Now This Is Love (true love in action)

Have you noticed it—the way we drop “love” throughout our day-to-day conversations? “I love that shirt!” “It was love at first sight.” “Wouldn’t you love to go there?”

Love in this sense means having affection for something, a fondness if you will.

This type of love is very fickle, dependent on circumstances, and changing often. The shirt goes out of style, and now we would never be seen wearing it.

They don’t meet our expectations in some way and poof! that instant love is replaced by disdain or indifference.

We grow older or circumstances change, and the place we must see becomes a place never to visit.

Like most, I, too, casually drop this four-letter word into my conversations.

True Love

But the kind of love I long to radiate and receive has a vastly different look than mere temporary affection. This is a love we all desire.

Some spend a lifetime looking for it. It may begin with those three little words, but it must be completed with action (something I’m not always good at).

This is true love.

True love shows up in the light touch of sympathy and the strong embrace of welcome and good-bye. It is evident in the washing of dishes, the folding of clothes, and the building of shelter.

This love is reflected in the penned words of affirmation stuffed in lunch boxes or those spoken in a whisper: “I am proud of you.” It shines in the prose of a letter written to a distant one or delivered to another we’ve wronged.

True love is found in therapy and surgery waiting rooms, school conferences and activities, and relief centers in third-world countries.

It is holding a hand when tears flow or the high five of congratulations. It radiates from the bandaging of wounds, feeding the hungry, protecting the innocent.

This amazing love is picking someone first simply because they’ve always been last, sitting next to someone who usually eats alone, and sometimes, it is just saying one kind word. It is pacing the floor until the headlights pull into the drive, missing sleep to rock a sick babe, and serving the undeserved.

It is a love that speaks through gifts—but even louder if they are homemade, through a pat on the back, through just showing up.

Sometimes true love is painful to the recipient and the deliverer.

It is a love of doing, not just saying.

True love is given freely, without condition, and at the heart of it is grace.

It is arms spread wide, hands nailed to a cross—the giving of all to save another. This love is Jesus Christ. It is “agape.”

It is truly sacrificial love in action.

True love is given freely, without condition, and at the heart of it is grace. Click To Tweet

“Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. He was a sacrificial offering that smelled sweet to God” (Ephesians 5:2, CEB).

Reflections: Real love is so much more than just saying the words. How are you intentional about putting your love in action? How do you avoid falling into the pit of complacency—uttering empty words of promise? This is a great time to put your love into action!

Join me at Faith Barista’s Thursday Jam and Love Unwrapped