic requirements of our existence has been the social bonds that unites us to each other — not just in the physical, but also in love, faith, understanding, and acceptance.

Want to become a beloved community? Take your posture — physical, mental, and emotional posture — and turn it towards others. Discover what they need with one mind, one purpose, and cultivate the energy of connection.

We can’t say we love God if we hate our brother and sister—how can we love the one we cannot even physically see, touch, and feel if we cannot love the one who stands right in front of us and bears the image of God.

This song is based on the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5:3-11, where Jesus describes the kind of people through whom His kingdom comes and His beloved community is formed. Our Lenten practices, like prayer and fasting, help form us into these Kingdom people — people who live like Jesus. If you, like me, seek to grow in embodying the way of Jesus, let’s take a moment together, and while this song plays, receive Jesus’s vision for us and our community.

In Mark 10, Luke 18, and Matthew 20, we hear the story of a blind man whom Jesus miraculously heals by the side of the road. In all of these versions of the story, more or less the same thing happens. Jesus walks by, this blind man on the road cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then, as you probably know, Jesus stops, takes the time, and heals the man. Christians have turned some version of this blind man’s cry into a prayer, which has sometimes been called “The Jesus Prayer.”

Those behind bars and their families are in fact part of our beloved community. They are not a project of the local church, but in fact, are people made in God’s image who have much to offer to the body of Christ.