‘I Love You”: The Familiar Phrase With So Many Meanings

“I love you.” When you hear that, what comes to your mind? When you say it, what do you mean?

 

In a few days we’ll be celebrating Valentine’s Day, the annual event dedicated to love. (In the case of retailers, it’s the love of money – the result of increased sales of flowers, candies, jewelry, and anything else someone can think of that represents their affection for another.) We see commercials with the Valentine’s theme, and the Hallmark channels use it as an excuse for more of what they do – show movies about schmaltzy, sentimental love.

However, thanks to the multi-tasking nature of the English language, when someone says, “I love you,” we almost need to ask, “What do you mean by that?”

 

Because expressions of love can mean just about anything. We can love our dog, our car, our job, our favorite TV show, a warm, sunny day, or our favorite sports team. Each use of love carries very different meaning. We can love our spouse (or significant other), and love our children – our love can be just as intense, but it doesn’t mean the same and the way we demonstrate it is different. And love for God has a meaning all its own.

 

We read a lot about love in the Bible, but the ancient Greeks had numerous words for love that covered a broad range of meaning. “Philia” refers to affectionate regard, or friendship. The city of Philadelphia got its name from this word. “Storge” refers to affection, particularly between parents and children. “Eros” was the word for sexual passion; we get the word “erotic” from this. But most commonly used is “agape,” which typically refers to selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love.

 

The latter usage is the focus of 1 Corinthians 13, that favored passage often inserted into marriage ceremonies, sometimes with serious intent and other times to confer a sanctified tone. But it says: 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

 

After declaring that, “Love never fails,” this passage concludes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:4-13).

 

We often hear the phrase, “What the world needs now is love.” And so it does. But what it – and we – need is not the warm, fuzzy, mushy kind of love, but the kind described above, that intentionally and determinedly puts others first, setting personal agendas aside.

 

As for Valentine’s Day, which is the best kind of love to have? Friendship, affection, sexual passion, or sacrificial, unconditional love? How about all of them? They’re all important, invaluable parts of the whole, one being incomplete without all of the others. Sealed with love for God and His love for us, they cannot be conquered.

 

After all, as John 3:16 emphatically declares, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Imagine divine love so deep, and so wide, that even the outstretched arms and hands of Jesus Christ – on a crude, cruel cross on a desolate hillside in Jerusalem – couldn’t begin to contain its measure! 

Most Amazing Fact in the Bible

The Bible, the best-selling book ever, has been translated in entirety into more than 635 languages. The New Testament has been translated into more than 1,440 languages. The Bible is comprised of 66 separate “books” – 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament – with nearly 3,000 languages having at least one of those books. But these statistics pale in comparison to the astonishing array of facts, truths, teachings and principles presented in the Bible, all believed to have been written and compiled under the inspiration of God.

With that in mind, if someone were to ask, “What’s the most amazing fact in the Bible?” how would you respond?

One might be tempted to reply, “Where do I start? There are so many things that we could cite.” But recently, reading a book about the early history of CBMC – a ministry to business and professional men – I came across a statement that caused me to nod in agreement, “Yes, that is the most amazing fact in the Bible.” What is it? I won’t keep you in suspense for long.

In the book was the story of Waldo Yeager of Toledo, Ohio, one of CBMC’s early leaders. He had written a gospel tract called “Life’s Most Amazing Fact,” and was explaining to another leader in his city what that “fact” was.

Yeager proceeded to acknowledge that in their community he would have been widely considered “a good sort of fellow, an average businessman at least, a good husband and father. But people don’t really know me. My wife and my two boys know me a little better than you do, and they are quite charitable with me…. But you know, even they don’t really know me.”

Then he concluded, “There’s only one Person who really does know me, and that’s God Himself. He knows all about me, my weaknesses, the myriad things I would not dare to expose, even to my own family. Yes, He knows all about me, and here’s the amazing fact – He still loves me!”

That, in the proverbial nutshell, is the most amazing fact in the Bible. God, the holy, all-knowing, omnipresent deity that many of us worship, knows each one of us – faults, imperfections, sins and all – and still loves us. That’s truly justifies the adjective, amazing.

Most of us do reasonably well at maintaining a good front. We like people to think highly of us, and have become skilled at showing our most favorable side – unless, of course, someone really ticks us off, in which case our facades come down. We want folks to say of us, “He’s a good guy,” or “She’s a nice woman.” But in the presence of God – which is all the time – He knows us as we really are on the inside.

As King David wrote, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast…. Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:7-24).

Elsewhere in the Scriptures, we’re reminded, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). From childhood, we begin cultivating the skill of acting as if we have it all together, even when we don’t. No sense letting people see us at our worst, right? As Abraham Lincoln once said, we can fool all the people some of the time.

But God isn’t deceived. He knows who we truly are, on the inside as well as out. And He still loves us! That, as Waldo Yeager said many years ago, is the most amazing fact in the Bible.