2/14/3021
1 John 4:19 "We love because He first loved us."
Today is Valentine's Day. It is a day full of flowers, candy, fancy dinners, and gifts both inexpensive and pricy. Sometimes it is a day that people just go out of their way to do something kind for those they love. It is the day carved out on the calendar and reserved to show those we love how much they mean to us. Is it nice? Sure. But is it necessary? Shouldn't we tell and show people that they are loved every day?
Jesus certainly calls us to love God and others always. These actions, He said, are the two greatest commandments. Matthew 22:37-39 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." These commands to love do not come with external conditions. The love we are supposed to exhibit is not that of romantic love - which is certainly a blessing all its own - but rather, it is universal and based on the Author of Love's mode and meaning.
So today, as we celebrate the world's construct of what an expression of love is, let us think more deeply about how God would have us love. Let us start a Christian love revolution in this time of division and turmoil in our world; for the love Jesus showed from the cross of Calvary is universal and eternal. God's love is true love; for He will never leave you or forsake you.
I want to say this to all of you, just as it is said in my church at the end of the service: "You are loved."
We are loves so deeply and yet so many don't see it. I used to tell my students we already have a great LOVE story and that is how much God loves us. They would giggle and think it was silly because you don't think of great love stories being our Father's love. But it is? He died for us. He suffered humiliation, and scorn, and rejection by his dear friends, and lets not get started on the physical pain he suffered for us. And as I would graphically describe that love, some were grossed out, but they got the depth of it. He was willing to subject Himself to all of that pain and not once asked for it to stop. You are loved is so true. And so misunderstood.
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