Words, Words, Words

By DiAne Gates –

Words surround us. Heaped in our ears and piled in stacks under our feet. From hands-free devices, to flat screens TVs. Phones. And books. Zillions of them. A constant barrage of words. All day, every day, and into the night.

But who listens? Does anyone really hear? Anything?

If you’re a parent, you’ve asked these questions concerning your children, your spouse, and probably your friends. So why waste the time and energy to speak?

Because the Lord Jesus Christ gave us the ability to speak and the command to go and tell.

“So Lord, what are we supposed to tell them? And how are we supposed to say it?”
Jesus instructed, “Go and make disciples.”

Preachers go to seminary to learn apologetics—how to present God’s Word to their congregations. I don’t have all those degrees. I’m just a normal person. I don’t know what to say.

How did those first century Christians make disciples? They didn’t have the written word. Yet their numbers multiplied. All they had to share were their experiences. The joy and peace of knowing Jesus after centuries of enduring a bloody altar that didn’t fix sin. The joy of suffering persecution on account of His name, and finally, death in the arena. And the account of their lives and deaths are still an incredible model for us in this twenty-first century.

Perhaps that’s the problem. We have the words but lack the experiences. Maybe, but I think we have the words and different experiences. I think pride and churchiness are the problems that prevent us from sharing our heart.

Fear and pride are the boogers-in-the-woodwork. Fear of what others would think if they really knew what we had done, what had been done to us, or what we really think in the dark recesses of our minds.

So we retreat behind the walls of the church and become clones of one another. Using fancy words. Words without power. Words that do not affect or change the life of another, much less our own.

The cure comes when we recognize the depth of our deception, acknowledge our need for repentance, then share with others how God transformed our life. Sounds easy doesn’t it? It’s not. Being transparent can be painful.

I’m here to use my words today to share a troublesome affliction with you. Not with flowery words that loose us in their trail of sweet sounding emptiness. Just the sorrow of my heart and the love of my Savior.

This Christmas Season has been the most difficult one of my life. Family issues, changing relationships, grief, and coming uncertainties for America, brought about a spiritual battle in me that loomed larger with each passing day. ‘Til I admitted and confessed that terrible word—depression—and fell on my face, crying to my Lord Jesus for help. He answered the groaning of my heart immediately. I’m His child. He picked me up, wrapped me in His comfort and refocused my eyes and heart on His love for me.
The formula is simple but always sure:

My plight + His love and power = His mercy, grace and healing = forgiveness and restoration.

No sin is beyond His ability to forgive. How long has it been since your words have been honest with God? How long has it been since He rescued you? How long has it been since you’ve used your words to tell someone else what God has done for you?

I Love You, Daddy

By Marcus Smith –

“I love you, Daddy.”

Four whispered words followed by two slender arms and one too-tight squeeze. As a father of three daughters, I have heard many an “I love you,” and can never hear those words enough. Whether at night time tuck-in or after receiving a yes, children are quick to let their parents know that they love them. But when my daughter slipped up to me without warning and circled me in her young arms, it was the first time she had expressed love for me, with an adult’s mind, for no special reason.

Like all my girls, she is the definition of precociousness. She can quote me as if Bartlett had devoted a chapter to me in one of his famous Quotations books, and God help me if I am inconsistent in word or action.

A keen observer, she is a skillful pundit whose humor illuminates the issues and foibles she sees around her. And I am poignantly aware that she has seen all that would be required for anyone to judge me—imperfect.

Yet she chose. She chose to love me.

God blessed me with a family of girls and their love moves me to a humble thankfulness that I can experience the kind of absolute love that they give me. Their chosen love makes my joy complete. My girls are among the most precious of my life’s reward.

“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).

When I think about God and His love, I think first of the cross.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

However, God does more than loving His creation. God is love. From the first moment of creation, until the final curtain of this age, God is the ultimate creator and thus source of all love.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Growing up, I learned that because God is self-sufficient He does not need anything, including our love. As a child it seemed strange to me that we loved a God who did not need to love us back. So I questioned whether God could actually love me personally like my parents could. After all, if God did not need me, how could He love me?

