“Love Up”
Two little boys were playing one day when one said to the other;
“Wouldn’t you hate to have to wear glasses all the time?”
The other said:
“No, not if I had the kind my Grandma wears.
She sees how to fix a lot of things and
She sees a lot of fun things to do when she babysits.
She sees when people are tired.
She sees when people are sorry for things they did.
She sees what people meant to do even when they didn’t do something right.
I asked her one day how she could see that way all of the time.
She said it was the way that she learned to look at things as she grew older.
So I figured it must be her glasses.”
One list on the internet had some of the top 100 songs with “Love in the title” as follows:
I wonder how many you may know…
1. Stupid Love”—Lady Gaga
2. “All Your Need is Love”—The Beatles
3. “Can’t Help Falling In Love”—Elvis Presley
4. “I Love Me”—Demi Lovato
5. “The Only Way to Love”—Vanessa Carlton
6. “I Want to Know What Love Is”—Foreigner
7. “Love Yourself”—Justin Bieber
8. “I Will Always Love You”—Whitney Houston
9. “Nobody’s Love”—Maroon 5
10. “Drunk in Love”—Beyonce featuring Jay-Z
16. Love Story Taylor Swift 32. “You Give Love a Bad Name”—Bon Jovi 34. “I’ll Never Love Again”—Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper 37. “Love You Like a Love Song”—Selena Gomez & the Scene 41. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”—Queen 43. “It Must Have Been Love”—Roxette 45. “Endless Love”—Diana Ross and Lionel Richie 53. “I Just Called to Say I Love You”—Stevie Wonder 61. “Love Me Do”—The Beatles 69. “The Power of Love”—Jennifer Rush 71. “Only You Can Love Me This Way”—Keith Urban 75. “Somebody to Love”—Queen 76. “When A Man Loves a Woman”—Percy Sledge 78. “What’s Love Got to Do with It”—Tina Turner 80. “Addicted to Love”—Robert Palmer 83. “Love of My Life”—Queen 90. “And I Love Her”—The Beatles 93. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”—Elton John 97. “Bye Bye Love”—The Everly Brothers I’ll bet you. can think of some of your favorites that are not on this list. There are a lot of songs about love aren’t there? By the way, I just corrected my misspelling of the word “songs” in the last sentence. As I typed too quickly, I typed the word “wongs”. I have found that there are a lot of truth that come out of misspells. This is just one of those examples. Here is how I originally misspelled it and its meaning. There are a lot of wongs about love aren’t there? There is a lot of truth to there being a lot of WRONGS about love. Actually most people misunderstand “Love”. They think of it as an emotion, when biblically, it is a decision - an action. When Jesus says we are to love our enemies, he is not talking crazy. He is not asking us to do the impossible. If he meant the “emotion” of love, then it would be asking the impossible of us. How can we emotionally feel love towards an enemy? If not impossible, it would be very, very difficult. We may feel a lot of different emotions towards our enemies (anger, hate, fear, resentment, impatience, etc), but love isn’t usually one of them. But that understanding of Love is only from the emotional point of view. “Love” in the Bible speaks about the action of “acting out” love, rather than feeling of Experiencing the emotion fo it. Love is an Action/Decision according to 1 Corinthians 13 4 Love is patient, [Love ACTS patient even when we FEEL impatient.] love is kind. [Love ACTS kind even when don’t FEEL kind.] It does not envy, [Love does not ACT envious even when we FEEL envy.] it does not boast, [Love does not ACT out by bragging or boasting even when we may FEEL proud.] it is not proud. [Love does not ACT superior by being condescending towards others even if we may FEEL self-pride .] 5 It does not dishonor others, [Love does not ACT disrespectful to others even when we FEEL as if they have not “earned” our respect.] it is not self-seeking, [Love does not ACT out of self-interest at the expense of others.] it is not easily angered, [Love does not ACT out improperly in anger, when we FEEL anger, even if the anger is justified.] it keeps no record of wrongs. If someone has done you wrong, you are to properly deal with it according to God’s leading. “Keeping a record” is not properly dealing with it. That would be holding on to it, when God wants us to work through it [Love does not ACTIVEVLY record everything that has been “Done wrong to us” even when we FEEL like we want to see others, “Get what they have coming to them” for doing wrong towards us. That usually is the reason for keeping records of wrongs isn’t it?. We want to see justice done. And we will remember the injustice until it is taken care of. With this wrong approach, our minds will increasingly become more and more cluttered with sin, hate, resentment, negativity and unforgiveness. Think about the value of keeping records of things. It is always for the purpose of revisiting them in the future. Stay with me here, because this may be confusing. In my life, I can understand “Not forgetting” certain things, because I can’t. If I remember, I remember. I can’t “Not remember” something that I am thinking about. While there are some things that we “can” do to help prevent things from coming to minds (for example, limiting things that may trigger our remembering things done wrong to us) it is impossible to “Forget” short of erasing our minds. And in some extremely traumatic situations, various forms of shock therapy have been utilized. But, how do you normally keep something from coming to mind. APPROACHES THAT DO NOT WORK Here are some approaches