What is Your Favorite Word?

What is Your Favorite Word?

Good Morning Friends,

Today is Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras is this Tuesday so Lent comes just about as close to Valentine’s as I can remember. And yet a few years ago it was on the day after Ash Wednesday. And in 2018 Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day will coincide on the very same day. In honor of the proximity of events coming, I am practicing up today for what feel good thoughts I might remember in three years. And the beauty is that some of the greatest words are found in today’s scripture. The beauty is that the words today are not just for the righteous, these words are designed to make even us sinners feel beloved. So What is Your Favorite Word?

Scripture: ²⁵Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.

Proverbs 12:25 (NRSV)

⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 (NRSV)

7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the Day of Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹We love^* because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters,^* are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister^* whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters^* also.

1 John 4:7-21

Message: Maybe our favorite words remind us of how we feel when we see raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Maybe our favorite word is a gift of grace in a brown paper package tied up with strings. Maybe our favorite word is like wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. Ok, my favorite word is Love. But how do you paint that expanse of beauty? Indeed God is love…the breath of life. We use the word love all the time to mean different things. All the varieties of love are beautiful gifts of God, but agape love is an umbrella over them all, for here our relationship is more concerned about the other person than about self. This is the pure, perfect love of Jesus on the cross. This is the all sacrificing love that goes beyond the surface of relationships to the heart of the matter. It is the act of completely giving of oneself in order for this emotion to be activated. And in the experience we discover that agape love is patient, it waits. Agape love is kind so that we will know we are loved. Agape love does not boast about the me but about the we. Agape love is not easily angered. Agape love rejoices in the truth. Agape love trusts. Agape love hopes and perseveres. That is what God’s love is all about….abounding grace in the family of God. The picture is this…the song is this….God is the Word of Love. Maybe your name is your favorite word, if so, know that God loves us so much that He engraved our names on the palm of His hand. If complements on our looks are what we seek, know that He loves us so much that He knows how many hairs are on our heads. If it is emotions, know that He loves us so much that He saves our tears in a bottle. If it is sustainability, know that He loves us with an everlasting love. But what makes all this love so amazing is that it is highlighted against the backdrop of a debt that each one of us owes. Friends, the cross is God’s statement of just how much He loves. And the worth of our words are only activated in God’s love manifested in the memory of Jesus…the one word of love that matters most.

Pray we rejoice in the sounds of the words of love, comfort, guidance, correction found in scripture. Pray that we rejoice in the reality that we love God because He first loved us. Pray that grace reign through the sin in our lives. Pray that love bring righteousness and the life of Jesus Christ our Lord into our life. Pray that we mature in the faith learning that the love that draws us together socially as friends, that the love that is instinctual and bonds a family together, that the human love that draws a man to a woman together all be sanctified in the love that cannot die… the love of Jesus. Pray we speak with words of love and intention…words of reverence and awe.
Pray we realize that our worth is found in the costly wounds of the Word made flesh giving love on the cross. Pray for the redemption, fellowship, peace and cleansing power that satisfies the soul. Pray for the yes we seek. Pray for the wild, free life of amazing love. Pray we find words that help us to listen to the sounds of a gentle breeze circling and holding and caressing us like a newborn child in all our beginnings and endings. Pray we hear laughs that make our hearts soar higher than the sky. Pray we experience a love that shines like a rainbow, colorful and bright. Pray we hear music in the ocean waves that dances with the shore. Pray we have the right words to glorify God in His healing of our hearts. Pray we all have a joyous day sharing a good word with others.

Blessings,

John Lawson