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The Love Language of God – 7 ways that He shows His love for you
By Madeline Kalu
15 Minute Read
In today’s world that is punctuated with natural disasters, military and political turmoil, as well as the current COVID pandemic, it can become an easy choice to blame God for the broken state of this planet.
Dealing with additional personal struggles and adversities can lead one to wonder if God loves mankind at all, or if He even exists.
However, God is very real, and His love is tangible for anyone, who chooses to receive it.
As humans, we each have our own love language with which we express endearment and affection. Our ability to express love is derived from our Creator, who made us in His likeness.
Which makes God the original love language expert.
In 1 John 3:18, John confirms the importance of expressing love through actions and not just words:
“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
Therefore, the following are 7 ways in which God uses His love language to express how much you mean to Him.
A Definition of God’s Love
“Agape” is an ancient Greek word used in the Bible to describe the love that God shows us. Before we can look at the ways in which God shows us love, we need to be able to define what His love is.
In ancient Greek, there are various words to define love. The word agape refers to a love that is derived from genuine empathy and affection, and which is demonstrated through intentional acts of commitment and sacrifice, which demand nothing in return. Agape describes not only an emotional expression of attachment, it expounds a deliberate choice to love someone and evoke the best in that person, whilst at the same time, putting one’s own needs aside.
Agape poignantly describes God’s love for us. According to 1 John 4:8, God is love: He is agapos. God’s love is not derived entirely from emotions, it is a part of who He is.
“The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.”Photo by Rachel Strong on Unsplash
1. God Made Plans For You Before You Were Born
God had designed a unique life for you before your birth. Did you know that God loved you before you were even a twinkle in your parent’s eyes?
Jeremiah 1:5 states that God loved us before we were in our mother’s womb.
How can God express His love for us before we even existed?
Let us look at the entirety of Jeremiah 1:5 to find our answer:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”God’s love language for us starts with the wonderful plan He makes for our lives. This plan has been designed before our conception and includes not only our physical makeup and our mental constitution, but also includes the gifts and vocations He has given us that will serve others and bring Him glory and honor. The life God chooses for us is to be a unique one that will reflect the love of Jesus Christ and bring people into a relationship with Him.
Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash
2. God Calls You His Child
When you accept Jesus Christ into your heart, God adopts you into His family and calls you His child. You may be familiar with the term “Child of God”.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
When you accept Jesus into your heart, God adopts you into His family (2 Corinthians 6:18) and calls you His child.
Just as adopting a child is an intentional, considered action, so too, is God’s adoption of us. He chooses to adopt us because He loves us. He understands the care, nurturing, and even disciplining we are going to require in order to grow in intimacy with Him and fulfill His plans for our lives; and yet, He willingly takes on the responsibility for our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
Consequently, by embracing us as His children, God is showing us that He wants to be in a relationship with us for all of eternity.
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
3. God Invests in Your Life
God invests in your life with no expectation of a return on His investment. As your Creator, God knows what you need. For that reason, He provides for you, instills unique characteristics and personality traits in you, and equips you with gifts and talents specific to your life purpose.
However, God does not set you up with what you need for life and then sends you out into the world with a pat on the back and a friendly wave goodbye. Instead, God invests in your life by accompanying you throughout your life journey and provides you with a constant flow of comfort, teaching, encouragement, and hope.
However, unlike entering a financial or personal venture, God does not expect a return on His investment from you. His involvement in your life is one of His love languages.
4. God Makes Promises That He Always Keeps
By keeping His promises to us, God shows us how much He loves us. Ever since God made His first covenant with mankind and symbolized it with a rainbow (Genesis 9:13-16), God’s promises to us have always proven to be true.
Here are a few examples of the promises that God makes us:
- He will never let us down
“I will never leave you or forsake you.”
- He will answer our prayers:
“And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.”
- He will provide for us:
“And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
- He will fight our cause:
“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
- Nothing will ever separate us from Him:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- All things will work out for good:
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
- He promises us eternal life:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
God makes promises that we can trust because that is part of His character. He cannot lie, for that goes against His nature.
“God is not a human being, that he should lie,
or a mortal, that he should change his mind.
Has he promised, and will he not do it?
Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”Therefore you can trust that God’s promises are a part of His love language to you.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
5. God Encourages Your Personal and Spiritual Growth
God encourages you to reach your full potential in all aspects of life. God loves you as you are. His acceptance of you is unconditional.
However, just as a father encourages his child when he learns to crawl, then walk, and then finally starts to run, God also facilitates the development of our personal attributes and spiritual maturity. He delights in you reaching your full potential.
At times, this encouragement may mean setting limits on us; other times, God will hold us upright through a season of difficulty. Though His methods may differ, God’s love for us and His desire to see us live a victorious, God-purposed life for ourselves and our progeny remains unchanged.
What is particulary wonderful about God is that during our process of growth, He provides us with a safe space to make mistakes, reflect, and make progress, by His grace.
And when we do act out like the children that we are, God always forgives us and shows us mercy.
That is a true expression of His love for us!
6. God Sent His only Son to the Cross to Save You
God’s greatest declaration of love to us is the gift of Salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. When we consider that Jesus Christ became a living sacrifice in order to pay the bond price for the sins of mankind, we can easily forget that our own sins were nailed onto that cross as well.
In order words, Jesus died not only for others, but for you as well.
Why did He do this?
God could not bear the thought of living apart from you for all of eternity. His heart bled at the mere mention of you suffering eternal damnation. Therefore, God willingly sent Jesus – His only Son – to be the sacrifical lamb whose blood would save you and set you free.
Let’s look at John 3.16 again:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
If you have had any doubt until now whether God loves you, surely this is one declaration of God’s love that you cannot deny?
Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
7. God Shows us How to Love Others
God’s perfect love is an inspiration for us to love others in the same way. God’s love for you is perfect. It is a love that is selfless, which nurtures, and empowers.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes this kind of love so elequently:
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
God demonstrates how we can love others by loving us first with His perfect love.
“We love because he first loved us.”
Many people are hurting from the effects of a broken world and are in dire need to feel the love of God. You can be a source of light to someone by showing God’s love and help bring them out of the darkness of futility and despair.
God’s love languages are edifying, uplifting, and offer us revelation of who He is. If more people were to recognize God and allow Him into their lives, His love could change hearts, renew minds, and bring the Kingdom of Heaven down onto Earth.
Madeline Kalu is a Christian writer and the co-founder of Jacob’s Ladder Blog. She was born in England, was raised in Australia, and currently lives in Germany with her husband Solomon. Madeline is in recovery from burnout, chronic depression, and anxiety. She believes that God can take life’s adversities and work them out for His good; hence, she uses her writing voice to raise awareness of mental illness, as well as to spread the light of God’s love to those who are mentally trapped in the dark, and provide them with hope and encouragement.
Sources:
citychurchbloomington.org, “What is God’s Love Language?”, City Church for all Nations.
christianity.com, “What Does Agape Love Really Mean in the Bible?”, Agape Roat.
austingentry.com, “5 Love Languages of God = Jesus”, Austin Gentry.
compellingtruth.org, “How does God demonstrate His love for us? Why does God love us?”, Compelling Truth.
debrapedrow.com, “10 Ways God Shows His Love For You!”, Debra Pedrow.
graceapostolicchurch.wordpress.com, “10 Ways God Shows His Love For Us”, Grace Apostolic Church.
cru.org, “20 Inspiring Bible Verses About God’s Amazing Love for You”, Faith Eng.
jamesriver.church, “Are God’s Promises for me?”, Savvanah Lindell.
