All you need is (the Father's) love

By Sammy Jordan, Project Lead Hope for Every Home

As soon as Christmas is over shop shelves turn red as February and Valentines Day approaches. Sammy reveals the best Valentine’s Day card you could ever receive – The Father’s Love Letter! Join Sammy as she explores how love is not just for Valentine’s Day, but how the Father’s love for us can fuel prayer and prepare the ground for mission…

It’s February when supermarket aisles turn red, pink and heart shaped…let’s face it. Some shops were red by 27th December! The supermarket seasonal aisle is one of my cultural reference points because it signals what people are immersed in, what’s already in the popular psyche. I then wonder what the invitation is. What can The Church offer that builds a bridge between the cultural reference point (supermarket aisle) and faith in a Father who calls us his beloved children? This is the question I am asking myself as I try to be good news to my neighbours on our local estate – serving and loving them with a deeper love than the secular love on Valentine’s Day. The Father’s love.

If you haven’t already guessed… I’m not big on Valentine’s Day. Dramatic gestures of affection are not my thing; but love is. There are lots of people who won’t receive cards, flowers or chocolates on February 14th, but I’d love everyone to know that they are loved. I can’t help thinking how different the world would be if everyone knew who and whose they are; that their identity is a child of a loving Father who created us for relationship with him. If love shaped us, rather than looks, money, ability, skills, and a skewed sense of self-worth (thanks to social media)… the world would be transformed!

So many songs tell us that it’s all about love. As I write this, I have the Beatles song, ‘All You Need Is Love…. Love is All You Need’ in my head. That was written before I was born but a quick Google suggests that love is the most common theme for songs, poems and stories. A 2018 study found that between 1960 and 2010, 67.3 percent of lyrics from top-40 songs referenced relationships and love. It seems that whilst the world and culture change, the importance of love doesn’t. Maybe love is all we need…and want.

We love because Father God first loved us (1 John 4:19). As he was knitting us together in our mother’s womb, God loved us. As we took our first breath. He loved us. As we go about our day to day lives, He loves us. In a world where people are searching for their sense of identity, before anything else… we are beloved children. What a powerful message to grasp. And even more mind-blowing is that we have a heavenly Father who cannot not love us, because HE. IS. LOVE! (1 John 4:8)

The thing is…what if people don’t feel loveable? I live on an estate with a high proportion of social housing. Beneath the veneer of new freshly painted housing are many of the issues people face in their daily lives. I have neighbours with long term health conditions, caring for family members, facing the challenge of unemployment, living with anxiety, impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and waiting to access mental health support. It occurs to me that when people are facing challenges (which often involve waiting for broken/stretched systems to meet their needs), it’s easy to feel that things are done to you, to be robbed of agency and with it, your confidence and dignity. So, before I can tell anyone they have a Father who loves them, I must first love them myself and help them feel worthy of love—restoring their confidence, dignity, and sense of agency.

This is the point where, if I’m giving a talk, I pick up two brown bananas. A few years ago, our community group launched a community fridge for our estate. Yes, it was to reduce food waste, but it was also to increase community engagement, providing an easy way for people to get involved and feel that they are making a contribution. At one time or another, lots of people might have two brown bananas in their fruit bowl, one to eat that day and maybe one to give away…to our community fridge. So, my challenge, before showing or telling someone they are loved, is to help them feel lovable by offering simple ways to make a difference, get involved, and restore their agency, dignity, and confidence.

This month as shops and homes are filled with red, white and pink gifts and cards, can our minds and actions be full of the Father’s love for our non-Christian friends and neighbours? Can we share with them the powerful message of who and whose they are? Can I invite you to start by praying, caring and sharing as an act of love?
 

PRAY

• Pray for 5 friends and neighbours who don’t yet know Jesus.
• Pray for your community. Prayer walk the area where you live, praying for the homes, schools, shops, offices along the way.
• Download the OIKOS app to help you! This free app helps you to plot where you have prayed and there are more resources from our partners at Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, the Discover Bible app and others to help you too.
• If you’ve never prayed for your community before, check out this great video from our partners at Local Houses of Prayer. 

CARE

• How might God be asking you to prepare the ground by helping people in your community feel loveable?
• What practical ways are there to show care for your community?

SHARE

All of the above (and the blog as a whole) leads nicely onto something very exciting I want to share with you... we are launching a brand new, beautifully designed resource you can share with your community. The Fathers Love Letter is a selection of verses from the Bible about Father God’s love for his creation and his children. These verses are woven together in the form of a letter written from God to his children. Originally written as a sermon by Barry Adams, a Canadian church pastor, The Father’s Love Letter is now global, being translated into most of the world’s languages, as well as being made into a beautiful animation. (Hope Together has been given permission to produce a new version of The Fathers Love Letter for the UK.)  
 

 

If you’re thinking this all sounds great, but struggling to work out how to share The Father’s Love Letter in your context, then the new UK website can help! It includes resources, hints and tips to help you think about how to share The Fathers Love Letter with your community.
 
And that’s not all! We want every home and individual in the UK to know that they are a beloved child of God, so we are making The Fathers Love Letter FREE! All you need to do is head over to the Hope Together Shop, buy 1 pack for 21p (to cover transaction costs), and then get unlimited copies for free! You can download it and print your own or we will send you as many copies as you need and you just pay postage!

So, this Valentines Day, let’s help people know the Father’s love really is all we need.