Did you know that every person has a love language?
I didn’t discover The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman until about five years into my marriage. The gist is that every individual feels and expresses love in a certain love language.
A husband might prefer quality time with his wife rather than receiving gifts from her. A wife may feel loved when her husband does tasks around the house rather than receiving praise or compliments.
If you would like more information on love languages, I highly recommend The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman! But if you already know about them, then are you aware that God also has a love language?
He truly does! Did you also know that speaking His love language will make it easier for you to speak others’ love languages?
Struggling With The Language
Let’s face it- we may know someone’s love language, but actually speaking it can be quite challenging (and especially when separated by long distances). My husband’s language is words of affirmation, while mine is acts of service.
When I show love to him, I put his shoes away, make his coffee, or perform some kind of service. When he shows love to me, he thanks me for making dinner, tells me I’m beautiful, or any other words of kindness to make me feel loved.
The problem with this is that my love language doesn’t make him feel loved and vice versa. I could put his shoes away all week and he could praise me for it, but we still wouldn’t fill one another’s love tanks.
And yes, we have attempted on several occasions to speak one another’s language. I would thank and praise him for things, while he would do tasks for me.
It was all in good faith, but eventually we got complacent again. So why is it so difficult to love others the way they want to be loved, and is there a way to make it easier?
Originating Love
Yes! Through God’s love language… but first let me share with you where love originates:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7)
So love originates from God, which makes sense because all good things come from Him (see James 1:17). And if we are filled with His love, then we are commanded to administer it to Him and others.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
By loving God and others (even enemies and the hard-to-love), we are obeying all of God’s Law, which includes the entire Old Testament. And just in case you aren’t aware, the Law is also referring to the Ten Commandments.
Therefore, by simply loving, we are able to obey everything He has asked us to obey. Sound easy enough, right?
Reverting Back
So why is it so difficult to love everyone? In my own opinion, I think it is because we haven’t been obeying His first commandment: to love Him with all of our being.
We get so wrapped up in loving one another, and then become complacent. We revert back to our own love language and wonder why it is so challenging to just love the way God expects us to.
Which brings me to His love language… God’s love language is all of the love languages!
How so? Because love originates with Him.
More so, His love is universal; He is capable of loving every person uniquely, simultaneously, and immeasurably.
Focusing On God
In order to do this, He is most assuredly the original author of our own unique love language. And when I say unique, I mean that even though I prefer acts of service, not all acts of service fill my love tank.
Yet, He knows which services do and He does them for me. The same way He is able to do so for every person.
Isn’t it amazing? Doesn’t it make sense as to why the first commandment is to love Him and then the second is to love others, instead of the other way around?
Focusing on loving God first allows the Originator of love to overfill your love tank so that you can easily love others. Which means that you won’t need to go searching for someone else to fill your tank because He is already filling it.
Make sense? When you love God, He overflows you with His love, and then that overflows to others.
Pouring Out
Rather than blaming or resenting your spouse for not speaking your love language, you won’t depend on him or her to feel loved, needed, and valued. And more importantly, love will amazingly pour out of you in the form of all love languages and it will provide you with more in return!
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:38)
Yes, please! A large helping of goodness at my table, por favor!
So let’s get started loving God first! Read 5 Ways To Speak God’s Love Language, which will help you to not only love others more easily, but also to fulfill His Law.
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Post Question: Did you know that by loving God, we can easily love others? Comment below!
      
When we love God first, He fills us with His love, and we are better able to love others for real.
Yes! And isn’t easier when we go to the source instead of to food, people, or retail therapy?
I think God is so good at loving each of us how we need to be loved. God always knows what we need.
Yes, He does always know and it’s something we can strive for as we become more Christlike!
This is so true! When I am placing God as my focus and giving Him the time and love He deserves my thoughts and emotions are so much more positive and loving towards everyone else! What a great reminder!
It’s easy to forget that by loving God first, we can enrich our other relationships as well!
Yes, in all of this, our love for God must come first. Then all the rest will come easier.
Well said, Kristi! His love is so immeasurably powerful and healing that it can go well beyond what we are capable of understanding!
[…] is this possible if God isn’t human? Let me pause for a moment: this post is Part Two of Does God Have A Love Language?, so please read the first post before moving on to ways of speaking God’s love […]