Stop Saying I LOVE YOU

A wise woman told me recently she grew weary hearing church folks say I LOVE YOU to one another when their actions spoke entirely otherwise. She expressed she was just as tired watching people outside the church walls fall short of loving the way God calls us to love. She pointed out the words I LOVE YOU really fall short of how God calls us to love. Here is just some of what the Bible has to say about the way God calls us to love. Whether or not you continue to say I LOVE YOU, you may want to determine where you stand with God’s call to love. Are you really LOVING?

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* Our love should be UNFEIGNED, i.e. NOT PRETEND
* We should love from a PURE heart. The heart in this context according to the concordance are the THOUGHTS and FEELINGS. Saying I LOVE YOU, or even taking seemingly “loving” actions, while we hold unkind thoughts and feelings in our hearts about that person is not the kind of love to which we are called.
* We are called to love FERVENTLY. This word means INTENSELY. Our love should thus be GENUINE, PURE, and INTENSE.
* We are called to love IN DEED, not in words. So saying I LOVE YOU is NOT the same thing as expressing our love IN ACTION.

When was the last time you loved someone in this way? When was the last time you loved your ENEMY in this way? When was the last time you loved someone UNKIND, UNGRATEFUL, HURTFUL, MEAN, NASTY, UNLOVING, etc. in this way?

God’s Word is convicting, isn’t it? But God does not call us to do that which He does not also empower us to do. He gives us the ability by His Holy Spirit and the Bible to LOVE. Not the way the world teaches us to love, but the way God’s WORD teaches us to love. GENUINELY. PURELY. INTENSELY. IN ACTION.

His way. For His glory.

1Pe 1:22  Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:”

14We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:14-18 NASB underlining added for effect

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