God’s Love for Us

            This Saturday is Valentine’s Day. Gentlemen, if you have a wife or a girlfriend, consider this your gentle reminder.  SATURDAY! NOT NEXT WEEK! THREE DAYS FROM NOW! Sorry for yelling, but the truth is that most men have selective hearing. But I digress.

            Valentine’s Day is a time set apart to celebrate love. Yes, I am aware that it is the epitome of a “Hallmark Holiday.” The people who benefit the most are the candy and card makers and shops. But I also know this. Those years when I have remembered, and have presented my wife with something nice, it has made her day. 

            One year I gave her a nice necklace. She showed that thing off to so many of her friends and the husbands all quit speaking to me.  They made it clear that I had ruined the day for all of them. 

            I haven’t always hit the mark on this day. I’ve completely forgotten it more than once. But I try to remember, and at least to do something to celebrate the day, even if it is simply cooking dinner myself. I actually grill a pretty decent steak. 

            I do know this for sure. Valentine’s Day is a day to consider love, not just for each other, but for the love God offers to us. The most memorized verse in the Bible declares, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

            I wonder how many of us understand the power and the scope of God’s love for us. He gave His Son! What a tremendous sacrifice! I pray that we will see and comprehend all that He has done for us, and that we will in turn love Him and love others in the way that He has called us to love. “We love, because He first loved us.” Without His love we could not love. But because He loves, we can love, too.