The Three Hardest Words: In the World to Get Right

by Leonard Sweet

Three simple words–“I love you”–capture the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry. These three words form the bottom line and top drawer of all his teachings. And they remain the three hardest words in the world to get right. Two pronouns and a verb have never been so difficult to grasp, much less to practice. Popular culture has ruined love’s reputation by redefining it first as romance, and then as lust. But it’s not just the meaning of the word love that causes so much confusion. To fully understand love, we also need to find out who we are in God’s eyes and whom we are commanded to love. Following Jesus can be described as the daily practice of all three I. Love. You. There is nothing more rewarding, and nothing more risky. Join Leonard Sweet in this eye-opening, life-altering exploration of three simple, one-syllable words. After all, the lifestyle of love is the only life that Jesus calls you to live. There is nothing more challenging than adopting the three-word lifestyle of Jesus as your own. Perhaps you have wondered why love seems to work for everyone else, but not for you. Or maybe you’ve done your best to love those around you, but it seems that life has drained your last drop of trust and affection. Nothing is better than love when it’s right; and nothing is more destructive than attempts at love that fail to follow the Jesus prescription for a healthy life. Jesus devoted his earthly life to saying these three words–I love you–and teaching us how to say them. As Jesus defined love, it takes everything you’ve got…and then even more, which only God can give. The lifestyle of love is not something you can master on your own, but Jesus is ready to show you how. Starting today, you can learn to live “I love you”–the three hardest words in the world to get right.  Leonard Sweet, PhD, serves as the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, and founder and president of SpiritVenture Ministries. He has written many books, including Out of the Question…Into the Mystery and the trilogy SoulTsunami, AquaChurch, and SoulSalsa.

Genres: Christian Living

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 21, 2006

About the author

Leonard I. Sweet is an author, preacher, scholar, and ordained United Methodist clergyman currently serving as the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School, in Madison, New Jersey; and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Aaron Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. These three words do get abused a lot.

[Sharayah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I have never been so engaged by non-fiction before. As I was underlining passages, I had to stop and decide if I was underlining because I thought the idea was profound or because I liked the way it was written.

In this book, Sweet states that the core of Jesus' mission is the phrase "I love you". The first few chapters look at postmodern culture, what it means for the individual and what it means for the church. Regrettably, the church has had a difficult time making the shift from modernism to postmodernism. And the individual struggles to understand self because postmodernism does not allow absolutes. Without absolutes, there is no grounding, no reference point. Sweet goes on to discuss each word in the phrase "I love you". Misconceptions about the meaning of these words leave people lost and the church hard to relate to. Sweet is calling the church to embrace the true meaning of "I love you" in a way where community, individual, church, and culture work within postmodernism, but also give meaning to the areas where postmodernist thought fail.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are the things that grabbed my attention:

pg. 49 - the verbs we use with "kingdom" and the verbs the Scriptures use with "kingdom"
pg. 77 - pop culture as the dominant authority figure for most of our "stories"
pg. 82 - BRILLIANT!!! >>> "our first act of autonomy is to limit our autonomy."
pg. 83 - the USAmerican church has sold itself out to a culture of self-absorption and consumption
pg. 97 - the Jewish folk tale of the Pike
pg. 99 - salvation is basically the unleashing of the latent power of love in us
pg. 112 - no love without the loss of self and loss of control
pg. 133 - intimacy with God, one another, and creation
pg. 136 - in relationship with the Scriptures
pg. 140 - experiencing God's presence - in solitude or in the mess of life?
pg. 142 - Bonhoeffer quote on community
pg. 143 - "Something is wrong when the wealth of some depends on the poverty of others. Something is wrong when the ascent up the ladder for some depends on the descent down the ladder for others."
pg. 144 - the Duck story
pg. 159 - the global benefit of local

[Jt]

okay