Last year, over 20 billion dollars was spent on Valentine’s Day in the form of roses, candy, and gifts. If you asked the average American who St. Valentine was, you would likely hear that he was the inventor of the holiday, some romantic character, or cupid. Saint Valentine of Rome was martyred on February 14 in AD 269. Much of his life was spent ministering to persecuted Christians. He left an example of service and caring for each other. The love he demonstrated was not the romantic love associated with the holiday, but love for his God and fellow man.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. – 1 John 4:7-8
Who are we to love?
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ C.S. Lewis reminded us, “Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did.”
Sometimes the hardest people to love are those closest to us. Rick Warren mused, “God teaches us to love by putting some unlovely people around us. It takes no character to love people who are lovely and loving to you.” Human beings, as image-bearers of God, were created to love. We must look beyond short-sighted, selfish impulses to love the way God instructs. Augustine said, “Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
Going back to Christ’s example, if He can sacrifice for us, are we not called to follow his example? John 13:35 calls us to action, “By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”
Who is hard for you to love? Who around you needs love? May this Valentine’s Day be an opportunity to share Christ’s love with others.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:9-12 NIV)
