Lovely Day

John 15:12

  " This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you."

Today is a day when people all over the land celebrate Love. It's Valentine's Day. My husband normally will have a nice dinner to celebrate the day, but that's about as far as it goes in my household. It's not that we dislike the day, it's more that we want to celebrate our love throughout the year, and not limit it to one day. This week at my church we had a young man read/rap a poem that, I believe, he wrote called God's Valentine. It was so moving, and literally gave me goosebumps! It got me thinking about the word Love. Where does "love" come from? God. God is the one who created love, He is the one who perfected love and He is the one who freely gave it away.

I'm pretty sure that the Bible talks about love more then any other thing, or at least it seems that way to my eyes! On this day, Valentines Day, I'd like to look at love as it applies among humans. This verse in John talks about how we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. That's pretty deep, don't you think? I mean, He loved us SO much that He gave His life on a cross so that we could live a forgiven life! The very next verse says  "There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:13) Can you imagine laying your life down for a friend? I know that in some cases that wouldn't be difficult at all...but in other cases, I'm not so sure I could pull it off. Loving others, even those we are angry at; been mistreated by; feel hatred towards, that's hard to do.


How do you love those whom you don't feel love from? An even HARDER verse to maintain is this one, found in Leviticus 19:18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."  I know that there have been times when I've fallen into this trap, the trap of bearing a grudge against someone, it's not a fun feeling to have to deal with. Not only was it rough to have to deal with my feelings towards the other person, but also I had to deal with decay the feelings were causing inside of my own life. Hurt, and sometimes even worse feelings ruled those days with me. As I've gotten older, this has actually gotten harder for me, but I think that is because I see the pain it causes me and I have to deal with that pain. C.S. Lewis had some thoughts on this as well, he once said
"The rule for us all is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him." The first time I saw this quote, I had to smile and thank God for wise men like Mr. Lewis! I loved it so much, that it's now the "note" on my work email, to which I have gotten many a compliment. It reminds me that I need to act that way as well. That by just acting out the thoughts, we are teaching ourselves to FEEL the thoughts.


I wanted to write this post today, because not everyone has a flesh and blood someone to celebrate Valentines Day with, but we all have someone who loves us very much, who died on a cross to save us from our sins, and who; one day, will come back to claim us all in love. That someone is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Thank you so much, Lord for being my all, everything and most importantly, my Love! I love you! Happy Valentines day!