One Saturday afternoon when we lived in Boise, I was out in the back yard working. Shawnacee opened the back door and asked, "Daddy how do you spell LOVE?" I gave her the four letters, and with her new found skill to print she placed them on a drawing she was drawing for Colleen.

Dads, how do you spell love?

All of us need to ask ourselves that question. "How do we spell love?" It is more than a matter of putting four letters of the alphabet together in the correct order.

Are we the kind of people who spell it as we express it?

Do we spell it in the way we live and in the way we fulfill our personal relationships. If that is the case, then love may be the most misspelled word in the vocabulary of our lives.

	There is abundant evidence of the disastrous consequences of misdirected and inadequate love.
	The teenager whose parents have given her everything but the gift of their presence and love.
	A battered spouse victimized by the one who had earlier in life said, "I promise to you my love."
	A church torn by jealousy and misplaced priorities.
	The words whispered in the ear of a date as the car stops in front of a motel: "You love me don't you?"

How do you spell love?

Our children are asking. The world is asking. A world desperately in need of Christ's love is watching and waiting for our response, a response can will make the difference in the quality of live now and for eternity.

	The Bible speaks widely about love.
	100's of books have been written.
	Friends and family have advice on the subject of love.

But how do you spell love?

I suggest we spell love with trust, Trust that accepts the risks.

I suggest we spell love with involvement, an involvement that is willing to share.

I suggest we spell love with commitment, commitment that stays until the very end no matter what.

That is how we ought to spell love.

This morning I want us to look at how we might better know how to spell love in our own lives.

I. Love Is Spelled With Trust, Involvement, and Committment.

A. First of all we spell it with Trust.

There can be no genuine love in our lives without trust. Genuine love involves trust that accepts the risk of sharing your life with other people, sharing your thoughts, your goals and dreams. It is laying your life out on the table where other people can see it and be a part of it.

Dads, do you do this with your kids? Do they know who you are? Have you thought about sharing your hopes and dreams and desires with your children or spouse?

Because love involves trusting, Love is not unwilling to trust a young person to make some decisions for life. Nor is it the motivive for a husband to grill his wife about her friendships.

Jealousy leaves no room for love and risk.

Reba MacIntyer sings a song entitled, "Have you ever cheated on me?" The answer, in the song, is "only in my mind." Colleen and I don't even have to ask such a question.

The Apostle Paul said, "Love believes all things." That does not mean love is gullible or blind, but it does mean love posses the attitude of complete trust.

God loves us and trusts us to do His will and to love Him back. I believe that if God can do that we can make an honest effort to spell love with Trust.

B. Second, love is spelled with Involvement.

Love is spelled involvement, in that it is willing to share.

Folksinger, Joan Baez was married to David Harris. David was sent to jail for refusing to serve in the army. While he was in prison, Joan was always singing about David, telling the world of the love between them. David at the same time wrote a book about their relationship--how much he missed his wife and was looking forward to the day when he would be united with her and his child. A few months after David's release he said these words. "Living together is getting in the way of our relationship."

They decided to separate--long distance love for them was much easier than day-to-day involvement.

Many people in the world today feel the same way. Some who are legally married live like singles. The wife is with her girl friends; he is on the golf course. He mows the lawn, she mops the floor. Each is doing his own thing--no involvement, no commitment, no sharing. Their "first love" goes unnourished until, afflicted with emotional and spiritual malnutrition, it finally dies in the cold, sterile environment of what might have looked like a "perfect marriage." (That happened to Joan and David.)

A little girl had just heard the story Snow White for the first time. So full of enthusiasm that she could hardly contain herself, she retold the story to her mother. After telling about how Prince Charming arrived on his beautiful white horse and kissed Snow White back to life, she asked her mother, "Do you know what happened then?"

"Yes, they lived happily ever after."

"No," responded the little girl, with a frown, "they got married."

With childlike innocence, the little girl has spoken a partial truth without even knowing it. You see, getting married and living happily ever after are not necessarily synonymous events. Love takes involvement from both sides.

Marriage is like a violin; it doesn't work without the strings. And when the music stops, the strings are still attached.

King Frederick II attempted to raise children without maternal affection. He wanted to find out what kind of speech children would have when they grew up if they spoke to no one in their formidable years. He had the children raised in foster care and gave strict instruction for no one to speak to the children. He was curious to see if they would speak Hebrew, the oldest language, or Greek, or Latin or even Arabic, or perhaps the language of their parents, of whom they had been born. But he never found the answer because the children all died. They could not live without the attention all children need from their parents. Missing were the joyful faces and the loving words needed to mature life.

If love is going to grow in our relationships, it will be on account of the involvement we give to it.

C. Love is spelled with Commitment.

Love is commitment that never gives up.

Paul said; in 1 Corinthians 13:7c,8 "Love endures all things. Love never fails;...."

