Yes, today is Valentine's Day for all of us. I hope you remembered and have already been given a hug today. May God bless you with His love.
We live in a very difficult world full of culture that is anti God's kind of love. In the media, TV and Movies and more, we are taught that love doesn't last and the expressions of love are always seen in physical affection of something like that. But God's view is very different.
I learned about the different types of love or showing you love someone from all different kinds of places, but the best places I learned where pretty simple and divinely chosen places.
First, my mother was the first to teach me about unconditional love. Because I was a perfect child, I mean less than perfect, she always took me in and made me feel special. Then I learned that love from special people like a teacher or neighbor who understood how to encourage and love as God loves. I learned from God in huge ways when I let Him in (and He is still teaching me). Finally, I learned this kind of love from my Valentine, my wife, who loves me in spite of everything.
That is unconditional love. It is AGAPE in the greek language and talks about everything that is good and accepting and so, so much more. Notice in those relationships above that I learned from, only one of them was one I seemed to choose on my own. The one I chose was my wife. The others I believe were placed by God to let me life, my mind and heart know real love. They stepped out by their choice to love me. Man, do we need to learn that. Don't get caught up in yourself! Let the love flow. Love like Jesus loves us. Nothing held back, full out without any conditions or options and just love others.
I pray you have a great Valentine's Day, and I leave you with some thoughts on love:
(from an old movie) "Love means never having to say your sorry." (I still don't get that one)
(from a middle school teacher) "Love means you give to others without any thought of return"
Romans 5:8 (nlt) --- But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
1 John 4:7-8 (hcsb) --- Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Finally, from 1 Corinthians 13 in The Message Translation:
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8 Love never dies.
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
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