With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, stores are filled with chocolates, flowers, jewellery, and other gifts that people in our culture purchase to express our love for someone special.
Humans have an innate desire to express love and to receive love. We find love in our relationships with our families, friends, and significant others. Affirming our desire to experience true love, the bible reveals that we yearn for love because our God is love.
Our acts of love reflect the very character of God who created us. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). To know God is to love.
According to the bible, one of the greatest purposes of life is to share God’s love with others. The way of love is the way to live the most meaningful and satisfying life.
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:9-12).
Moreover, the bible comments on how to express this way of love—through sacrificial service to others.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). If we want to emulate God’s love, the key is to love sacrificially just as Jesus demonstrated his love for us through his ultimate sacrifice. This kind of love is powerful and God wants to help us experience such love. I pray you will experience God’s love and that you will share it with others around you.
