Lisa Barry: We hear a lot of talk about love; true love, first love, puppy love and tough love. But the one that rises above every other is unconditional love. Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot and her daughter Valerie Shepard talk about this unfathomable love and how we can begin to reflect it to others.

It's all a part of our celebration of Gateway To Joy as we near the end of almost 13 years of programming. So thanks for joining us as we reminisce with another program highlight. Here's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking again today with my daughter Valerie Shepard of Trabuco Canyon, California. The everlasting love that we mention almost every single time we do Gateway To Joy is a very different quality of love than that which the world understands, isn't it, Val?

Valerie Shepard: Yes. Love that goes on forever. Love that's unconditional. Love that's huger and broader than all our imaginings.

Elisabeth Elliot: A love that is not afraid to let its children suffer.

Valerie Shepard: I've taught a hymn to my children called "All for Jesus," and I'd love to say some of these verses. Even though I don't think my children, especially the younger ones, understand any of what they're singing, I think it's a good principle to teach them words that will eventually come back to them as they're older and they'll understand what it means.

But, these are the words. "All for Jesus, all for Jesus, all my being's ransomed powers; all my thoughts and words and doings, all my days and all my hours; let my hands perform His bidding, let my feet run in His ways, let my eyes see Jesus only, let my lips speak forth His praise. Worldlings prize their gems of beauty, cling to gilded toys of dust, boast of wealth and fame and pleasure; only Jesus will I trust."

I love to sing that with my children because I want them to know that Jesus is everything. Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the enriching message of Christ have ample room in your lives." I think many Christians have only given Him part of the room of their hearts. They may think that if they're going to church on Sunday mornings, they're doing what they're supposed to do. The duty of going to church becomes a duty rather than a joy. If we give Jesus ample room in our lives, then everything we do with our hands, with our mouths, with our feet, we will learn to do it for the love of Jesus.

I love the idea of God enlarging our hearts spiritually, making us more and more loving because we are seeing more and more of His love, and broadening our minds so that we see how many different kinds of people He has in His kingdom in the family. He teaches us to love all kinds of people. We as mothers, especially, because if we have more than two children, we have all kinds of gifts in our children.

I found Hannah Whitehall Smith in one of her books said, "Lord, deliver me from a cramped and cabined soul." I remember seeing myself over the past twenty years of my marriage, finding my heart cramped and cabined. Either because of fear of what people would think of me or cramped because of my lack of desire to love as God loves. I'm just enjoying the truth that He wants my heart to become larger and larger, more and more kind, more and more sensitive to the needs and problems of others.

I'm afraid I used to look down on people because they had problems. Now I'm finding that God wants to use me to encourage them and help them because of His love and what He has taught me in little ways throughout these years.

Elisabeth Elliot: I heard Gert Bahana say years ago, "I found out that I am a snob. I never thought I was a snob, but I realized that I looked down on people who look down on people."

Valerie Shepard: That's a real truth, isn't it, when we examine our hearts and realize how tight and cramped and without love they are. The more we open up ourselves to God, the more cheerful and joyful He makes us to live for others. To be able to give ourselves unreservedly, as the saints were described as people who loved with abandon, people who were careless and carefree about showing the love of God no matter what cost it was to them.

Another prayer from the Southwell Litany is this: "O Lord, save us from pride and self-will, from desire to have our own way in all things." Think of how that cramps our souls when we always get our own way. "From overweening love of our own ideas and blindness to the value of others, please enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments."

I think our prayers should daily, hourly be, "Lord, enlarge the generosity of my heart." To raise children for Him means we have to deny ourselves--and them--the pleasure of temporary whims, the pleasures of temporary desires satisfied.

Elisabeth Elliot: Your stepfather used to say that he knew a lady who had whims of iron, whims that had to be catered to. C. S. Lewis talks about a "gluttony of delicacy." That caught my attention, because we think of gluttons as people who eat an enormous amount of food, and he was illustrating the gluttony of delicacy, which is equally bad. When a woman, for example, says to the waiter or the waitress, "All I want is a cup of very hot tea and one teensy weensy little piece of dry toast," that may be a real nuisance for the poor waiter or waitress. It's not on the menu and she is insisting. She's got whims of iron.

