LOVE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING
Traci put this quote on her little letter board, “Love looks like something.” With Valentine’s Day coming, it got my attention. Since I am scheduled to talk about “love for each person” on Sunday, I tried googling to find the source of the quote. Yes, of course! Heidi Baker.
What does love look like?
Heidi Baker is a missionary from Laguna Beach who lives in Mozambique, Africa. She is a wild lover of God and people who simplifies everything down to this one thing. Love.
“Love in not a concept or theory, or even an important part of missions, but the center of everything we do and why we do it. It is the very heartbeat of our movement. So what does love look like? Love has a face. It looks like something. It looks like someone. When we are motivated by love and are confident that “the God of the impossible” lives inside of us, we can do anything and go anywhere, and nothing will be too difficult. This is the great mystery: that God has chosen to inhabit and possess little jars of clay with His lavish love so that we can spread His fragrance to the darkest ends of the earth, and to every person we meet each day. When we know how extravagantly loved we are by the Father, we are able to lay down our lives in obedience with great joy. As ministers and missionaries, this is the life of joy to which we have been called.” – Heidi Baker
This is what we mean by inside-out transformation in Sustainable Spirituality. We are transformed by God’s love for us into the kind of people who love others. Then our love is not just a duty, but a joy. We can love people from the heart with God’s love. When we see each person as the son or daughter of our Heavenly Father, we feel his love for them. This kind of love is not just a feeling, but it is not just an action either. It has substance. Love is something you HAVE.
Love is something you can have.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but HAVE not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I HAVE the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I HAVE a faith that can move mountains, but HAVE not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but HAVE not love, I gain nothing.” —I Cor 13:1-3 NIV
Like spiritual gifts, love is something you can have (or not). Do you have it? You can pursue it, but you can’t fake it or manufacture it. You have to have it before you can give it. Yes, you can do loving actions. Of course you can act in a loving manner. But those things are not the same as having love and acting in love. Real love is the fruit of being loved.
Yes, love looks like something. It looks like 1 Corinthians 13. Love looks like Jesus turning water into wine. It looks like Heidi Baker ministering to orphans in Africa. And love looks like you, secure in the Father’s love for you, seeing each person as the beloved child of the Father. What does love look like for you today?