Altar Call –
February 24, 2008
Walter Albritton
An invitation to upgrade our use of the little word
“love”
Think for a moment about the things
that are great fun to you. Your list will likely be different from mine. So let
me share a few of the things that come to my mind.
I enjoy eating out with family
and friends. One place is about as good as another. What matters is not the
restaurant or the food but the joy of spending time with people who are
important to me. I enjoy watching
I like high school sports,
especially football. What fun I had serving as the chaplain for the
Music is a delight to me. I like
to sing and I like to hear other people sing, especially those who can deliver
a wonderful song with beautiful harmony.
I enjoy good food, especially fruit, ice cream, and anything chocolate. I like
to eat with people at church. After all, Jesus ate with sinners.
It is fun to relax at the beach
and watch the waves roll in from the Gulf. But I like the mountains even more,
especially during the fall of the year when the colors of the leaves are
changing. Then spring is a good time to visit places like
On a nice Saturday I like
walking in the woods and listening to the birds singing. I like patting the
head of my grandson Jake's big dog, and thanking the Lord that he owns that
dog, not me. My favorite dog is the porcelain dog with the black spots, the one
that sits on the hearth and never eats. I just don't think I could handle having
to take a dog outside three times a day to find a fire hydrant.
I like watching my grandchildren
play football and basketball. Most of our grandsons are grown now but we still
get to watch Jake and Josh play. They play now for
My wife and I enjoy traveling.
We had the privilege of leading a group to visit mission stations around the
world. We have walked where Jesus walked in the
We have enjoyed meeting people
and seeing sights in England, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea,
Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland, Nepal, India, Brazil, Ecuador, Haiti, and
Argentina. We even made two trips to
Please note that in describing all
of the above I did not once use the word "love." That was
intentional. I am trying to reserve the use of that word for very special purposes.
I want to teach myself to use "love" only to describe the way I feel
about the Lord, my family, and my friends.
This is not an easy thing to do.
All my life I have talked, as most people do, about "loving" a truck,
a sunset, a dog, or a hamburger. But that is a bad habit I want to change. To
“love” everything is actually to cheapen the word “love.”
While it is all right to “like”
football or ice cream, or any of these other things that bring me some degree
of joy, I want to save the word "love" for more important things. When
I have been crushed by defeat, embarrassed by my sins, perplexed by tragedy, it
was the Lord who restored my joy and renewed my hope. So it should really mean
something to say that I love him. My family and my friends have meant the world
to me. When I tell them how much I love them, I want them to feel that my
affection for them is very special.
If you like the idea of using the word
"love" more carefully, please join me. Even if we don’t change the
world, we could give the word "love" fresh meaning in our own lives
for a little while. + + +