Demonstrating Love

How do we demonstrate love today?

Some demonstrate their love by buying gifts.

Some demonstrate their love by physical touch.

Some demonstrate their love through acts of service.

Some demonstrate their love with words of affirmation.

Some demonstrate their love by spending quality time together.

[These examples are from the book, ‘Five Love Languages’ by Gary Chapman.]

Most people experience love through one or two of these love languages. It’s always best to try to figure out the love language of your family members, especially the children. From my own personal experience, I was an adult when I learned about this. I would have greatly benefited from knowing that the way my grandparents demonstrated love was just different from mine, but they still loved me.

It wasn’t until I learned about this that I understood that the love demonstrated to me was still love, but it was like it was spoken in a foreign language. I could not comprehend that type of expression as a child/youth/teen.

I want to address demonstrating love God’s way today.

God demonstrated His love to us by giving us the GIFT of salvation through the death on the cross of His son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus demonstrated love by physical touch when He healed the lepers. He often would touch those ‘undesirables’ of society.

Jesus demonstrated love through acts of service throughout His three-and-a-half years of ministry. He lived to serve, whether it was healing, providing comfort through resurrecting a loved one or feeding the 5000.

Jesus demonstrated love with words of affirmation throughout His word.

• You are loved.
• I will never leave you.
• You are an overcomer.
• I want to come and abide with you.

Jesus demonstrates His love through spending quality time with us each Sabbath day. He set this day aside and sanctified it during the closing act of Creation Week. This special day shows the world that He is the one who sanctifies us. That He is our Lord.

We have seen how God uses all five love languages to demonstrate His love to each of us as individuals. Now the question remains, how do we demonstrate our love to God?

We can give Him the gift of our hearts and our will. Romans 12:1-2 says to give the living sacrifice of our lives. We are to give Him our life so that He can transform us back to what we were created to be, in the image of God.

Even though we cannot personally demonstrate our love toward God through physical touch, each time we reach out and touch others in His name, doing His work, we are demonstrating our love to God.

We can demonstrate our love to God by building people up with positive words, rather than tearing them down. We can speak peace rather than war and conflict. (Prov 18:21)

We can demonstrate love to God through acts of service. In fact, this is the most powerful love language for Christians. Love is an action word. We are to demonstrate love in caring for the sick, visiting those in prison, housing and feeding the afflicted, and caring for the widows and orphans. (Matt 24: 40-45)

We can demonstrate our love for God by spending time with Him on His seventh-day Sabbath. That is the day set aside by Him when we can come apart from the world and focus solely on our relationship with Him. Even though we are to spend time with God daily, it is only on the seventh-day Sabbath that we are called to come apart from all the concerns of the world and focus solely on Him. This special relationship day was created so we can show our trust in Him for provision.

With all these mentioned ways, there is one specific way that Jesus gave us to show our love for Him. It’s stated plainly in John 14:15. ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments.’ In 1 John 2:3-4, John tells us that if we do not keep His commandments, then we do not even know Him, much less love Him.

It’s wonderful and right to be able to demonstrate our love for God through various methods as mentioned above. It is a wonderful way to show the world our love. But when it comes to God Himself, His preferred ‘love language’ is obedience. Although obedience doesn’t save us, it is proof we are saved. It is the proof we know God and love Him.

1 John 4:19 tells us that we love because He first loved. He gave so we could give.

There are thousands of ways often unnoticed in today’s busy world of God demonstrating His love for us. Can we do any less than to demonstrate our love to Him through the gift of obedience?

Something to think about.