Dads, moms, brothers, sisters, friends, love has a "commitment quality" that is willing to endure and fine tune a relationship. Commitment should prevail in our relationships,

	as husband-wife,
	as parent-child,
	as employer-employee,
	as minister-congregation.

At every level of our relationships commitment should be the glue that helps hold them together.

Love is not a blind emotion, it is an act of the will. I believe that love should be a decision based on the forethought of commitment. (Repeat)

Nate Saint was one of five missionaries who were killed by the Auca Indians. He once said that his life did not change until he came to grips with the idea that, "Obedience is not a momentary option...it is a die-cast decision made beforehand."

The same is to be said about love: Love is not a momentary option...it is a die-cast decision made beforehand."

II. Two Biblical Examples of Love.

There are two examples from scripture that illustrate this kind of love I have been talking about..

A. First, there is an example of a father and his daughter.

The Book of Esther in the Old Testament describes the relationship between a father and his daughter. Esther (the daughter) won the Ms. Kingdom Pageant and became queen. Haman, the story tells us was elevated to power by King Ahasuerus. He issued a ruling which stated that everyone should bow down before him. He got angry beyond degree when Mordecai, Esther's adopted father, refused to obey his order. In a fit of rage, Haman issued an order to annihilate all Jews, with this order he was willing to pay the sum equal to 10 million dollars.

The plot thickened. Esther had not seen the king for 30 days (4:11). This tells us a lot about their marriage, their lack of involvement, commitment, and trust. This was not necessarily Esther's fault. At any rate, she was encouraged by Mordecai to go to the king on behalf of her people. But, to do this meant a possible death sentence (4:11). Esther said "I will go to the king,...if I perish, I perish" (4:16).

You talk about a risk! You talk about involvement!

Esther had learned this kind of love from her adopted father, Mordecai.

Some of you are fathers, but maybe you have been a better father to someone other than your own child. Maybe you have related to a niece or a nephew, or one of the youth in the church as a father.Have you been a loving father, willing to trust, willing to accept risk, willing to involve yourself because of your love?

Esther and Mordecai knew trust, involvement, and even commitment. They faced the risks and won.

This love of Trust, Involvement, and Commitment is:

B. Next seen in the example of a father and his two sons.

Luke chapter 15 is where this second example of love is found.

We know the story: The younger son asked his father for his share of the coming inheritance so he could go out on his own. His Dad gave it to him--no fuss no fighting, he just gave it to him. While the boy was growing up, the father had loved him and trained him in the way he should go and the time had come to let him go, risking him to the far country.

The father never gave up on his son and later because of his commitment he reaped the reward of a new and deeper love with his son. This father has a commitment that stayed until the end and that commitment enabled him to see his son's return.

The parable tells us that the father saw his son coming down the road one day and ran to meet him. He did not greet the boy with "I told you so!" but "My son, welcome home!" He wrapped his arms around him with love that he had never really let go of.

3. The Father's Love.

The significant thing about love is that it can only be spelled with help from God the Father. Just like Shawnacee asked me, "Daddy, how do you spell love?" so we must come to God in order to know the true meaning of love.

The Apostle John said, in 1 John 4:7, "Love is of God," and then he said to look at how He showed us He is love, "God showed how much He loved us by sending His only Son into this wicked world to bring us eternal life thorough His death. In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God, but His love for us when He sent His Son to satisfy God's anger against our sins." John 4:9, 10 (LB)

We cannot know what love is outside of a relationship with the Lord.

In creation God showed His love for the entire world, which man is to "have dominion" over.

What a risk! In Christ, God "became flesh and dwelt among us." in Christ our Lord became involved with the full dimensions of our lives--temptation, suffering, joy, and even death. He was willing to share it all in order to give us life.

On the cross He demonstrated commitment of the deepest kind, turn to Romans 5:8.

The same John who wrote about love in First, Second, and Third John says in the Gospel John, Facing the cross, and looking at Jesus up there I couldn't help but see His commitment of Love. He wrote; "having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." (John 13:1).

Through His Word and through His people He still loves us today. He has trusted us with the ministry of sharing the Good News. He risks the mission of winning the world to the likes of mankind.

Dads, how do you spell love today? The Heavenly Father tells us to spell it with Trust, Involvement, and Commitment. In His letter to the Ephesians Christians, Paul prays that they may know the dimensions of Christ's love and be rooted and grounded in it. He begins the prayer with the hope that they will through faith allow Christ to dwell in their hearts; "for the purpose of being rooted and grounded in love..." (Eph 3:17). We cannot understand the Love of God until we have faith in Him. Then when we do we will be able to share it with others. We will have a Trusting love, we will have a love that gets us Involved, and we possess a love of solid Commitment.

At the time of this writing, James Simmons was the Pulpit Minister of the Church of Christ in Crescent City, California.

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