Happy Valentine’s Day
Love is in the air today.
There is chocolate flowing, flowers growing and cards showing how much
we care for the special people in our lives.
Retailers have capitalized on our feelings of admiration, and those of
guilt in order to maximize profits during the month of February, when there is
no real holiday to celebrate with gifts of this nature. We will often go overboard in order to
impress the special people, showering them with flowers, chocolate and other things
that show just how special they are, or how much we love them.
God’s love is also very special. It also flows just like the chocolates, grows
just like the flowers and is able to go beyond anything that is printable or imaginable.
Our worldly minds cannot seem to grasp
the “height or depth” of His love for us.
The Apostle Paul attempted to describe what this love looked like to the
people of Corinth. The famous “love”
chapter in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, explains just what God’s love looks like,
sounds like and feels like. I use the
Message translation only because it is simple, understandable and can be
translated by even the most basic of minds.
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but
don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing
all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that
says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and
even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten
nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt
without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled
head, doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off
the handle,
doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when
others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything,
trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going
to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in
tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of
the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the
Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I
gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for
good. We don’t yet see things clearly.
We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before
the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all
as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we
have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in
God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love”
1 Corinthians 13(MSG)
Make it a point to “love extravagantly” today. God’s love is in the air. Grab hold and give some to that special
person.
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