Everyone knows what holiday we celebrate in February. Valentine’s Day cards are out in abundance right after Christmas. Valentine’s Day is such a fun day to enjoy the gift of love in your life. Perhaps you plan a fun evening with your spouse and then you spend a lot of time planning the perfect date night. You spend time searching for the right card to express how you feel. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the hoopla and miss what it really means to love. We need to understand the deep love that Father God has for us. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to understand the love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][tweetherder]Valentine’s Day is a good reminder to evaluate how we are loving God and others. [/tweetherder]
What kind of love do we display to God? Is meeting with God daily a delight and something we eagerly anticipate doing, or do we spend time with God when and if we can find the time? Do we desire to be led and controlled by the Holy Spirit or by what we selfishly want? To love well we need to have a personal loving relationship with our heavenly Father. As we spend time in His word and in prayer with God, God teaches us what perfect love looks like. As children most of us learned John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” From Ephesians 2:4-5; 8-9 we learn, “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved…, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.” The great commandment found in Matthew 22:37-40 teaches us to, “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. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” We need to love God first before we can love someone else. We need to humbly and thankfully accept this free gift from God and live our lives in ways that bring Him glory and honor. We need to live our lives with complete dependence on the Holy Spirit and allow ourselves to be controlled by Him.
When we spend time with our spouses and those we love, do we display the love found in 1 Corinthians 13?
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
In our own strength we will never be able to love in this way. The only way we can put this type of love into practice is to be surrendered to God and ask the Holy Spirit to help us love in this way. We will need to persist in this prayer to learn a Spirit controlled way to respond in loving and selfless ways. We may need to memorize 1 Corinthians and meditate on these words, asking God for the desire to love in this way. Loving as God intended us to love is something that will take a lifetime to learn but we have the Creator of love showing us the way. How will you show God honoring love to someone today?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