In Acts, Paul debated with philosophers who believed that God needed the world. Paul argued that God created the world and is, “not served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25). For Paul, since God is the source of all creation, He cannot have unmet needs. So why did God create humans He did not need and who would cause Him grief with their sin?

The Bible teaches us that God did not create the world because He had to. Rather, out of His infinite love, He chose to create and love His creation. As I take joy from my children’s love for me, God experiences our love when we chose to love him through praise and worship, and He feels joy (Ps. 44:3 Prov. 15:8).

God desires worship, not because He needs our love, but because, like a parent, He wants our love.

I could have not had children, but then I would miss both the joy of experiencing their love, and the joy of loving them. As my daughter chose to love me, so we must chose to love the God who created us.

True love is chosen love.

What Love Isn’t

By Lori Freeland –

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (I Corinthians 13: 4-8).

I’ve read I Corinthians 13 a hundred times, trying to digest and mirror the model of perfect love. I used this verse in my wedding. I used this verse in my grandmother’s eulogy. I used this verse when I became a mother.

But in striving for an understanding of what love is I’ve never twisted the words to think about what love isn’t.

Thinking about what love isn’t offers me a fresh way to view how I treat the important people in my life. Or how I should be treating my spouse, my kids, my family, and my friends. Thinking about what love isn’t helps me to see where I need to make changes in my relationships and in the way I show others I care about them.

Love isn’t rushed.

Time is a commodity of which I own very little. Most days, giving up my minutes and hours can be a greater sacrifice than writing a check. I’m guilty of giving a gift card in place of a homemade meal when a care calendar rolls around. I’ve been known to pick up a Kroger rotisserie chicken and steak potatoes after one of my friends has a new baby. But, I can’t remember the last time I’ve spent the afternoon preparing a homemade meal to bring to someone. Time shouts love so much louder than money. Time is precious. Time hurts to give. Love takes time.

Love isn’t cruel.

Why would I hurt someone I love? But I do. More often than I’d like. Isn’t love supposed to be about putting the other person first? Taking their needs into account above my own? So why do I let those harsh, destructive words fly from my mouth uncensored? Why do I put selfish desires over the ones I care about the most? Why do I forget that it takes ten good words to replace an ugly one? Love takes patience.

Love isn’t keeping score.

What have you done for me lately? I’m guilty of this in attitude, if not in words. Like a scoreboard, if I do something nice for my husband, somewhere in the back of my mind, I expect him to do something nice back. Real love gives to give. No expectations. Love rips down the scoreboard. Love doesn’t keep a tally.

Love isn’t hopeless.

Some days my emotions jump all over the place. I take what people say, or don’t say, out of perspective and I don’t feel loved. How many times have I been the cause of that feeling of worthlessness in another person? How many times have I brushed off a moment to bring hope and encouragement to those I care about? How many times have I missed the signs of need in those around me and made them feel unloved? Love brings hope.

Loving those around us is hard. Even when the bonds and the feelings run deep in relationships we’ve cultivated. We’re human. With all the shortcomings that brings. Thank goodness we have the model of ultimate love in Jesus to rely on when we can’t be what others need us to be on our own.

For The Love of God

By Kathi Woodall –

Agapeland—many of us in our 30’s or 40’s grew up singing fun songs about a magical place whose name meant “Land of Love.” We all knew agape (pronounced a-gă-pē) love was God’s kind of love.

I’m not a kid anymore; I’m thirty-… Let’s just say I’m in that age range I mentioned earlier. Is there a grown-up story behind the magic of Agapeland?

Agape-love involves reverence, obedience, appreciation, pleasure, unwillingness to abandon, and desire. The Bible teaches about four agape-love relationships; God loves Christ and us, Christ loves us, and we can love each other.

God’s agape-love climaxes in one key passage. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10 NIV). This intense passage both defines love and is the evidence of God’s love.

God created the physical world—waterfalls, giraffes, and lilacs. He also created the conceptual world—hope, sorrow, and love. Since God created love, He also defined love. Chocolate candies and heart-shaped boxes don’t define love. Jesus’ death—His atoning sacrifice—defines love.

