I picked up this sign at our grocery store around Valentine’s Day. It says: I love you more than… I thought it was cute and would be a different way to send positive messages to my family.
Part of the reason I picked this up was to remind me why I love my family. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? But you know, there are those days that the attitudes, the sheer noise level and the irritating habits just make me want to jump off the cliff. I’m not the only one right?
So I put it out and wrote on it, I love you more than…pizza. Because I love pizza. Like I could eat it every day for weeks without getting sick of it.
Since then, every once in a while, someone else changes the message. I thought I would have to do it all the time, but it’s caught on.
Once it was: I love you more than…the Denver Broncos. Mmm wonder who put that there? Then it was I love you more than…the weekend. I love you more than…school. (We have one person here who really does LOVE school.) Last week it was I love you more than…March Break.
It sounds silly but these are all things that people in my house love. Putting together the message with the author, it starts to make sense because they really do adore these things but what they are telling the rest of us, is that we mean more.
Today I was looking at the sign and I was thinking about the message it sends every time it is read. How we love things but in the end, we love our people more.
As it’s Holy Week, the week before Easter, I thought about the message God would write on that board. I love you more than…! How would you fill that in? How would I?
I love you more than…all the stuff you’ve done right.
I love you more than…your worst sin/nightmare/fear.
I love you more than…all your successes.
I love you more than…_____________.
Then I had a thought. (It occasionally happens!) God did kinda write a sign like that for us. It’s John 3:16. It’s so familiar to us that I think we lose some of the wonder and awe of those words and what they mean, so I’ve put it here in a couple of different translations which hopefully will wake us up out of our spiritual lethargy.
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. New Living Translation
For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have everlasting life. The Voice
Here’s another one. I love you more than…
Psalm 103:11-12 The Voice
Measure how high heaven is above the earth;
God’s wide, loving, kind heart is greater for those who revere Him.
You see, God takes all our crimes—our seemingly inexhaustible sins—and removes them.
As far as east is from the west, He removes them from us.
The bible is full of declarations and examples of how much we are loved. God never holds back!
I hope this Easter, if you are a Jesus follower, you will feel His passionate, everlasting and faithful love and be able to receive it with an open heart.
If you don’t follow Jesus, I hope this Easter you are wooed by that love, to investigate a little deeper how precious and loved you are by God and His Son.
Happy Easter!
Jen