How Grace Speaks Your Love Language

I believed in Jesus when I was in the fourth grade after hearing the gospel at a Baptist revival.

My parents didn’t go to church, so I didn’t attend regularly.

When I did go, I don’t ever remember hearing a message about my identity in Christ.

I didn’t know that I became a brand-new, pure, righteous, and holy person in Christ.

I didn’t even know that I was “in Christ.”

I didn’t have a clue about my eternal spiritual union with Him—that He was in me and I was in Him—and that it was a done deal forever.

Because I was a new creation with an unrenewed mind from the ages of 9 to 39, I lived just like nothing changed when I got saved.

Thirty years of not knowing who I was in Christ and not enjoying my relationship with Him is what fuels my passion to help other believers enjoy their union with Him.

Growing up, everything in my life revolved around my performance.

I got my love, value, and acceptance from being good and making good grades.

Because when you’re good and you make good grades, you get applause from others.

This naturally carried over into my relationship with Christ, and, to be honest, I never felt like all the things I was doing was good enough to please Him.

What I didn’t realize was that “my” performance would never be good enough to cause Him to be pleased with me.

I didn’t realize that He was already & forever pleased with me, simply because of my faith in Him.

I was relating to Him through a law-based mentality, even though I was under grace (Rom. 6:14–15).

My grace journey began in the early 2000s when I attended a conference where the speaker told me that I had become a brand-new creation in Christ the moment I trusted Christ for salvation back in 1974.

I was delightfully astonished to hear this good news about me, so I looked into the resources he recommended—which led me to a Bible teacher named Bill Gillham.

I got Bill’s books, Lifetime Guarantee and What God Wishes Christians Knew About Christianity and read them both till they started falling apart.

I also savored The Confident Woman: Knowing Who You Are in Christ that was written by Bill’s wife, Anabel.

In fact, I have enjoyed leading several ladies’ groups through The Confident Woman and have had wonderful feedback.

In recent years, books by Andrew Farley and other grace authors have helped me grow in grace.

All of these books told me over and over who I was in Christ and that He did everything necessary to make me right with Him.

The work was finished.

I just needed to fill my mind with the truth about my pure, righteous, holy, and blameless identity in Him.

I was already and forever flawless, apart from my attitudes and actions.

Soaking in these affirming, encouraging words of truth causes me to feel loved by God like nothing else because that is the primary way that I feel loved, valued, and accepted.

In the remainder of this post, I want to talk to you about how we feel loved by God when He speaks our love language.

Now, I want to clarify something from the beginning.

God calls us to walk by faith and not by sight, which includes feelings (2 Cor. 5:7).

Living in this fallen world, we are not going to feel God’s love for us 24/7/365.

He wants us to know that His love for us never changes, regardless of our circumstances, attitudes, or actions.

He wants our knowing to go deeper than our feelings, because feelings can change on a dime.

But does that mean that He never wants us to feel His love?

No, it doesn’t.

Just like we want those we love to feel loved by us, God wants us to feel His love for us.

He wired each one of us differently.

Some of us feel most loved when encouraging, affirming words are spoken or written to us.

Others feel most loved when someone spends undistracted, quality time with them.

Some of us feel most loved when someone does something for us that we would like.

Others feel most loved when someone gives them a hug, a pat on the back, or holds their hand.

And for some of us, nothing says “I love you” more than receiving a thoughtful gift from someone.

If you’ve never heard of these five love languages about which Dr. Gary Chapman has written extensively, you can go to 5lovelanguages.com and take the quiz to learn your primary love language.

Now, even though the quiz is about how we relate to other people, the five love languages is also a reflection of the different ways that God communicates His special love to each one of us.

When I speak of “His special love for you,” I’m not talking about the generic God-so-loved-the-world love, but His special love just for you.

His love that has been poured into your heart by His Spirit who lives in you (Rom. 5:5).

And, because of His grace, we can enjoy His special love for us any time we want!

This makes me think of the opening scene in the movie, Sweet Home Alabama, where young Melanie says to young Jake, “Why would you want to marry me for anyhow?” And he says, “So I can kiss you anytime I want!”

Because of God’s grace, we share an eternal spiritual union with Christ, where He is always loving us, no matter what.

Grace is defined as “the unprovoked lovingkindness and favor of God toward mankind in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.”

For believers, grace is the Spirit of Christ indwelling us 24/7/365.

In this post, I want to focus on how Christ’ Spirit in us—Mr. Grace Himself—is always speaking our love language.

When I took the quiz, I wasn’t surprised to learn that my primary love language is words of affirmation.

I feel most loved when others and God speak affirming, encouraging words to me.

The other four love languages are quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and receiving gifts.

Let’s start with …

1) How Grace speaks words of affirmation:

As I mentioned earlier, my love tank fills up fast when I read words that tell me who I am and what I have by grace through faith in Christ.

Some Scriptures used to give me a headache because I didn’t have the right glasses on—I was reading them through law lenses.

