Love Language

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

– 1 John 3:16

LOVE is a remarkable word. For example, we might say that we love our spouse, we love America, and we love pizza. They’re the same four letters, but the word’s meaning varies greatly depending on the context.

Now let’s consider something about love according to relationship expert and counselor Gary Chapman. He’s observed that husbands and wives demonstrate their love for each another in distinct ways. Some show it through words of affirmation or acts of service while others speak it through physical touch or quality time. And yet another so-called love language involves giving or receiving gifts.

God likewise communicates his love in several ways. For example, there’s the familiar Bible story of the Prodigal Son, where a loving father welcomes back his wayward — and totally undeserving — child with open arms. And then there’s the parable of the shepherd who searches tirelessly for a single missing sheep. When he finally finds it, he returns it triumphantly to the rest of the flock. These are just two illustrations of our Creator’s immense love for you and me.

Jesus meanwhile paints this sacrificial word-portrait of love, which the agrarian people of his day would have recognized immediately: 

“I am the good shepherd,” Christ tells us though the Gospel of John. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

The Savior also once told his disciples about a certain man who sold his possessions to buy a field. But not just any field — but one that held buried treasure. The purchase price was staggering, but the man did whatever it took to gain the prize. Likewise, God will go to any means to bring us into his kingdom. And he made that possible by entering the world in human form through Jesus, living a perfect life, and then personally paying the penalty for the sins of the world through an unjust execution on a Roman cross.

LOVE is a small word. But when it’s spoken through God’s love language, its power and potential are endless.