Valentine's Day, a holiday celebrated around the world, colloquially associated with love, is an opportunity to express our love. Ironically, the day finds it provenance in some of the early church leaders who were martyred for their faith. Although the day has come to be a day of trinket and chocolate, if we really were to commemorate a day of love, it would be a day of service, for in service is love truly exercised.
Scripture has much to say about love. Whole multi-volume series have been published covering the subject; however, love could be summed up in two verses: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)" and "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1John 4:8)." These two verses offer the basis for our understanding of love: it is from God and it is sacrificial.
Love, its character and definition, is infinitely tied to the nature of God. Therefore, it is no wonder how the Apostle Paul so eloquently defines love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. In summation of this powerful passage: love is patient and kind, not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude, not selfish or irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but only in truth, and it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. This is both a definition of love and, subsequently, God.
Considering this section reminds us that love expressed amounts to infinitely more than what can fit on a greeting card, or can be conveyed through a dozen flowers, Valentine's Day could stand for more than what the secular world relegates it to. Instead, Scripture's call to love is an exhortation to serve those we love sacrificially. Today, this "day of love," should the be thought of as an opportunity to serve.
If we consider our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave His very life as the supreme act of love in all of history. We should take this mind among us so as to love through sacrificial service. Therefore, as we express love this Valentine's Day, let us think for a moment of how we could serve those whom we love.
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