You Are Loved

Oneya, an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.

To those of the Church in the West, beloved in Christ before the foundations of the earth, created to share in the love and oneness of God with God. Grace to you through Christ’s sacrifice and peace from your life within it.

Although you have both grace and peace abundantly from God, you are not now experiencing them. I write to you with a godly sorrow, both for your injuries and the gaping wounds you have opened in others. You wonder why you have fallen, your sanctuaries turned into breweries, your children far from the faith. Today, thousands of churches close each year, and each generation is less religious than the ones that preceded it. But the prologue to this climax was written long ago; it is the inevitable outcome of your past actions. You have built according to a blueprint that wasn’t God’s, and the crookedness of your edifice has become evident to everyone (except perhaps you).

For generations, you have raped, murdered, enslaved, and exploited one another in trying to prove something that cannot be proven, but only provided: God’s love for you. What’s more, you have done these things in the name of God, the sound of taking God’s name in vain more infuriating than nails on a chalkboard. You justified any means necessary to have more members on your rolls, more land in your names, and more money in your accounts, as though these, and not the death and resurrection of the God/man, proved you live under God’s favor. Your actions are deeply rooted in insecurity–a soil so different from the love of God you were meant to be nurtured by. Fertilized by insecurity, you grew poisonous fruit. Instead of nourishing the world, your produce has murdered your brothers and sisters through contempt, neglect, and abuse.

You may not look very insecure to others, but what else is it that makes you pile up guns in “self-protection,” end free school lunches in a wealthy nation, or demean immigrants by defamation? Only by having your siblings subdued, do you think you can stand in the sun?

Who told you that your brother’s thriving was contrary to your own?

Remember Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-25). They were brothers, both by blood and by virtue of belonging to God. Although they were equal in their status, one knew he was loved (Abel) while the other was convinced he was despised (Cain). So, while Abel gave to God from a place of gratitude, bringing the finest of his flock, Cain did so in striving to be accepted. As Cain learned, those who refuse God’s gift of acceptance cannot earn it through their own efforts. Even when his first offering was rejected, God did not condemn Cain, he simply encouraged Cain to do right. Instead of heeding God’s prompting, Cain cornered and killed his brother. And why? Cain’s insecurity with God led him to turn on his brother. He used human means to position himself above his brother through murder, domination filling the place of the acceptance Cain refused to receive. And yet, despite his wicked act, Cain was still loved by God, and provided a place of refuge, even in punishment.

Even in our heinous disobedience, God’s grace can have the final word.

Siblings, you who have the testimony of the cross and the assurance of the Holy Spirit are following in the footsteps of Cain. Thinking you needed to change your offering, rather than your hearts, you bring to the altar the blood of your brothers and sisters, as though it would be sanctifying. You have repeated Cain’s corruption of domination again and again! And in doing so, you find yourselves further from the God you claim to seek.

I write to you with a godly sorrow, both for your injuries and the gaping wounds you have opened in others. You’ve have built according to a blueprint that wasn’t God’s, and the crookedness of your edifice has become evident to all. Share on X

And how have you done this? In many ways, great and small across every generation:

1. You have attempted to dominate through sexism, excluding women from the places God has assigned them. Although our Lord Jesus himself anointed a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be apostle to the apostles (John 20:17-18), the men co-entrusted with the gospel of the Kingdom of God have limited women’s role in it. You told your sisters, women empowered by the Holy Spirit, that they must be silent and subservient. You did so to please the culture around you, or to claim a special position reflecting Christ. Instead, you have misrepresented our Christ, perverted God’s plan for all of humanity, and slowed the spread of salvation. Until today, you spout nonsense about the nature of men and women that obscures our common humanity–one faith, one baptism, one Spirit. You only get to be the alpha if you’re also the omega. This is a spot reserved for God alone.