that “Do not” work for me. If you tell me to: “Just forget it”… I can’t. If you say to me: “Don’t think about it”… I have to “Think” about what it is that I am supposed to “Not think” about, so that approach does not work either. AN APPRAOCH THAT DOES WORK Here is what “Does work” for me with respect to “Not keeping a record of wrongs”. It is all about where I “File the memory” and what label I write on that file. Example: I can label the file, “Things done wrong to me”. That is a good name because it is accurate. I am remembering the things that others have done that have hurt me. But I need to write more. Option #1 File Name: “Things Done Wrong to Me” File Description: Things that the cross of Jesus will deal with. Picture a giant cross written on the file, since Jesus will manage that file. Trust him to help you forgive and trust him to convict the person who hurt you oftheir sin. Every time that I remember what is in that file I will ALSO remember that Jesus is dealing with it in his time and in his way. Option #2 File Name: “Things Done Wrong to Me” File Description: “Unpleasant things that are making me stronger.” Every time that I remember what is in that file I will ALSO remember that I am stronger because of what happened to me. I want to make every effort to believe that I am getting stronger rather than weaker because of the wrong done to me. We may need to seek extra counsel when we get stuck. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, [An action] always trusts, [Trust always works its way out through action] always hopes, [Hope always works its way out through action] always perseveres. [Perseverance always works its way out through the action of demonstrating patience.] 8 Love never fails… 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. HOW TO EXPRESS LOVE AS AN ACTION Just as people linguistically speak different languages, so they may also communicate their “Actions of love” in different ways. Dr. Gary Chapman says there are 5 different love languages. It is a relational language. It is called the language pf LOVE. Someone said something like this: Love is a dream, and marriage is the alarm clock that wake you up from that “dream”. With all of the talk shows, books and regularly published articles on how to keep love alive, you would think that there the rate of happy marriages would be higher in the USA. If you were to read an article on “101 ways to express your love to your spouse in marriage”, here would be how Satan would tempt you to act. 1. You would pick a couple of ways that seem to make sense, but are not “too” difficult. 2. If your spouse doesn’t acknowledge your effort, you will be tempted to give up and stop. [You will not try one or two of the remaining suggestions in the article “101 ways to express your love to your spouse”) Why do we so easily quit? The answers are as follows: 1. It’s painful (as well as other emotions) when we are rejected (not acknowledged) while trying to extend love to others. 2. It is a lot of work. [especially for guys] 3. We may not understand that people speak different love languages. Might some of the problem of miscommunication of love be due to people speaking the wrong language of love to others? If we talk about the “5 Languages of Love”, the good news is that there are only 4 other languages that we have to learn. With all communication there is a “Sender” and a “Receiver”. The talker is the “Sender”, the listener is the “Receiver”. The SENDER should always consider how the RECEIVER tends to receive things in order for good communication to take place. This is where understanding the different “Languages of Love” that people tend to speak (SENDER) and the different “Languages of Love” that others prefer to be spoken to [AS RECEIVER] comes in hardy. Example: A guy can SAY the WORDS from their brain, “I love you” to a woman, But the woman might not HEAR the love, because she wants to FEEL the love through ACTIONS (or jewelry). The most important thing is to speak the primary love language of your spouse. Love was so important that Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love [Act out love in the language of other person] one another.” -John 13:35 While it is said that everyone has a primary love language (way of expressing love) it is my opinion that everyone should work on using ALL of the different love languages. “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” - Gary Chapman We speak through Words & Actions #1 Words of Affirmation #2 Qualtiy Time #3 Acts of Service #4 Gifts #5 Physical Touch “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” -John 15:13 "For God so loved the world that he GAVE [ACTION] his one and only Son that anyone who believes his him will not perish but will have everlasting life." -John 3:16 "Now these three remain, Faith, hope and love, but the greatest fo these is love." -1 Corinthians 13:13 Living out the love of Jesus is like wearing "Grandma's glasses". They help us to see things the way that God does, They help us to "act out" love the way that God does, rather than the way our emotion of love want to. 1 Corinthians 13 is about how God loves YOU. Prayer: Thank you Lord, for your great love given and shown to us by your actions, the greatest one, letting us know that we are forgiven by what Jesus did on the cross. Help us to be mindful of how people receive love and try to communicate the love of Jesus to them effectively in His name. Amen! Pastor Dave Word of Life Church 17525 W. Bell Rd. Surprise, AZ 85374
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