TRUE LOVE

 FEBRUARY 14, 2023

I John 4:19

We love because he first loved us.

John 13:34

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Ephesians 5:2 (The Message)

“Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”


Valentines Day...the day of love!

Many believe it’s a day exclusively for couples, but that just is not true. Ok, I’ll admit Valentines Day has been marketed that way, as a day for couples, but in my spirit, I feel that there is more to love than simply romantic love. Valentines Day is a day of LOVE and can be celebrated between couples, families, church families, and friends. It’s a day to celebrate anyone you love, and who loves you.

The Bible tells us that we were lovingly created to be loved. Our idea of love is learned from the knowledge and experience of being loved by our Creator. I John 4:19 reminds us of this, “We love because God first loved us.”

The story of God and humanity is the “one fairy-tale that is actually true,” as C.S. Lewis once famously told J.R.R. Tolkien. "It’s the love story beneath all love stories."

What does the love story beneath all love stories tell us? Well, it tells us that we are uniquely loved by God. Think of the words in Psalm 139,

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

The way to summarize this is that each of us are here because God wanted us to be here. You are who you are because of God’s love. The work of God in putting your life together, God calls “Wonderful”. Psalm 139 calls our creation a work of God.

I want to also say this, that God loves us closely. “He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart, says Isaiah 40:11. That is a beautiful image of being held closely by our God, unconditionally. God, the bible tells us would go to what ever lengths were necessary to demonstrate love to us, even in giving his Son Jesus over to death on a cross.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

We read from Ephesians the invitation to

“Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”

I find, perhaps you do as well, that Jesus model of love inspires us in following the best way to live, “the most excellent way” as 1 Corinthians 12:31 calls it. The most excellent way of love is described for us in 1 Corinthians 13.

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.

So today on this Valentines Day let us not limit our actions of love to our “sweethearts” but take a moment and think about the people around you that you want to love like Jesus, how might you reach out in love to them today?

PRAY WITH ME

God, I thank you that I know love because you loved us first. I want to love like Jesus. I want to love without being cautious or in order to get something. Help me give myself to others. Fill me with Your Spirit every moment of every day to love like that. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.