Valerie Shepard: "Enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments." God wants to give us more and more grace. I love the verse in the Psalms that says, "He waits on high to have compassion on us," and yet we don't go to Him to ask for more love in our hearts for other people or to ask for more of this enlarging of our own hearts. "He waits on high to have compassion on us." That blesses me to believe that verse, to know that He really wants me to come to Him continually throughout the day to ask Him to make me more generous, more kind, more true to His principles rather than true to my own feelings.

Elisabeth Elliot: Imagine that everlasting love, the Lord of the universe, waiting for us with patience. "The love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind."

Valerie Shepard: I said earlier this verse from Colossians 3:16, "Let the enriching message of Christ have ample room in your lives." We need to give God the time that He is worth. Of course, He is worth all of our time and more. If we could understand that fact that He is worthy of all of our worship and worthy of our whole heart's worship and our whole heart's giving!

In 2 Corinthians 9:8-9, I know I've found these verses to be such a comfort when I've felt like I was at the end of myself and I had no more resource or wisdom or anything in myself to be able to be the mother of the children that He had given me, or to be the wife of the husband He'd given me, or to be the pastor's wife of the churches we've been in.

In 2 Corinthians 9:8-9 it says that "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written, He has scattered abroad His gifts to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion."

These verses have given me the hope that because He is able to make all grace abound to me in whatever situation I'm in, whatever worry that I'm having with my children, or fear of the future, or just the fear of myself, the fear that I'm not going to do all that I should do as a mother, God has encouraged me with these verses to tell me that He is able to do much more than I've even thought of or dreamed of. He will give me the grace for all things at all times, so I must trust Him and believe that to happen rather than just keeping it as a verse in my head. But I must act it out; I must practice it.

Elisabeth Elliot: You were talking with us about what the Lord had taught you about hospitality. You were afraid that you couldn't afford to practice hospitality at some time in your life. God has revealed to you that the more you practice hospitality, the more His abundance is poured out. Instead of finding yourselves deprived because you've entertained these other people, you find yourselves enriched. Isn't that the way of love's demands work?

Valerie Shepard: Right. Love's demands are that He pours out more and more as we give of ourselves. I've found that each time we've had people over, it's been a blessing and a joy to have them and we knew afterwards that we had done what God wanted us to do. But in the preparation for it, in the cleaning up the house or in the preparing for the groceries, I always had this fear, "I'm not going to have enough strength to do this. I'm not going to have enough food."

Just recently, just about a month ago, I was in tears right before the company came. I said to Walt my husband, "I just feel like I don't have quite the right food or quite the right amount." This particular couple seemed to be the young, up-and-coming yuppie, successful-type couple and I just felt like I had to have a successful type of meal. He said, "Honey, do not worry about what's on the table. What's most important is that we love them and welcome them into our home." After that meal, it was a blessing. We knew that it didn't matter what was on the table. It was simply getting to know them and loving them that was a joy to both of us.

Elisabeth Elliot: Thank you so much for being with us, Val.

Valerie Shepard: You're welcome.

Lisa Barry: In the short time that remains, I'd like to remind you that today's program is available on a special, commemorative tape series called "The Best of Gateway To Joy." And I can't think of one mother who wouldn't benefit from the variety of practical guidance found in these 10 programs. Gateway To Joy will be transitioning in two weeks to a new program with Nancy Leigh DeMoss called Revive Our Hearts so make sure you request your copy of these "Best of Gateway To Joy" programs. Again the title is "The Best of Gateway To Joy." For information on how to get your own copy, get in touch with us here. For information on how to get your own copy, get in touch with us here.

Call toll free 1-800-759-4JOY. We're making it available today for a suggested donation of $8 when you contact us to request it. This program was originally a part of a series called "Child Training: Love's Demands." For ordering information call 1-800-759-4JOY. Or, write to:

Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Don't forget to check us out on the Internet at gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible. And thanks for your continued faithfulness in these days of transition.

Well, "The Best of Gateway To Joy" may be over, but there's a little more history to be made for the next two weeks, so make it a point to join us on Monday when Elisabeth talks about how to pass along a godly heritage. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.