Let me tell you of One who became involved, One who didn’t even consider how much His involvement would cost Him. Jesus paid the ultimate price for love. He went to the Cross and gave His life so that we could be saved. Jesus opened a new dimension of love, showing people that God is love.
One evening many years ago, just before Broadway star Mary Martin went on stage in South Pacific, she was handed a note. It was from Oscar Hammerstein, the famous lyricist. At this particular moment, he lay dying. The short note read:
A bell is not a bell ’til you ring it. A song is not a song ’til you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love is not love…’til you give it away.
That night after her performance, many friends rushed back-stage and exclaimed, “Oh, Mary? You did something to us tonight. What was it?”
Unfolding the note, Miss Martin read it to her friends. Blinking back tears, she said, “Tonight I gave my love away.” Love is action. Love is giving of yourself without thinking how much it will cost you.
Loving Means Giving
Let me tell you of One who became involved, One who didn’t even consider how much His involvement would cost Him. Jesus paid the ultimate price for love. He went to the Cross and gave His life so that we could be saved (John 3:16).
Jesus opened a new dimension of love, showing people that God is love. The Old Testament’s Ten Commandments said, “Thou shalt not do this…thou shalt not do that….” But Jesus summed up all the Commandments in one: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
In the Old Testament, it was “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Ex. 21:23-24). But in the New Testament, Jesus taught that you’re to love even your enemies…do good to those who despitefully use you…give, and it shall be given unto you, etc.
Giving in the Old Testament usually involved payment for a debt. For instance, the first-born son was to be dedicated to God; one-seventh of your time—or the Sabbath—belonged to God. Your giving was a debt you owed.
But when Christ went to the Cross, He paid that debt and opened up a whole new dimension of loving and giving—not as a debt we owe but as a seed we sow—and that makes all the difference.
Jesus taught us that we are to initiate the action. He said, “Give, and it shall be given unto you” (Luke 6:38). You give first; you love first. And through your giving, God can multiply what you give back to you in the form of your own need.
Giving Brings Reward
The story is told of two doctors from a major medical school who did a scientific study of a group of people who had performed acts of totally unselfish love.
In the study, one young woman with a severe hearing problem could immediately hear better after her act of love. An obese man who couldn’t lose weight before was now able to lose weight rapidly. Person after person in the experiment noticed that they required less medicine when they gave of themselves.
In reporting the results of this scientific study of giving of one’s self in love, the doctors said this: “We found that love, when acted upon, is the most positive experience of all.”
I believe what they are saying, in essence, is what Jesus told us in the New Testament: When you give love, it shall be given to you again. God multiplies it back in the form of your own need.
Let God’s Love In
I once knew a couple who claimed to have fallen out of love. The woman complained that her husband really didn’t care for her as a person. He complained that she wasn’t concerned about his personal needs.
During this trying time they didn’t ask for God’s help. They never tried giving to each other. And their home slowly disintegrated.
This couple crossed my path and poured out their troubles to me. I said, “Show me a marriage that’s falling apart, and I’ll show you two people who often are trying to get from each other instead of giving.”
“I believe that if you start giving to each other, God can multiply it back to you. But I don’t believe you can do that without knowing God’s love.”
“Surrender your lives to Christ,” I told them. “Take Him into your hearts as your personal Savior. Follow Jesus, give as He gave, love as He loved, and I believe you’ll find that God can heal your marriage and put your home back together.”
As the weeks passed and they put Christ at the head of their home, they fell in love again. Then one day, seemingly, the bottom fell out. I received a letter from the husband that said, “Oral, you told me if I took Christ into my life, if I started loving and giving first, God could save my marriage. Read this and tell me what you think.”
It was a letter from his wife. It read:
Dear One: All my life I’ve wanted a man I could love, someone I could look up to and respect. At last I’ve found him. I don’t know what this will mean to you, but to me it means everything and I hope you’ll be happy too.
“Oral, I didn’t even know she was thinking of another man,” he said. “We’ve been so happy. With Christ in our lives, our home has been put back together in love. I don’t understand!”
“Why don’t you pick up the phone and call her?” I suggested. “Ask her what she means.” So he got her on the line and said, “I received your letter. Did you mean what you said?”
“Yes. I meant it,” she said.
“You’ve found another man?”
“That’s right.”
“Where does that leave me?”
“I don’t know; that’s up to you.”
“Do I know him? Who is he?” And very tenderly and lovingly she answered, “It’s you, darling.” This couple had opened up their lives to God’s love, and it made all the difference.
Come Home to Love
One day I met a young soldier, and I offered him a ride in my car. As we talked, I learned that he had just been discharged from the Army. He was going home.
Soon we got near his place. “There it is!” the soldier said. Over by the barn there was a man with two feed buckets in his hands. “That’s my dad!” he said.
And before I could bring the car to a complete stop, he jumped out, leaped over the fence, and ran toward his dad. Then suddenly, he stopped. His dad, obviously, didn’t recognize him at first. They looked at each other.
