Aww, Valentine’s Day. That special day of the year when our hearts and minds turn toward chubby angels in diapers with heart shaped arrows, cards with beautiful prose to proclaim our love, heart shaped boxes filled with chocolates, dinners out on the town and gifts, preferably those that come in small, black felt boxes. Granted, there are the skeptics and jaded among us who proclaim that this day was made up by the greeting card industry, just to increase sales. Of course, the stories of the origins of Valentine’s Day are as numerous as the people who were ahead of you in line for dinner on Sunday night. They seem endless. I wouldn’t attempt to declare which of them is the truth, but they do make for an interesting read. Regardless of the actual origins, today, it is what it is. It is the day that we have set aside to declare or re-declare our love for that special someone. Hopefully, you were able to be with the one you love to make this day special for both of you.
As happens, approximately every seven years, give or take a year because of Leap Year, Valentine’s Day was on Sunday. Inevitably, many preachers spoke on love as the topic for their messages this past Sunday. There are countless types of love, the love of a man and woman, the love of a parent and child, the love of lifelong friends, and the love of a Father to His children, just to name a few. John 3:16 tells us that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That, of course, is the ultimate love. God loving us enough to make a way for us to be redeemed from our sin so that we may spend eternity with Him. Nothing can compare to that love, ever. There’s another type of love that we need today, however, one that seems to be becoming extinct. One that is a commandment for us yet we seem to think of it as a suggestion, if we feel like or have time to do it, we might.
John 15:13 states “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” I’ve always thought that this verse meant that I literally had to physically die to show love for my friends. As you can guess, I’m a very literal person. I was reading this one day when it finally dawned on me. We are, by our very nature, selfish, self-centered beings. We tend to “look out for number one”. Laying down ones’ life can be as simple as cutting your neighbor’s grass without expectation of a payback. Laying down your life, and mine, means that we put someone else’s needs above our own. Believe me, it sounds much easier than it actually is. Sure, cutting grass is easy enough to think of, but how often do we actually choose to do that? How about letting the mother with two very tired, cranky kids in front of you in line at the grocery store instead of thinking to yourself, “I was here first, let her wait”? Laying down ones’ life can mean the supreme sacrifice. There are those among us who will die for the cause of Christ. They will be martyrs for the cause but we can all learn to live with that mindset. Oprah coined the phrase, “little acts of kindness” to describe this attitude. The movie, Pay It Forward, called it just that, paying it forward. God called it showing love. When’s the last time that we showed His love? When’s the last time that we stopped in the middle of our busy days to try to make someone else’s day a little nicer? We who are Christians shouldn’t have to have Oprah or Hollywood movies tell us how to act. God has already commanded us to act. He has commanded us to love. After all, love is a verb. Do it!
