It was one of those days. A few years into marriage and the pressure had been raised to the very limit. It was then that my lovely bride looked at me in anticipation and I simply said, “I love you”. It was not the words I had expressed, but the tone in which I had uttered them. The tone was one of sarcasm. Almost a scowl. The tone was what hurt her. I can look at this time with my wife now and laugh. For now, when we are agitating one another, we simply look, smile and say, “I love you”. Code for STOP.
I have shared this to show that we, all of us, use words in the wrong context much of the time. When we look into the Scripture, we see the word love used in different ways but they are different words, yet we only use “love”. Romans 12:9 tells us “Let love be without dissimulation,”. Love without hypocrisy. The greek word used is agapē. This word means to have an affection accompanied with a desire to promote another’s happiness. This is also the word used when Jesus said that all men would know that we are His disciples if we LOVE one another. He commanded us to love one another, as He loves us!
How has your love been for the brethren? How has it been with your family? How has it been for your Savior, Jesus Christ? May we all find the true love of Christ in each of our hearts and share it with the world!