Love is messy. Love is hard work. Love isn’t always popular or always feeling like the first kiss, first child or favorite movie or meal. Just ask Jesus.
“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).
Jesus left the perfect heaven—no abuse, no broken promises, no cancer, no divisiveness—for this messy world. He lived here for 33 years and then died—too young, too cruelly, too unjustly—as a “sacrifice for our sins.”
That’s love. Selfless. Choosing the messy because of mercy. Jesus chose you. Now, you “live through him.”
Anger is replaced with gentleness. Anxiousness is replaced with courage. Consumerism is replaced with generosity. Despair is replaced with hope. Resentment is replaced with forgiveness. Death is replaced with life.
Love changes things. Love changes how you communicate. A Christian counselor named Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. He proposes that each of us speaks primarily one of five different languages when it comes to love. They are: Words of affirmation. Quality time. Gift giving. Acts of service. Physical touch.
When I’m working in the yard, I just love it when my wife Cara pulls up a chair, sits down, and, well, just sits there. We don’t need to talk. We don’t need to touch. If she’s just hanging out, with me, in the moment, I feel loved.
But I know that for her to feel loved, I need to empty the dishwasher and after I drive her car adjust her driver’s seat to its position for her. I speak the language of Quality Time. She speaks the language of Acts of Service.
If I come and sit down by her just to hang out when she’s cooking in the kitchen, I’m just in her way. I think it’s love, she thinks it’s a nuisance. I truly love her if I come into the kitchen and say, “I can peel those potatoes?” I truly love her if I speak her love language.
Go to 5lovelanguages.com, take the online quiz and learn more about your love language. Ask your family to do it too. Maybe even your coworkers, housemates or LifeGroup. It’s real and it helps.
But along with that, there’s a love language we all speak that empowers all the rest. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God loves you and forgives you. Jesus died and rose for you. You can’t do anything to make God love you any less. You can do everything Jesus wants you to do. That’s love.
PRAYER: Fill me with your love, God, so that I can pour out your love to others. Help me better understand love languages and use them for others. Amen.
FOR YOUR ACTION: Go to 5lovelanguages.com, take the online quiz and learn more about your love language. Ask your family to do it too. Maybe even your coworkers, housemates or LifeGroup. It’s real and it helps.
