Or perhaps better known as Valentine’s Day. It’s a holiday people tend to love or loathe depending on which side of the relationship spectrum they may be on. And I am usually on the loathe side. Normally because I just think its silly we spend all this money on overpriced goods to do something we should do every single day of the year-spread love. This year I have been thinking a lot this holiday. Thankfully being so far away, I can avoid most of the hoopla of the holiday, but I have been thinking about how much good the holiday could do. See, its a holiday focused around love. And we have turned into a shallow, superficial love that shows itself through roses and teddy bears, but what if we got back to celebrating love. True, deep, meaningful, neighborly love. Then it wouldn’t matter whether I was single, dating, married, or something else because its not about that.
I John 4 has one of my favorite definitions of love. And the love in these verses comes not from us, but from God. When we focus on the sacrifice that was made for us, we have no choice but to love. It is a natural out-flowing.
I John 4 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
God’s love lives in us. His son died for us. Those should be reasons enough to love others with a crazy love. See, love is so much bigger than we take it for. Love compels me to give my time to others. Love compels to weep and pray for my brothers and sisters being persecuted. Love compels me to think bigger than roses and teddy bears. What does it look like? For me, buying Valentines that go towards organizations fighting sex trafficking. Spending time with some good friends here and reminding myself of the ultimate sacrifice of love made for me. In light of that, there is only room for love to abound and for true love to be spread on a day filled with so much self-centered love.
What about you? What can you do to celebrate the true love of Christ on this hyped up day?