2. You have attempted to dominate through political power, bowing the knee to those who enhance your standing in palaces or parliaments. For centuries after Christ ascended, you worked and prayed as outsiders, seeking the city that God was preparing for you. You modeled love and charity by taking care of the poor and sharing all you had. Facing down death as martyrs, your blood watered the mustard seeds of the Kingdom that were sprouting everywhere. But your sacrifices came to naught as you received what belonged to Caesar, or to be specific, Constantine. In its official acceptance, Christianity, instead of Kingdom, spread. No longer a movement to follow Christ from the margins, faith became about power over. Why win people with love when you can use armies? God called the Roman empire Babylon; you call it the height of civilization. You celebrated the victory of “acceptance” while God wept at the atrocities done in their name.

3. You have attempted to dominate through racism, creating a global color-line. Through the Doctrine of Discovery, claiming superiority and ownership, you took authority over lives and lands that belonged to God alone. In doing so, you perpetuated the lie that some bear the Image of God above others, a lie that animates society today. Indigenous peoples, who may not have known God by name, knew from practice God’s command to take care of the earth. Every righteous thing that they did was reviled by you. You erased their knowledge, their languages, and their lives to build a “city on a hill.” You recognized that enslaving others was wrong, yet you justified your actions by the necessity to cultivate a land blessed by God. The DNA passed down from those enslaved reveals your legacy of cruelty, with European men raping African women to beget sons and daughters that their fathers didn’t claim, and their mothers couldn’t protect.

For all your sowing, you’ve reaped a curse instead of a blessing, because everything you build on is corrupt. Then you multiplied the evil of enslavement by creating the myth of races to keep what you’ve stolen. It’s easy to be ahead of the bell curve when you wrote the test. Your theft of lands and peoples has never been repented because with repentance comes restoration and repair. You instead justify your unjust gains by denying the heinous past of racial domination, ignoring present racial inequality, and teaching your children to do the same.

4. You have attempted to dominate through economic success, exploiting workers. So much so, that social science pointed to a ‘Protestant work ethic.’ Unprecedented investment in business, while ignoring the poor, because economic success somehow proves the blessings of God? (My heart beats with fierce anger as I write these words). As James wrote, “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty” (James 5:4). Most approve this theft, preferring low, low prices and 2-day delivery to worker rights. Instead of joining the cry of the laborers, you’ve lauded robber barons and tech moguls alike. The names on your buildings testify to your true objects of worship. A fair wage, to each according to their work and need, would be proof of God’s blessing, not the success of a few at the expense of the many.

5. You have attempted to dominate through religious empires, the desire for buildings and budgets turning charismatic leaders into celebrity pastors. Your megachurches pump in fog, to distract from the lack of God’s weighty presence. When God’s presence filled the temple, the priests were unable to do their work, but your so-called pastors never stop speaking long enough for God’s voice to be heard. The Lord warned against hypocrites, those actors, but you cannot resist putting on a show. Filling sanctuaries week after week to comfort the comforted and confront those without, you are more intent on the results of your marketing studies than the words of Scripture. Your task was to create disciples, but few among your flock know, much less follow God. Instead of instructing faithful followers who can teach others also, your people repeat the lies of politicians, giving them precedence over the truth of God.

Aren’t you tired of attempting to dominate?

You try to gain strength, but show your weakness. You try to create exclusivity, and show you don’t know all are included. You try to gain wealth, but inherit the greatest sort of soul poverty.

And no one is exempt from God’s anger concerning these things. Including me! Even those of us who reject these evils live in complicity with them daily. We are too silent relative to the heights of our offenses against God. We numb ourselves with natural things, underestimating the supernatural power of God to break these systems of domination.

Yet there is another way. And it starts with this confession:

We are beloved children, born of the Spirit.

I said,

WE ARE BELOVED CHILDREN,                                                                                                                                           BORN OF THE SPIRIT!

How would believing this simple confession change the way we treat our siblings? Change the impulse toward domination?

