God's Love Language

If you’ve been a Christ follower for any length of time, best chances are you have heard of the “5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. It’s a book written for couples for them to get to know how they best receive love. The 5 love languages are receiving gifts, words of affirmation, and acts of service, quality time, and physical touch. If you and your partner discover how you best receive love, the goal is that it will give you another tool to strongly build up your marriage and help it flourish the way it’s meant to.

One night I was thinking about these love languages, but then I thought, what is God’s love language?

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15

It’s as clear as a winter night sky. If you love Jesus with your heart, soul, and mind, you will show your love for Him by following and obeying Him. It’s as simple as that.

I believe we are coming into a time where true Christ followers are going to be separated from the phonies. There are many people who “call” themselves Christians, but act in the complete opposite way Jesus would. If we want to see our region, nation, and world come to know Christ, people who truly know and love Jesus need to speak up on what it actually means to follow Jesus.

Being a Christian means you obey Christ’s teachings, no matter if you agree with them or not. There are things in the bible that I wrestle with. There are things that I wish weren’t in there. One example is that those reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior will spend eternity separated from Him in a place called hell. I wish hell wasn’t real. But just because Melissa doesn’t like it, I can’t pick and choose what I want to believe and don’t. As Christians, we need to put our whole faith and trust in God’s written word. We need to accept it as complete authority and truth. We’re not going to understand everything in this world. We’re not going to understand everything in scripture. But it’s our job to fully trust God because He is the Creator of life. God is God. He needs to be on the throne of our lives. And when we trust and follow Him, He will be faithful to make sense of a lot more in life than if we completely turn our backs on Him. There is much evidence for the reliability of scripture and the existence of God. When I learn about all that points to God and the bible as a supernatural book through topics such as biology, archaeology, creation, fine-tuning, absolute truth and morality, etc., I cannot ignore all the arrows that point in His direction.

God wants our complete heart, and He wants our total obedience. This doesn’t mean perfection. You will never be perfect while working out your salvation. We are all in process with overcoming sin and the lies we have believed our whole life. Jesus isn’t looking for perfection, He’s just looking for your heart. (But don’t use the excuse of “nobody’s perfect” to stay stuck in sin that He wants you to overcome).

Another portion of scripture that should grab our attention is Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

These people did all of this ministerial stuff, yet Jesus said, “away from Me, I never knew you!”

You know what this means? There are people in churches today that these words will be said to them as they meet Jesus face to face. There are people who are doing all the “right” stuff, yet they don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God doesn’t care about your doing, He’s cares about your being- He cares about your heart and letting Him have it so He can reveal Himself, His love, and His plans for you.

If you know and love Jesus, I want you to be confident in your salvation. We shouldn’t be walking around scared that we won’t make it to heaven. After all the bible says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

If you have humbled yourself, genuinely confessed your sins and need for Jesus to come into your life as your Lord and Savoir, then you have a home in heaven for eternity. All we need to do to get into heaven is accept the free grace and gift of eternal life because Jesus already payed the price for our sins on a cross 2,000 years ago. You are completely forgiven for everything you have done and will done. (And if your confession to Jesus was genuine, your life will begin to change)

Just because scripture can be hard or scary, we cannot ignore them! In fact, we need to pay closer attention because people’s eternity is on the line.

If you’re reading this, and you feel convicted, I praise and thank God for His Spirit working thru these words to touch your heart. Jesus loves you so much and He has a better plan for your life. If you’ve been holding onto doing things your own way, let go. God is love, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. His character is absolute perfection and He wants to show you how much He loves you. In fact, just look at what Jesus did for you- the spotless, sinless Son of God took your place on that cross. You and I deserve God’s wrath. We deserve that death He died. God hates our sin so much that there was no way we could ever earn favor in God’s eyes alone. But Jesus… He paid it all, now all to Him we owe.

If you’re reading this, and you at all feel shame, guilt, or condemnation, tune those voices off right now. God does NOT speak words that are coated in condemnation. That is not His heart. That is the enemy, and the enemy wants to make you feel worthless and hopeless. Dig into the word of God so you discover what God really says about your past, present, and future. If we know the truth, we will be set free.

God is looking for our hearts. That’s it. When we give Him our total heart, then everything else will fall into place. Obedience is generated out of our love for Him. Stop the doing, doing, doing. Just rest in His presence and surrender. Obedience happens when we are transformed from the inside out, not by fixing more things on the external. Allow the Holy Spirit to enter your heart and begin a work that only He can do. He is the only One who can set you free. He is the only One who can empower you towards following Jesus. Let go, surrender, and use your life to speak God’s love language.