Valentine's Weekend

Our world has taken the Valentine's holiday and turned it into a financial bonanza for the florists, restaurants, jewelry stores as well as candy makers. Don't judge me to harshly when you first read these words. I am not against demonstrating our love for those that are a special part of our lives. But how will we live and conduct ourselves after the flowers die, the meal has been forgotten, the jewelry has been placed in the jewelry box and the candy has grown stale? Tue love lives on beyond all of the temporary gifts that we can share. One report says that Americans will spend over 20 billion dollars on Valentine gifts this year. Do we truly believe that spending huge sums of money will make our marriages stronger or better? I believe that a deeper, stronger and more committed relationship with God is what we need today!! Our lives will only truly change when we have an encounter with the Love of God that will transform us into the human being that God has designed us to become. Why don't we give God an opportunity to do His work in our lives?

Charles Stanley shares these insightful words regarding our personal relationship with God. "Far too many relationships in today's world are uncertain. Disunity is found in marriages, churches, and international alliances. Yet there's one relationship that is sure and permanent. The Lord designed people for intimate fellowship with Him. His love toward each of us is evident throughout the Bible. In fact, there is nothing tangible, intangible, past, present, or future that can separate believers from the Father's love. John 10:14 draws a comparison between Jesus and a good shepherd—a man whose ultimate task is providing for and protecting the flock. Christ's character is one of passionate care for His people. First John 4:16 clearly states, "God is love." If we believe the Bible, then we cannot deny this fact about His nature."

Do you realize that the Bible is still the greatest love story that has ever been written? Do you realize that the pages of the Bible are filled with "love letters" from God? We can read these "letters" in both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Jesus Christ came to this world to reveal this love from God through a very personal and up-close temporary visit to this world. Jesus revealed the love of God in a very short time span that He spent on Earth. Aren't you glad that God continues to share His love to us through His Word and through the presence of the Holy Spirit? But He also reveals His love to this world through the love that various individuals share with us. This "love" flows through the lives of our family, friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. The sharing of this love fulfills the call that Jesus gives us in the Word to "love one another."

I would like to leave a familiar passage of scripture with you as we enter this weekend. The Apostle Paul reminds us of some the qualities of true love. There are many examples of "pseudo-love" in our world today. But I am interested in true love that will flow through a heart that has been transformed through the awesome, life-changing work of the Love of God. 

I Corinthians 13:1-7, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (NKJV)