Friend, our sin made us the recipients of God’s wrath. God had to separate us from Himself forever. However, Jesus came as the atoning sacrifice. In so doing, Jesus turned aside God’s wrath and allowed it to pour on Him. Imagine God’s wrath—piercing as nails and burning as fire—as it poured down on each of us. Before it scalded us, however, Jesus reached out and deflected the molten stream. His nail-pierced hands turned aside the wrath of the Father so it fell on Him and not us. He said, “This is love: not that our children love us but that we love them. This is love: the wrath our children deserve will fall on me and not on them.” That’s the real definition of love.

Jesus’ death and resurrection is also the evidence of God’s love. Returning to 1 John 4:9, God evidenced His love in the ultimate way; He sent His Son to die, “that we might live through him.” He gives us eternal life on account of the Son. Our life is the evidence of His love for us.

Agape-love should also describe believers’ relationships. In and of ourselves, we are incapable of agape-love. Throughout the gospels, only God refers to Jesus as agapetos, or beloved. For example, God said at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17 KJV). The remainder of the New Testament never used it in this context again. The usage of the phrase shifted after the Holy Spirit indwelt believers. Agapetos appears 53 more times; every use is between fellow believers.

John encouraged believers to agape-love each other. We are able to because of Jesus’ sacrificial example. John wrote a few verses earlier, we, “love one another for love comes from God; everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 NIV). Love extended to us; we extend it to others.

God’s ways are so contrary to the ways of the world! To try to fit Him into our definitions twists and warps the whole process. He is the definition of love. He is the evidence of love. He is love. When we truly know God and His feelings for each of us, then that same love naturally pours out to others. Since He loves us in this way, no reason exists as to why we should not be displaying that same love for others. Those who are loved—let us love.

Love Letters

By Jennifer Slattery –

One day, while cleaning out our closet, I found a shoebox tucked behind a bunch of clutter. Curiosity bid me, and I pulled it down and sifted through the items. It contained rusted railroad nails, an antique pocket watch attached to a chain, old baseball game stubs, and numerous other creased, rusted, or slightly tarnished items. My heart was touched to see the softer side of my husband displayed in the saving of each item.

I’m certain every stub and nail told a story, perhaps of the first baseball game he attended or the watch given to him by his grandfather who has since passed. But what touched me most were the numerous slips of paper and cards I found buried beneath it all, my young, immature writing scrawled across them.

I had to giggle at my immaturity. “I love you,” heart, heart, dot the exclamation point with a large heart. Those letters had touched my husband deeply, so much so that he had saved them all these years.

I paused, remembering the first love letter he wrote me. He’s not much of a talker, and even less of a writer. He’s notorious for the one word email. Or, the blank email, with everything I need to know written in the subject heading.

But on this day, he was Casanova with a pen. It was our first marriage retreat hosted at a nearby hotel. We went with scarred, yet healing hearts, and a bit of baggage. One of the first assignments we were given was to write a love letter to our spouses.

My husband and I found a quiet corner in a far back hotel hallway and set to writing what was in our hearts. We wouldn’t write about what was bothering us. It wasn’t time to resolve past hurts. It was time to love, and to tell each other what we cherished most about one another and our marriage.

Honestly, I was expecting a two, maybe three sentence letter: “I love you. I’m glad I married you. Love Steve.”

From the corner of my eye, I watched my husband hunched over his paper, pen in hand. He wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I write fast, so I finished first and set mine aside.

He continued to write. If only I had saved that first letter. I have no idea where it went, but it touched me so deeply, tears poured from my eyes as I read it.

Never underestimate the power of a written “I love you.” It has the power to heal, to soothe, to defuse, and to unite.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1 NIV).

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the day to day, we forget to tell our spouses how much we love them. Often, we forget to think about our love for them. If you dwell on the negative, you’ll find it every time. But, if you seek out the lovely, good and pure, you’ll find it’s been there all along.

This Valentine’s day, I encourage you to write your letter a spouse telling them what you appreciate about them and what you love about your marriage. Perhaps, in the letter, reminisce about a romantic moment shared between the two of you. And most of all, cherish your spouse, focusing on their good qualities—those things that drew you to them—not things you wish they’d change.

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