Last year at this time, I was praying and asking the Lord to give me a “word” for 2009. A word that I could focus on and study for the entire year. A word that God would use in my life to make me more like Him. As I prayed and read the Bible, I kept coming across the word LOVE. Even when I turned the radio or the television on, I was hearing and seeing this word or theme of Love. Over the last year, I have studied this word for my own life. Did you know that the word love is in the scriptures over 700 times? God has so much to say about this word. I believe that love is the central theme that runs all throughout Christianity. I don’t know all that God will continue to do with this word in my life in 2010, but I do believe He has already begun to show me and teach me some very specific things concerning the word love. Here is just a little of what I am learning.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says,

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy; and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

Listen to what this passage of scripture says. It says, all other gifts are called useless or worthless without love. It says that if we do a lot of good works for God but do not love, we are just making a bunch of noise. I pray that I do more than just make a bunch of noise for Jesus. I pray that our church does more than just make a bunch of noise for Jesus. I want to see people the way God sees people. I want to love people the way Jesus loves people. I want to love God the way that He created me to love him and I want to experience His love in a fresh new way each and every day.

1 John 4:19 says,

“We love, because He first loved us.”

This passage of scripture tells us that we love only because God first loved us. I don’t believe we can love others the way Christ intends for us to love others until we experience His love. On August 19, 1991 sitting in a gymnasium right here at First Baptist Church Springdale, Jesus Christ came into my life and changed me forever from the inside out. I experienced His love and I have never been the same.

1 John 4:7-12 says,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.”

Listen to what verse 7 says, love comes from God and verse 8 says God is love. Wow, what exciting and encouraging words from scripture. The only way we will ever be able to love the way God intended for us to love is when we are in an intimate and growing relationship with Jesus. Everything we need comes from Him. I can not love my wife, my son, my friends, my family, or anyone else the way that God intended if I do not first accept His love and then love Jesus the way that God intended for me to love Him.

I have had to ask myself the question, do I love people the way Jesus loves people? I have also had to ask if I am willing to do what it takes to love like Jesus loved. I have asked if I am experiencing God’s love in such a way that I can love people the way God loves people. I would encourage you to ask yourself the same questions. If love is meeting needs and I believe it is, then you have got to experience God’s love before you can give it away. My prayer for myself and for our church is that we would experience God’s love in a fresh new way and give it away without hesitation.