Better Communication For Heart Transformation

Jesus loves you!!

Ever been told this?

Ever heard someone say it to someone else?

I've heard it shouted by street preachers to people on the street in many different cities. I've heard it at a lot of different outreach events that church's put on. I've read the signs on the side of the road on my way to Ohio and back.

I think it's incredibly true that Jesus loves you and me. It's probably the truest thing about us; but I got to thinking about it a few weeks ago and I think I realized something..

Here are my thoughts:

People's view of what love is often directly relates to how they have experienced it.

And so our job as Christians is yes, to share that Jesus loves, but even more specifically, to get across the life changing difference between fallen love and divine love. We have to convey to the world what separates the two.

We must correctly communicate what real love is, otherwise our efforts of portraying the unending, life changing love of Christ, face the threat of falling on deaf ears. Our words have no weight unless we use truth to infuse and alter the worlds distorted view of love.

How can we expect the world to understand a love they've never seen? We must recognize that this world has their own view of what love is and that it's often in opposition to that of Christ's. People usually view love in the way it is shown by the significant people in their life.

And so if that important person in one's life has not shown them an accurate love, then that's often how they are going to view the way the rest of the world will treat them. When key figures in peoples lives inaccurately depict love, then that's usually what people think love actually is. And so when we tell the world that Jesus loves them, I would tend to assume that their response would be something like "yeah well I have had plenty of people that I thought that loved me screw me over too many times, so why would I get excited when you tell me that Jesus loves me? How can I give myself over to love when all love has done is broken my heart time and time again?"

Or something along those lines, you name it.

"If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need by shows no compassion; how can God's love be in that person? Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each either; let us show the truth by our actions." - 1st John 3:17-18

We must communicate true love, the love that was broken and poured out so that we could have life to the full. We must do so with our words, but often even more importantly, with our actions.

The most effective way of communicating something is often done so when it's lived out. So the even greater challenge of depicting the love of Christ is then to show the world by our lives, not just our words, what it actually looks like to love like Christ. And following that then, we will get to see the miracle that takes place inside someone when they understand just a glimpse of the intensity of the love that Christ loves us with.

His love wrecks worlds, it completely alters the course of one's life forever.

So what is love? How does the worlds love differ from Christ's?

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." - 1st Corinthians 13:4-8

"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him." - Romans 5:6-8 (MSG)

Real love is what really changes the world.

Let's be better at sharing exactly what that is.