Show Me Some Love
Written By: Margie Davis
I love pizza. I love coffee. I love the beach. I love being outside. I love winter storms. I say the word “love” many times a day. And if I’ve said it to you, I really do mean it. But maybe I throw that word around too much without thinking about it.
Is “I love you” the ultimate lazy expression we use when we want someone to KNOW we love them, but we don’t actually make the EFFORT to love them? If that is what we’re doing, then we reduce our love for people to being equal with our love for pizza. We love pizza without doing anything to SHOW pizza that we love it. We just consume it. If we’re trying to determine what love really is, we should get straight what it really isn’t.
I am an approval seeker. God has shown me that His is the only approval I need! However, I still sometimes find myself on that exhaustive treadmill of feeling that I must go above and beyond to either earn love or retain it. I fear that many people in my life need to get something from me to make me lovable to them. I know this isn’t real love.
Do you know a narcissist? They will bend over backwards for others, but if they see you as beneath them, they will only throw crumbs of love your way. And somehow you end up feeling that they don’t love you because something is wrong with YOU. Not them. This is obviously not real love.
On Sunday Zach talked about self-indulgent love, and I think that is the type of “love” that is rampant in our society today. The entire “my body, my choice” movement is based on that thinking. When our love for ourselves becomes a priority over the life of our unborn child, or the care of an aged parent or even just meeting the needs of the less fortunate, we as Christians can easily see this isn’t biblical love.
So, what truly is love? 1 John 4:8 says “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God, because God is love.” GOD IS LOVE. True love mimics GOD!
I hope you had/have a good dad. We get our first glimpse of our heavenly Father in our earthly one. If we are confused about love, it may be that something was lacking in our relationship with our earthly dads. And that will affect some of your life choices as well as make it difficult to love within scriptural boundaries. One study found that 83% of individuals struggling with sexual sin reported going through adverse childhood experiences (both sexual and emotional abuse) and maltreatment by a parent, most often the father figure in their home. That abuse skews their view of how to love and be loved.
I had a really good dad. He was tender with me. He was patient and kind. I saw many wonderful character traits in my dad that I now recognize as Christ in him. He sacrificed for us. While he had expectations of us all, his love for us was never in question if we disappointed him. I saw my dad help neighbors. I saw him serve at church and put others before himself often. I’m so thankful that I had a dad who, though very quiet, definitely knew how to love.
Because he didn’t just SAY love. He SHOWED love.
We can show God’s love to others through acts of kindness, compassion, forgiveness and by putting their needs before our own. Are the people to whom you say “I love you” held in your prayers consistently?
Sometimes showing God’s love is as simple as listening or just using kind words. It can be keeping your mouth shut instead of saying that thing that you want to say but would hurt or anger another. You may need to show love to others without receiving the same intensity of love back. But do it anyway. Just love with no expected return.
1 John 4:11 says “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”
To think that we are called to make God’s love complete by showing love to one another is humbling and a little scary! But it’s a call. Every time you tell someone that you love them this week, think of a way you can show that love as well! Let’s go make God’s love complete!
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