A LIFE OF LOVE

Love is not about what we feel for others — it's about what we do for others.

Who gets married on a Tuesday?

That's what family and friends of Kim and Scotti Madison wondered when they opened their invitations to the couple's Tuesday wedding. But to Kim and Scotti, it made perfect sense.

Kim lived in Nashville, where she'd raised her five children after a tough divorce. Scotti, also divorced, traveled to Nashville on business. Friends introduced them, and from the day they met, they shared a commitment to taking things slowly and making sure any relationship that developed would be prayerfully considered.

"When I was navigating the dating world after my divorce, my pastor said, 'Kim, the right man for you is the one who would be serving the homeless whether you are there or not,'" Kim recalled.

Sure enough, the night Scotti traveled to Nashville to ask Kim to consider dating him seriously was also the night she'd committed to overseeing midweek worship at the Nashville Women's Mission. She said yes to the date, on the condition that Scotti join her at the mission. And, she added, since he'd be coming anyway, would he be her guest speaker?

Scotti agreed, and that night he spoke from his heart to the women about losing his son to heroin and about living a strong life in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

"I heard his heart for Jesus, and I saw his desire to serve others," Kim said. "I knew that night God wanted us to be together."

Not long after that night, they were invited to volunteer at the Bridge Ministry, a thirteen-year-old ministry serving the homeless under the Jefferson Street Bridge in Nashville.

"This was a sector of our society I used to look through and around," Scotti says. "Now I look into the eyes and souls of those who are hurting. Jesus said, 'They will know you by your love.' Serving, listening, hugging, and praying with these special people alongside Kim is where I am the happiest and most fulfilled."

By Christmas, Scotti made it clear he wanted to marry Kim, and she felt the same way about him. Over the following month, the couple prayed about God's timing for the wedding and the details. Of course, Nashville offered plenty of beautiful venues, and there were a number of Fridays and Saturdays that would have worked just fine.

But that's not what God showed them. Both Kim and Scotti felt the Lord showed them the same location and time: under the Jefferson Street Bridge, on a Tuesday night, when they could celebrate with and serve the homeless.

"It was a real destination wedding," Scotti says, smiling. "And we shared it with our special guests — those whom Jesus wanted invited to the wedding banquet: 'the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.'"

"We'd reached a point in our lives where we recognized Christ's love is centered around serving," Kim adds. "We wanted our friends and family to know and hear, 'This is who we are. Will you now serve alongside us?'"

And so, on May 9, 2017, they gathered with their guests, including more than two hundred of their homeless friends. Everyone enjoyed an amazing meal, a worship service and a heartfelt ceremony. Knowing that to the homeless a slice of wedding cake meant they were truly guests who mattered, Kim and Scotti made sure everyone had all the wedding cake they wanted. When Kim and Scotti were pronounced man and wife, they went down every aisle and greeted their guests individually.

No one who attended that wedding left unmoved or unchanged. Why? Because Kim and Scotti took the love that filled their hearts when they served the homeless, and they gave it back — bestowing it abundantly and permanently on every one of their wedding guests.

WHAT IS LOVE?

Is there a more complex word than love? I don't think so. We talk about loving God, loving football, loving pizza, receiving love, giving love, and making love. At church we sing about the love of God that's "greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell."

Then we get in the car and head home, radio on, listening to songs about love: selfish and self-centered love; one-sided, hopeless love; deceit and cruelty masquerading as love; and once in a while, a mature, other-centered love that stands the test of time.

No wonder we take the word love for granted! We're obsessed with it, yet rarely do we witness or hear what love truly is in the world around us.

If true love is so unfamiliar, why do people write, talk, text, and sing about it so much?

Because there's a hole in the human heart. We're desperate for the experience of genuine love. Within intimate relationships and in our daily interactions with others, every one of us needs reassurance, affection, and fellowship — all forms of love. Love is oxygen for the soul; we have to have it. The first thing an infant needs at birth is to be held tenderly, to literally feel loved. This manifestation of love brings a lifetime of blessings.

The Bible has a lot to say about love. In the New International Version of the Bible, the word love occurs 567 times. From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, the story of the Bible is the story of God's unconditional and relentless love for mankind. Love is the foundation of everything good, which is why I chose it to be the first chapter in this book. Quite simply, love is what makes every other part of a life beyond amazing possible.

The love that appears at the top of almost every list of virtues in the Bible is not just God's love for us, but also our love for one another. To become a Christian means the very love of God is poured into your heart; it grows within you just as grapes grow on a vine, for the fruit of the Spirit is love.

This love isn't just a spiritual sensation. This love wears work gloves and handles the everyday nuts and bolts of life. It's highly practical. It hugs the lonely, feeds the hungry, tends the sick, comforts the sorrowful, and puts up with the insufferable. It is kind and long-suffering, pure and perceptive, positive in outlook. It is truly the key ingredient of a life beyond amazing.

THE HIGHEST FORM OF LOVE

Until Jesus came to earth, this kind of love was unknown. The world's concept of love was self-centered, love that demanded something in return. But when God sent His Son as a love-gift to this world, His special, other-centered love was put on display for all to see. And this love was so different from anything anyone had seen before that it was given a special name. They called it agape.

Agape is unconditional, divine love, the kind of love God exercises toward mankind. At the heart of agape is sacrifice. It is not the spontaneous, impulsive love we see on television and in the movies. It is the reasoning, esteeming, and choosing type of love. Agape is the highest form of love — the love everyone wants to...