Does God's Love Make A Difference In The Home

The Difference God’s Love Makes in the Home

Romans 16:3-5

I Corinthians 13

The family and home are under attack today. All families experience stress and distress due to work schedules and various activities at school, at work and at church. We need to ask the question. Does the love of God make a difference in the home?

Paul in his closing chapter of the book of Romans gives greeting to Priscilla and Aquila and to all who meet regularly in their home. Romans 16:5, “Please give my greetings to the church that meets in their home.”

Whenever you and your family, 2 or 3, meet for family Bible reading and prayer, have friends into your home to discuss scripture and have prayer, you are having church in your house. At the center of our meetings whether at home or at church should be God’s love.

From personal experience I can testify that God’s love does make a difference in the home. In a negative way I experienced God’s love in the home. Up through 8th grade we had stress and a very dysfunctional atmosphere in our home. My dad didn’t know how to show God’s love or for that matter, human love. His goal in life was inwardly focused and he found his fulfillment outside the home. When I personally saw my dad come out of a house several blocks from our home with another woman I knew my parent’s marriage was in trouble.

When I started the ninth grade in school my parents were separated. My mother found a teaching position in Sterling, Kansas 75 miles west of Gypsum. During my four years of High School my mother was able to bring the love of God into our home without stress or a dysfunctional atmosphere.

When I think of God’s love in the home I think of I Corinthians 13. I Corinthians 13 describes how God’s love is to be lived out in our home and in relationships. Whether you are single or married these principles apply to your life. The Apostle Paul describes love not just as a feeling but love is about making choices and decisions.

In Colossians 3:12-14 Paul suggests a number of things that we are to have for one another: compassion, forgiveness, kindness, and graciousness. Then Paul says, “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14 Put on love. It’s a choice we can make.

In some ways love is hard to describe. There are many kinds of love. I love to watch and play tennis. I love my wife and children. There are different kinds of love.

In preparing for this message I was reading the comments someone made on the comic strip, “Calvin and Hobbes.” The scene in the first box of the comic strip has mom laying in bed. It’s pitch black. It’s obviously the middle of the night. “Mom! Wake up. Come quick.” It’s Calvin calling for her. She sits up and kind of mumbles. “What is wrong, what is the matter?” “Come here.” So the next scene is the mother standing in the bedroom with Calvin saying, “Do you think love is nothing but a biochemical reaction designed to make sure our genes get passed on?”

His mom in the next scene looks at him and says, “Whatever it is, it’s the only thing that is keeping me from killing you right now.”

The last box is Calvin safely tucked back in bed, saying, “Mom’s midnight reassurances are never very reassuring.”

Love in relationships requires that we take action. On Valentines Day your wife or husband looks forward to hearing you say, “I love you. Here are some flowers or here is your favorite coffee or candy.”

Love is a feeling but it is also more than a feeling. Those of you who are married let me ask you this question: “Did you fall in love at the first sight of your spouse?” When I first saw Carollyn I liked her and over time grew to love her.

I met Carollyn during the fall of my senior year in college. My college room-mate encouraged me to ask Carollyn out on a date. Our first date almost didn’t happen. I was going with another girl, but decided to take my roommate’s advice and ask Carollyn to go out on a date with me. The boy’s dorm was a block down the hill on Greenville College campus. One evening I walked up the hill. I almost went in the front door of the dorm, but chickened out and walked half way back down the hill. Remember I had never personally met Carollyn yet. My room- mate pointed her out to me, but she didn’t know who I was from Adam. She only knew me because that same evening my girl- friend was telling other girls in the dorm what a great guy I was. Well, I got up my nerve and walked back up the hill and went through the door. I saw a girl I knew and asked her to go tell Carollyn someone wanted to talk to her. Carollyn came down to the reception area and Carollyn saw standing before her the very person my former girlfriend was talking about. Anyway I introduced myself and asked Carollyn to attend church with me. Carollyn and I had similar goals in life and in time we made the commitment to one another in marriage. That commitment in love has stood strong now for 45 years.