Love Language

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

— 1 John 4:8

Love is a remarkable English word with a broad scope of meanings and implications. We say that we love our spouse, love our church, and love pizza. What’s more, we’d love for our favorite football team to win the Super Bowl. On the other hand, Hebrew, and ancient Greek — the languages of the Bible — have several such words including agape (self-sacrificial love), hesed (lovingkindness), eros (romantic love), and phileo (fraternal or friendly love). And Genesis 22:2 uses the word ahab to convey the intensely close emotional bond between Abraham and his son Isaac.

While we might broadly consider love to be a thing, it’s also very much an action word … and our Creator is our example. The apostle John wrote that “we love Him because He first loved us.” And then there’s John 3:16, which summarizes God’s good news to mankind (the Gospel):

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

That IS good news — especially considering that we’re imperfect people who constantly break God’s perfect law through our thoughts, words, and deeds. Moreover, we can’t save ourselves from the punishment we rightfully deserve. Jesus, who was sinless, paid that exorbitant price for us by dying on a cross between two criminals. And then as the Old Testament had prophesied (predicted) centuries earlier, Christ defeated death and the power of sin by rising to life. His was the ultimate act of love.

The Bible describes our most-sincere loving deeds, words, and intentions as nothing more than filthy rags and rubbish. But God’s sacrificial love for us through Jesus still demands our response. For example, we can show our love for God by keeping his commands and doing his will. And it’s in Matthew’s gospel that Christ summarized the 10 Commandments for us into two laws:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind … And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Does this sound like an impossible standard? We know that King David, who was called a man after God's own heart, failed to live up to it. So, practically speaking, how should we demonstrate God-centered lives? If we’re looking for a role model, let’s look to Mary, Jesus’ mother. God recognized the young woman’s qualities of faithfulness, responsibility, and humility, and chose her to bring his only Son into the world. It was through Mary that Jesus would come to live a perfect life among sinful mankind … and all to live out the human experience through love. She responded to her eternity-altering assignment accordingly:

“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be according to your word.’”