Valentines Day

I love Valentines Day! Sending and receiving a Valentine is a simple way of letting someone know you love and care about them. Ed and I started a Valentine tradition many years ago of sending a $2 bill with each of our grandchildren’s valentines. Many of them have kept the $2 bills as a treasure; others have spent them. For Ed and me, it was a way of us letting them know how special, unique and loved each one of them is.

There are special Valentines all of us have received over the years that we have hung onto and cherish. But do we realize the greatest, biggest and best Valentine we have received came directly from God?
God is the creator and originator of Love. His love encompasses all of creation. “He is” Love Incarnate and that love has been given to each of us as His creation.
“For He formed our inward parts; He knitted each of us in our mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand.” (Psalm 139:13-18)
In the English language, love has a multitude of meanings, but in the Hebrew and Greek, we find more precise meanings.
Agape love expresses the kind of love God demonstrates toward us who know Him. This love is “steadfast love” or “lovingkindness” love.
“God’s love is slow to anger and abounding in steadfastness, forgiving iniquity and transgression.” (Numbers 14:18)
“The Lord, the Lord, is a God of mercy and graciousness, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7)
This is “GOD LOVE;” it is the very essence of who He is. It is a love that exists regardless of circumstances, coincidence, fame, fortune, life or death. It is a love that never gives up on us, His children. Agage love is about the goodwill and kindness of God shown in self-sacrifice. It is unconditional and carries an unwavering commitment to us, “His Loved Ones.”
The quote “I love you” is original to God. His love towards us is everlasting, unconditional, steadfast, forgiving, kind, and sacrificial. It is pure without ulterior motives. It is freely given no matter who we are, where we have been, or what we have done.
John 3:16 tells us:
“God so loved us that He gave His only son, that if we believe in Him, we will not perish but have eternal life.”
If I could put it another way, God so loved that He gave His only Son to die for us, our sins, and every last unlovely thing we have ever done or will ever do. Why? Because He wanted us to know and experience the mighty power of “His love.”
“That love has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son and He who has the son has life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11 & 12)
Wow! Wow! Wow! God told Jeremiah that He loved him with an everlasting love and that with lovingkindness He would draw Jeremiah to Himself. He will do the same for us.
God’s Valentine to us came in the form of His only Son Jesus. By leaving His heavenly home, dying on a cross, conquering death and sin, He gave us an unbelievable, amazing gift of eternal life.
Open the Valentine and accept the greatest Valentine gift ever given. God’s unconditional, forgiving, kind, steadfast, unconditional eternal LOVE!
Love bears,
All things . . .
Love protects
Everything.
It trust God,
Without doubt
Knows He’ll work
All things out.
Love forgives,
The sin of man
Love is God’s
Salvation plan.
It hopes, in better days
It believes
In God’s ways.
Love preserves
In all things
Love endures
Everything.
By Deborah Ann Belka
I Corinthians 13:4-7 – “Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, love never fails!”
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY
FROM MY HEART TO YOURS!