Names of Jesus: Beloved Son of God
As the new year approached, I prayed over how to dive into our studies this year. I looked back at how we spent 2021 and where I see God leading this ministry. Last year we explored a different theme in scripture each month and it was an incredible year of studying God’s Word. This year I am so excited to see how God will grow each of us as we explore a different name of Jesus every week. This week it is only fitting that we begin with His identity as the Beloved Son of God.
For the next couple of months, we are going to explore Jesus’s identity as the Son of God before embarking on a journey through even more of Christ’s identity and character. Each week we will learn more about another of His names that will help us come to know Jesus deeper. My goal for 2022 is to get to know Jesus Christ on a deeper and more personal level, making sure He is the focus and cornerstone. In order to do this, we will begin by learning about Jesus as God’s Beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
Matthew 3:17 CSB
Importance of Jesus as the Beloved Son of God
As Jesus was getting baptized by John the Baptist, God declared His love for Jesus and the pleasure that Jesus brings Him. In getting baptized by John, Jesus was setting an example for all of us, and God declaring His love and pleasure for His Son shows us an example of how to also please God. We must follow the example of Jesus Christ in faith, and we therefore will please and glorify God.
Being a Christian means you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Being a follower of Jesus means you have faith in Him and His works and you live by His example. Faith in Jesus is based on the belief that He is in fact the Son of God and that God sent Jesus, His Beloved Son, to be the Savior of mankind and pay the debt for our sins.
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Hebrews 1:3-4 ESV
4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Faith in the Beloved Son of God
By Christ, through Christ, and for Christ, all things were made. He has dominion over all of creation and, being fully God and fully man, was sent to reconcile mankind to God through His sinless life, willing death, and divine resurrection. God is well pleased with Christ who poured out His life to reconcile mankind to God and bring God glory. Faith in God’s Beloved Son is the only way for mankind to be redeemed and enter a relationship with God. God wants a relationship with His creation, and our faith in Christ makes that possible because through our faith the blood of Jesus washes us clean.
16 For by[a] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Colossians 1:16-20 ESV
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Through faith in Christ, we are given the free gift of salvation that Jesus shed His blood on the cross to provide for us. Believing Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins saves us from the penalty of sin, enters us into God’s family, and gives us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then works in us, sanctifying us, transforming us to become more like Christ, and teaching us how to live a life that is pleasing to God.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
1 John 5:1-5 ESV
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Works of the Beloved Son of God
Jesus willingly died for us because the debt of sin that all mankind owes is a debt none of us can pay. God sent Jesus Christ to pay the debt on our behalf, knowing we could never pay it ourselves, and also knowing it is only by His grace we could be redeemed to Him. He made a Way where there was no other Way, and that Way is through His Beloved Son.
20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
1 John 5:20 ESV
God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die in our place so that we too may be sons and daughters of God, our Father in Heaven, and be in a personal relationship with Him through Christ our Savior. Through our relationship with God, we have access to Him and are given understanding so that we may come to know Him more and more, become more like Him, and eventually spend our eternity with Him.
16 For God loved the world in this way:[a] He gave[b] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16-17 CSB
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
If we love God, we will also love Jesus, God’s Beloved Son. If we have faith and believe in Jesus as the Son of God and sacrifice for our sins and repent we will be saved from the penalty of our sins. Through our faith in the Son of God, we enter into a personal relationship with the Father and become His children also, born of God. Everyone born of God can overcome the world by their faith in Jesus Christ because our faith is in Christ, who overcame the world.
As we learn and grow within our personal relationship with God through our true faith in Jesus Christ, we will be transformed, become more like Christ, grow in our understanding of the Lord and His Word, be equipped for the works which God has prepared for us to do, and be able to resist the temptations of this world through His power that now dwells in us.
Keep your eyes, mind, and heart centered on your Savior, and allow Him to fill you up and give you the strength to overcome this world and become more like Him every day. By this, we can learn how to please and glorify God through our faith in the Beloved Son of God, with whom God is well pleased.
Have you accepted the grace of God?
If you have not accepted the grace of God and chosen to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I encourage you to pray to God now and invite Him in, accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins, and repent of your sins. Submit it all to God, lay it at His feet, seek the forgiveness of God, welcome Him into your life, and believe that Jesus died and rose again to save you from your sins.
If you would like to learn more about salvation, you can find a couple of studies that may help here:
- Names of Jesus: Savior
- Don’t Neglect Your Salvation
- Prayer of Salvation
- What is grace and why do we need it?
- What does it mean to be justified by grace?
- Don’t Reject God’s Grace
- Don’t Reject Christ
- Godly Women – what it means to live a godly life
- Redeemed Women – what it means to be redeemed
- What is Biblical Love?
- What are Spiritual Gifts?
- How to live in Spirit and Truth
- How to test what is pleasing to God
- Names of Jesus as the Son of God
- Names of Jesus as the Son of Man
- Names of Jesus as the Truth