For a moment, I saw a generation gap. The boy had gone off to the Army, partly because he wanted to get away from his dad. The dad was, no doubt, sorry the boy went into the Army, but secretly glad to get him out from under his feet.
But as they stood there, the generation gap seemed to disappear in love. The boy took a step forward. Suddenly the feed buckets dropped to the ground and the father held out his arms. I heard him say, “Welcome home, son!” As I drove away, I saw them walking arm in arm up to the old farmhouse. This young man had come back—not only to his home, but also back to love.
Friend, maybe you need to come back to love. Remember the love that God poured out for you on the cross, and purpose to reveal His love to others. Love is not passive; it’s action. Love is the giving of yourself without thinking of how much it will cost you.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Granville Oral Roberts was one of the most famous and influential Christian leaders of the twentieth century.
Born January 24, 1918, in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the fifth and youngest child of Rev. Ellis Melvin and Claudius Priscilla Roberts, Oral Roberts grew up to become world renowned as a healing evangelist, author, educator, and television personality.
His ministry began with his own miracle healing of tuberculosis at the age of 17. As his older brother drove him to a revival meeting to be prayed for, God spoke to him and said, “Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation. You are to build Me a university based on My authority and on the Holy Spirit.” Roberts was miraculously healed that night of both tuberculosis and lifelong stuttering. His call from God and supernatural healing marked the beginning of a miracle ministry.
In 1947 Roberts established the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In obedience to God’s call on his life, he conducted miracle healing crusades across America and around the world in a great “tent cathedral.” Each night, thousands who were sick and dying came for healing prayer and to hear his dynamic message that God is a good God.
In a time when many equated poverty with spirituality, and sickness with God’s discipline and punishment, Roberts taught that God is good and wants His people to be healthy and prosperous, as he discovered in God’s Word. Through the years, he conducted more than 300 healing crusades in more than 35 countries on six continents. It’s estimated that Roberts personally laid hands on more than two million people for healing prayer.
In 1955 Roberts revolutionized evangelism by bringing television cameras into his live healing crusade services and providing a “front-row seat for miracles” for millions of viewers. Coining phrases such as God is a good God, something good is going to happen to you, release your faith, and expect a miracle, he soon helped people everywhere find a better understanding of God’s goodness and His desire to make them whole.
In 1958 Roberts established the Abundant Life Prayer Group to address the around-the-clock needs of those suffering and requesting prayer. On call 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, caring prayer partners now receive as many as 3,000 calls a day. In the more than 50 years of their existence, they have received more than 23 million phone calls—many from people reporting miracle answers to their prayers.
In 1963 Roberts founded Oral Roberts University, a 500-acre campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma, based on God’s mandate—“Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is dim, where My voice is heard small, and My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased.” He served as President of ORU until 1993.
A leader in the Charismatic movement of the 1960s and ’70s, Roberts’ in-depth study of the Holy Spirit led to a new revelation of the power that resides in every born-again believer.
In 1981, Roberts took a bold step of faith in building the City of Faith Medical and Research Center to merge the healing streams of medicine and prayer as God had revealed it to him. In the years it operated, it made a tremendous impact upon people’s understanding that God heals through both prayer and medicine, as well as emphasizing the importance of treating the whole person—body, mind, and spirit.
Roberts wrote more than 130 books, several personal commentaries on the Bible, and other inspirational material. One of his most substantive works is a 74-CD set titled Oral Roberts Reading the New Testament with His Personal Commentary that includes his life’s teachings on God’s Word. Perhaps best known is his book The Miracle of Seed Faith, which revolutionized the lives of millions of people who learned how to get their needs met through God’s eternal plan of giving and receiving.
In remembering his father, son Richard said, “He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Oral Roberts was not only my earthly father; he was also my spiritual father and mentor. He was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known. An innovator and a modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, he was one of the first men of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical and research center. He had a passion to bring healing to the sick. He came along when many in Christendom did not believe in God’s power and goodness, yet his name became synonymous with miracles.
“The Bible teaches that when a Christian dies, he or she is instantly transferred into the presence of God. My father has run his race and finished his course. Now he is in heaven, and we as Christians have the Bible promise that someday we will be reunited. My heart is sad, but my faith in God is soaring, knowing that the man I so dearly loved is now with Jesus.”
Roberts often said he could never have done all that he did without having his darling wife Evelyn by his side. For more than 66 years, they were a partnership for the Lord in taking the message of God’s saving, healing, delivering power to the world for more than six decades.
Oral Roberts was preceded in death by his wife Evelyn; a daughter and son-in-law, Rebecca Ann and Marshall Nash; a son, Ronald David Roberts; a grandson, Richard Oral Roberts; his mother and father; two sisters, Velma Roberts and Jewel Faust; and two brothers, Elmer and Vaden Roberts. He is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Richard and Lindsay Roberts; a daughter and son-in-law, Roberta and Ronald Potts, all of Tulsa; 12 grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.