Now, I’m delighted to read my Bible and other grace-based books with new covenant glasses.

Some of my favorite, affirming Scriptures are …

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

“The temple of God is holy, and that is what you are” (1 Cor. 3:17).

“By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

“You were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

Romans 1:7 tells me that I am a beloved saint of God.

Ephesians 1:4 says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love.”

Colossians 1:22 says, “He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”

Romans 3:28 says, “A man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”

And Ephesians 2:8–9 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Not only do I experience words of affirmation through the Scriptures, but I also experience words of affirmation through Christ’s Spirit who lives in me.

In fact, Christ is described as the Word of God in John 1:1, 14.

Most of the time, this happens through thoughts that I become aware of in my mind.

This may sound silly to you, but when I pet my beagle, Joe, and tell him, “You’re such a good dog; I love you so much,” I sense Christ saying to me, “You are such a good person and I love you so much!”

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a tiny, shiny confetti heart on our wooden floor, and when I leaned down to pick it up, I heard Him say, “You have captured My heart, My sister, My bride!” (Song 4:9).

I could go on and on with examples of how He has affirmed me through thoughts that I experience …

Grace also speaks words of affirmation through other people.

So, grace speaks words of affirmation through the Scriptures, thoughts we experience, and through other people.

Now, let’s look at …

2) How Grace speaks quality time:

If your primary love language is quality time, you feel most loved when those you love spend one-on-one, undistracted time with you.

The enjoyment of quality time with God is always available to you because of your eternal spiritual union with Him.

1 Corinthian 6:17 says, “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”

In John 10:28, Jesus says, “I give eternal life to them and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”

Rom. 8:38–39 tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ.

2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful.”

Hebrews 13:5 says that He will never leave us, nor forsake us.

Those who feel loved by God through spending quality time with Him can spend hours just focused on Him and it seem like very little time has passed.

Grace also speaks quality time through others when God inspires them to love us in this way.

So, grace speaks quality time through His Spirit in us who never leaves us and through other people.

Now, let’s talk about …

3) How Grace speaks acts of service:

Those whose primary love language is acts of service feel most loved when those they love do things for them that they would like.

This immediately makes me think of Jesus’ words in Matthew 20:28: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

We feel loved when we think about all that Christ has already done for us through His finished work on the cross and His resurrection.

Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Titus 2:14 says, “[He] gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”

I could go on and on about what He has already done for us through the cross and resurrection.

But He also wants us to realize that He is not finished doing for us.

Right now, His servant Spirit lives in us 24/7/365 and He wants us to continually draw on His resources within us.

2 Peter 1: 3 says, “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him.”

In 2 Corinthians 12:8–10 (TLB), Paul writes, “Three different times I begged God to make me well again. Each time he said, ‘No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people.’ Now I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about “the thorn,” and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong—the less I have, the more I depend on him.”

2 Corinthians 4:16 tells us, “Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”

Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Ephesians 3: 20 says, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

Grace also speaks to us through the acts of service of other people.

So, grace speaks acts of service through His finished work and the ongoing ministry of His Spirit in and through us and others.

Now, let’s look at …

4) How Grace speaks physical touch:

Physical touch is a love language that runs a close second to words of affirmation for me.

My love tank fills up fast when I get a hug!

Even though Jesus’ actual physical Presence is not here on earth right now, He loves on us through the physical touch of others.

When my husband, Steven, hugs me, I sense God’s love flowing through him to me.

Grace also speaks physical touch when we experience healing restoration in our bodies.

I love Romans 8:11 that says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

This isn’t just speaking of physical restoration, but the ministry of His Spirit flowing from our spirit through our soul and body to meet our needs and the needs of others.

Now, we come to the last of the five love languages.

Let’s talk about …

5) How Grace speaks through gifts.

I saved this one for last, on purpose, because everything that we have in Christ is a gift!

Remember grace is “the unprovoked lovingkindness and favor of God toward mankind in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.”

His Spirit in us is the most extraordinary, lavish Gift we will ever receive and enjoy.

Acts 2:38 tells us that we received the gift of His Spirit when we believed in Him.

Romans 6:23 says, “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 5:17 says, “Those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

And 2 Corinthians 9:15 says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”

Ephesians 2:8 says that our salvation is the gift “of God.” Not just a gift “from God,” but “the Gift of God Himself” living in us.

Grace also speaks through the gifts we receive from others.

In summary, God’s grace—Christ’s Spirit living in us and through us and others—continually speaks the love languages of words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and gifts.

And when we consistently enjoy His special love for us, love for Him and others will automatically flow out of us.

“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

I hope you have enjoyed thinking about all the ways that grace speaks your love language.

I want to encourage you during this month of love (and every month!) to develop the habit of listening to God speak to you in your love language.

You will love the results!

(I shared this message in a Facebook Live on February 1, 2021, if you want to check it out.)

If you enjoyed this post, then I think you would enjoy my books where I share the undiluted, unpolluted love and grace of God.