The viral vicar of Instagram’s life message is this: Know you are Beloved

Rev Chris Lee’s new book Know You Are Beloved offers a heartfelt exploration of God’s transformative love and its impact on our identity and way of life. Drawing on the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Lee presents a call to discipleship rooted in the assurance of being deeply loved by our creator

“The first, most important thing about who we are is that we are loved.”

This claim, made on the first few pages of Rev Chris Lee’s brief book, Know You Are Beloved (Tyndale Momentum) sums up almost its entire thesis. We all need to know we are loved.

Although knowing we are loved by our family and friends, is vitally important for our wellbeing, is not as transformative as knowing the love of our creator God. This is the real thesis of this book, which Lee begins to build as the book progresses. You are loved by the one who made you, who knows absolutely everything about you. Knowing, grasping and experiencing this love is utterly transformative. It changes everything about you and the way you experience the world. It changes the way you live in the world. 

This is because, Lee argues: “God is the only true source of understanding our identity”. Whatever others say about us – good or bad – and whatever our achievements may be, we all have a deep hunger and need to know how God sees us (even if we don’t acknowledge his existence). Whether we realise it or not, our sense of value is rooted in the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. 

Lee has risen to prominence on Instagram in recent years, and now has 166,000 followers who regularly consume his 60 second video sermons. He states that he had…