How Do You Say "Love"?
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| Love Speaks Through Signs, Symbols, Circumstance, Secretly. |
You're number one.
You come first in my book.
You're second to none.
You're dearest to me.
You're the apple of my eye.
You mean the world to me.
You're tops.
...and the many other ways one can say “I love you” outside of those words.
There is nothing like hearing those three words and that real sentiment - “I love you”.
Yet, even when other words are used in messaging that same sentiment, is the message lost?
Is there a 'lost in translation' moment if other words are used in place of “I love you”?
Some people may say yes, others no.
I didn't hear “I love you” that much while growing up, or hardly at all from what I can remember.
However, I KNEW very well my relatives loved me.
I saw their love in the manner they treated me and how they spoke to me with others words.
Not everyone knows how to love, or how to express that sentiment outside of using the three words “I love you”.
Their difficulty is not reason to suspect they do not feel that for you.
It takes vulnerability to reveal the thoughts of one's heart to others.
It is easier when the sentiment is first shared, and then perhaps reciprocated.
One person takes the risk of saying “I love you” to another, which may make it easier for the recipient to respond in kind with “I love you, too”.
Love is easily confused for other emotions, themes, ideas and actions for many people.
Here is the greatest definition of love:
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is Love.
- 1 John 4: 8Here is another proper definition.
Without going into all the damage people have suffered 'believing' that others loved them, let's look at the manner these words depict, define and direct 'love' from a Source that is the very reality of Love.
Here is the greatest example of love:
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in My Name the Father will give you. This is My command: Love each other.
- John 15: 12-17Imagine that; being commanded to love.
Why a command?
Because there are, and will be, people in this world that will refuse to love you no matter how much you love them.
When those who know not this Love from Above do wicked things, consider this and the passage which follows:
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,and do not lose heart when He rebukes you,because the Lord disciplines the one He loves,and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
- Hebrews 12: 5-8When you suffer for doing good and what is right, praise His Name...for you are being perfected:
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the Pioneer of their salvation Perfect through what He suffered.
- Hebrews 2: 10God glorified the Christ by allowing Him to suffer a most horrendous death.
And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.
- Romans 8: 27-30If this is how the Father willed glory to be revealed through the Son, do no allow your hearts to be confused when God allows a pruning of your heart through life's experiences causing suffering.
Do not confuse His Love for the false love of the world.
This is why love was also commanded to be expressed by the faithful in this manner:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is Perfect.
- Matthew 5: 43-48God loves you dearly with a love that is inexpressible outside of Christ's example...which those who are called to glory will experience...the pruning included.
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