A House Of Love

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. . . . Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 JOHN 4:7–8, 11–12

WHAT MARKS A TRULY CHRISTIAN HOME? IS IT THE FACT THAT our minivan or SUV pulls out of the driveway every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. and heads to church?

Is it the fact that we have a Bible inside the home and some religious art on our walls?

Is it the fact that we pray before meals and at bedtime?

Let me attempt to answer this question indirectly. I enjoy reading through the great Christian classics, particularly when I notice classical writers saying almost the same thing. You get a feel for how God’s Holy Spirit reveals his truth in two different eras, through different individuals, and the “testimony of two or three” becomes even more convincing than the creative words of one.

Andrew Murray would say that the true mark of a Christian home is love: “The home is consecrated by the light of Jesus’ love resting on the children, the power of His love dwelling in the parents, and the raising of children being made a work of love for Him.”^a He urges parents, “Try to maintain the rule of love—not merely natural parental love, but love as a principle of action that is carefully cultivated in your family life. Then the children will catch this spirit of love and become your helpers in making your home the reflection of love for which the heavenly Father guides and trains His children.”^b

Now compare the above with Charles Spurgeon:

The best preparation for teaching Christ’s lambs is love—love for Jesus and for them. . . . Where there is no love, there will be no life. . . . We preach and teach love. Our subject is the love of God in Christ Jesus. How can we teach this if we have no love ourselves? Our object is to create love in the hearts of those we teach, and to foster it where it already exists. But how can we convey the fire if it is not kindled in our own hearts? How can a person promote the flame whose hands are damp and dripping with worldliness and indifference, so that he acts on the child’s heart rather as a bucket of water than as a flame of fire?

These lambs of the flock live in the love of Christ. . . . They were chosen in love and redeemed in love. They have been called in love, washed in love, and fed by love. They will be kept by love until they come to the green pastures on the hilltops of heaven. You and I will be out of gear with the vast machinery of divine love unless our souls are full of affectionate zeal for the good of the beloved ones.^c

Both Murray and Spurgeon recognize love as the hallmark of the Christian home. We receive, celebrate, and live in God’s love; we pass on that love to our children, and we teach them to love God and others. We are born in love, redeemed by love, carried by love, and called to love.

May our kids see that our primary motivation, the rule of our lives, the guiding principle in our home, is love—for in that love, they’ll see the way of the kingdom and seek to know this love for themselves.

This week, consider what the level of love is in your house. More important than the color of the walls, the age of the couch, the size of the floor plan, or the acreage of the yard is the amount of love in the hearts of the parents. Remember—it’s not just natural parental love, but “love as a principle of action that is carefully cultivated in your family life.” Would your children see love as the ruling principle, the guiding element, the prevailing climate inside your house?

Heavenly Father, give us a new thirst to have a home that seeks to be defined by love. Help us to receive your love and learn how to pass that love on so that, when our kids are gone, the thing they will remember most is that they grew up in a house filled with love. In Jesus’ name, amen.