| Review – The
Love Languages of God |
|
by
Gary Chapman
Published by Northfield Publishing
Review by Tom Gilbert © 2003
Most everyone agrees that love is a good thing. How
we both express and receive love can differ from
one person to the next. Gary Chapman has spent
a lifetime in exploring the various languages of
love and has detailed that in his previous books.
In The Love Languages of God he
shows us how we best experience God in the love
language we speak. While it is possible for us
to experience God’s bountiful love in more
ways than one, Chapman believes we all have a
primary love language. He identifies them as
five specific expressions: words of affirmation,
quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch.
The benefit of discovering which expression speaks most deeply to your
heart is that you can recognize God’s love and experience
it better when you know your primary love language.
Not only that, but you can then reciprocate in
that way. God, of course, wants us to express
our love for Him by demonstrating it to others.
Therefore, if we show our love for God by words,
acts, our time, our giving and our physical expressions
in meaningful ways to others we are truly demonstrating our love to God.
Getting past our thinking about love to expressing
it is one of the most powerful breakthroughs
any of us can make. We have to get beyond our
head knowledge and speak the language of the heart.
This book gives many real life examples of people speaking their primary
language of love and discovering how broad God’s love is. The goal is to
receive God’s love and return it in our language. Naturally, if we have been trying to
express our language in ways other than our primary expression we won’t
connect on the most meaningful level.
Discovering that primary language requires asking
yourself some questions about how you show your
love to others, what you complain about and what
you most often request of God and other people.
The latter two can reveal a lot about yourself.
They are good tools to discover our deepest emotional
needs for love. You may be surprised to discover
just what your primary language is.
If you learn to recognize that not everyone has the same primary love
language it opens up a world of understanding. Suddenly husbands and
wives see that what used to be a complaint or
annoyance is just that they have different primary
love languages. This is true for everyone, not
just married couples. The key is to appreciate
each other’s ways of loving, learn to speak
each other’s language, and to keep God
in the mix. This is both practical and powerful.
Reading this book reminded me of how important
we are to God and how wonderful it is to have
diversity among us. The different parts of the
Body of Christ live in unity by speaking the
various languages of love. Ultimately we are
taught to speak these languages by communicating
them in our daily living. This is a good reminder
that we are not to be just hearers of the Word,
but doers. The result is a more profound worship.
Gary Chapman’s goal is to have us learn
to speak the various love languages of God which
will grow us into more mature Christians. Using
the five love languages that Chapman explores
is a good beginning, but the author readily admits
there are infinite dialects of these languages.
God’s way of showing love encompasses an
entire universe. It all starts with the most
natural way for you to experience and express
your love for God – through your primary
love language.
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Scripture taken from
the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.Copyright
© 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by
permission of International Bible Society.
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are
registered trademarks of International Bible Society.
Use of either trademark for the offering of goods
or services requires the prior written consent of
International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from
the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright
©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189, USA. All rights
reserved.
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