Today is Valentine’s Day. This day to express love will have telephone lines, e-mail out- and in-boxes busy, facebook messages composed and sent, cards received in the mail, floral deliveries made, gifts bestowed. All because someone loves someone else. And all of this is very good. I was hard-pressed to select Scriptures on love for this special day because there are so many references, in both Old and New Testaments, that teach of love. Checking Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Old and New Testaments for references to love (in its various forms), I found five full columns of very fine print leading to scriptures from many of the Bible books from Genesis to Revelation. Love is an important emotion, one that every person needs for spiritual and emotional nurture, and an ingrained capacity which is part of our nature because we are created in the image of God, and “love is God is of God” for “God is love.” I selected the passages cited above from I John 4 and I Corinthins 13 with prayer and thanksgiving, because I considered them to teach us much we need to know about love, its nature and purpose. I hope we reread the verses several times today and pray that our love for God and others may grow day by day. There’s much truth in the popular song, “It’s love, it’s love, it’s love that makes the world go ‘round.”
We’ve often heard of the various Greek terms used for love in the New Testament, and of these agape (noun) and agapao (verb) are used to express God’s love for His Son and for His children, and for their proper attitude toward each other in Christian love. We have a perfect expression of the love of God for us in the Lord Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son…” (John 3:16). How amazing, how deep, how complete that love: “whosoever believeth.” Christian love results from His first loving us and is manifested as a fruit of His Spirit working in us. We practice agape love when we manifest love one for another as it is described in the Corinthian passage cited above.
On St. Valentine’s Day I lost one of the great loves of my life, and I think about that sad anniversary each February 14. I was a young teenager of fourteen when my beloved mother died on Valentine’s Day. Although the grace of God helped me through that difficult period of loss, I’ve wondered since how it might have been if I could have known her devoted love for a longer period in my life. I did, however, grow up often asking, “What would my mother advise me to do in this situation?” And as I thought through challenges, her love still surrounded me. Then I had a great love from my life partner, Rev. Grover Jones. We had had two dates before Valentine’s Day rolled around when we first met. We were falling in love and it seemed for sure it was to be more than “puppy” love. He gave me a single red rose from the florist shop, with fern and baby’s breath on February 14, 1948. That was my first gift from him. As long as he was able he remembered Valentine’s Day by giving me red roses. The number grew to a dozen as we had less penurious days. After his illness, my dear children, remembering how their Dad had given me our “love remembrance” of roses on Valentine’s Day, continued to send me roses. This Valentine’s Day, love God and shed his love abroad to the significant others about you. It will do your heart good.
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