At this time of the year lovers are selecting gifts to please their sweethearts and children are busy cutting out paper hearts to send to their friends.
In the midst of all the activity do not let us neglect to declare our love for the Lord by offering Him a spiritual Valentine. Beyond all our gifts or service there is one Valentine that would please Him more than anything else we might offer and that is our hearts. No, not paper ones but the real thing. For when we offer Him our hearts we give Him our all. Thats what Isaac Watts meant when he wrote this line to his hymn “When I survey the Wondrous Cross”.
“Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were a present far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”
How could we help but love Him? Yet there are many who do not return His love. This brought anguish to Francis of Assisi, when he thought of Calvary and realized so many refuse the Savior’s love. He was moved to travel the streets exclaiming “Love is not loved ! Love is not loved !” This is also the tragedy of 2013, for Love is still being despised and rejected by many. But millions do love and cherish Him. Our hearts are His. At a time when the world is searching for love in all the wrong places, let us declare His Love to the world by loving one another as He first loved us.
Challenge: 1 John 4:11 “Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
HAPPY ST. VALENTINE’S DAY