Why win people with love when you can use armies? God called the Roman empire Babylon; you call it the height of civilization. You celebrated the victory of 'acceptance' while God wept at the atrocities done in their name. Share on X

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Consider Christ. Born to a humble family, raised a refugee, trained a tradesperson, he would not have made any 30 under 30 lists. He lived as fully man and was tempted in all the ways that we are. Yet desiring titles, wealth, and reputation didn’t cause him to sin. He didn’t need to prove he was worthy of love. Neither did he need to build his own security through worldly wealth. There was not enough for him to envy in any human possessions that he would step on others to get them.

Christ was secure because, on the day of his baptism, he received the only two things he needed. Recall, “As he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:21-22). From that day forward, the Lord Jesus lived out of the love of the Father and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Beloved and filled, Christ taught disciples, rebuked religious leaders, performed miracles, and faced down the cross. The true Son of God, he didn’t strike out against Barabbas in jealousy. Jesus sacrificed himself instead of his siblings.

Christ remains our example. And we also have the love of God and gift of the Spirit that make it is possible to follow his example. The life that Christ lived–without the need to elevate ourselves above others–is fully available to us. If we believe that we are loved, we can stop striving for the trophies that make us feel that way. We can turn our attention away from ourselves and toward God and others.

We’ve already received a deposit and foretaste of this kind of life. Friends, do you remember when you first received Holy Spirit? In that moment, you were overwhelmed by the freedom of childlikeness. You didn’t need to figure anything out; you knew everything you needed to know. You didn’t have to hold on to what you owned; nothing mattered but that you belonged to God. You didn’t have to try to earn love; you were swimming in it.

In that moment, it would have felt nonsensical to rule over, to dominate, to prove. What you received didn’t come from you, but it was more precious than anything you ever had. Your only impulse was to share every good thing you freely received with others.

Siblings, I invite you back into that place. Let the Lord breathe on you again. Receive Holy Spirit. Live lives animated by the Spirit.

• When we receive the Spirit, we recognize the Spirit in women and don’t grieve Holy Spirit by silencing them.

• When we receive the Spirit, we reject any power that doesn’t come from God, because what we have within us is stronger than any government.

• When we receive the Sprit, there are no longer in-groups or out-groups. We belong to one another and have equal concern for others as we do for ourselves.

• When we receive the Spirit, we open our hands, letting go of what we “own” to give and receive until everyone has what they need.

• When we receive the Spirit, every place is a sanctuary, and character, not charisma, is grounds for leadership.

• When we receive the Spirit, we also receive ourselves as we are, created good, and with no need for other trappings of success to prove we are accepted by God.

This is why God sent the Spirit repeatedly as the Church was inaugurated.

In God’s full presence, national, ethnic, gender, and class divisions broke time and again. There wasn’t perfection, but there was true repentance and growth toward doing what was right. This was not an internal impulse. It was lived out so others could see Christ followers’ lack of attachment to possessions, titles, and occupations–and stand amazed! Because the Spirit remains available to us, this sort of life remains available to us.

I began by saying you are Beloved–and you are! No one can take that from you. Meditate on that love. Share that love with others. Live out of that love.

When you do so, you will reject every impulse to earn acceptance by dominating others. You will reject the ideas of economists that there are finite resources to go around and that you have to get yours. How could the pie be finite? As long as God is still speaking, the universe is still expanding. There will always be more than enough.

Speaking of pie, I hope to have some with you soon. Dele says hi.

~ Oneya

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*Editorial Note: Letters to the Church is Missio Alliance’s newest long-form series. The latest letter to our growing collection will go live each Friday throughout the rest of 2025. We invite you to prayerfully listen to the Spirit as you read, asking God what you might say to the Church in your own voice. ~CK

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what God is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 2:29)

Friends, do you remember when you first received Holy Spirit? In that moment, you were overwhelmed by the freedom of childlikeness. I invite you back into that place. Let the Lord breathe on you again. Receive Holy Spirit. Share on X