New Year's Resolution: Revive the Significance of the Word LOVE.

          I'm going to get right to the point here: you can't know how to love someone in a marriage-ready way until you know on a personal level the way that Christ loves his bride, the church -- namely, you. I can tell you this from very personal experience. If you read my first post, you know that I said I thought I was in love. Anyone who knows me and the man I dated would say that I was indeed in love with him, but I wasn't, because I didn't know what love was until I let Jesus Christ into my life.
          Love is such a powerful word, guys. Love is the image of a man being beaten until he couldn't stand. Love is having a crown made of thorns pounded onto his head. Love is being spat upon. Love is being mocked. Love is being asphyxiated by his own body weight while he had nails that had been pounded through both of his hands and his ankles that held him to a roughly hewn cross that rubbed his already bleeding flesh raw. Love is going through all of this even though He could have stopped it in an instant, because He needed to save us. So when you look into the eyes of your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife or son or daughter or mother or father or grandma or grandpa or whoever you are saying I love you to, remember that. If you don't know, and believe, and whole-heartedly understand on a personal level that kind of love, then you don't know what love is. Do not be deceived, church. Jesus paid much too high a cost to show you that He loves you for you to be throwing that word around without regard for its significance.
          Here is a link to one professor's extremely detailed description of the way in which Jesus Christ died. Read it and let it affect you. Let it move you, let it motivate you to love Jesus deeper and let it change the way you view the words, "I love you."
          I challenge you to go to that link and read exactly what happened to Christ on the cross. It paints such a vivid picture in your mind. My heart is heavy thinking about what a price was paid for my life, but there is such joy in knowing that the price was paid willingly. He wanted to prove His love for us. There is no greater love, and pure love is nothing short of that. So find another way to communicate your feelings for people until you can truly say, "I love you."