God, Be My Valentine

Valentine's Day is all about love, but too many times it has nothing to do with love at all.  Today in Maryland early morning commuters had to deal with icy road conditions which resulted in multiple accidents and road closures.  The day of love started off as a day of head aches, fender benders, and late arrivals. 

What does it mean to truly love someone else?  We have all kinds of images on television, in movies, in romantic novels, and advertisements.  It's all so exciting, and lovely, and sweet, and wonderful. Love is all of those things, and much more. 

What so many people often forget is that love is also very difficult at times.  To forgive someone is to love them, and forgiving someone is not easy.  Love is also doing what needs to be done even when we do not feel like it, or put the concerns or needs of someone else before our own.  Love is much more than butterflies in our stomachs, and romantic dinners and roses, it's about dealing with the grind of daily life with grace and mercy for others. 

In his first letter to the church in Corinth Paul wrote about what true love really is.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13

New International Version (NIV)

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The thing that we must remember today, and each day of the year, is that no matter who we are, where we are, or what we have done, God loves us.  His love is so great there is no place on the Earth it cannot reach.  There is nothing so terrible that anyone could do that if we turn to God, that he will receive us and restore us.  He loves us beyond measure and he loved us first. 

Paul had a grasp of how much God loves us and below we see his prayer for the believers in his letter to the Ephesians.

Ephesians 3:14-19

New International Version (NIV)

A Prayer for the Ephesians

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I love the prayer above, put it is incomplete without verses 20 and 21.  In these two verses Paul sums it up nicely.  He lets all those who read this letter know that not only does God love us without measure, but he will do for us more than we could ever imagine.  This means that God knows our hearts and desires, and wants to bless us.  Too many times because we do not receive the love God has for us we miss so many of his blessings.

 

Ephesians 3:20-21

New International Version (NIV)

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

One last verse about God's love.  I learned this verse a very long time ago.  It means just as much to me today, as it did when I learned it.

John 3:16

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Happy Valentine's Day!