Campus Ministry
From the Fax of Life Email
Subject:
Valentine's Day
Date: For the Week of February 14, 2005
Today is Valentine's Day, and florists, card companies, and chocolatiers are thrilled. I've been to all of them already for the sake of my Valentine. And if there's somebody really special to your heart and you haven't gone yet, I'd recommend you make a last-minute dash to one or more of them.
The truth is, however, that most of us let ourselves off too easily with our professions of love. Our culture doesn't know much about love. We probably use the word too often and practice the virtue too seldom. Although Valentine's Day is hardly a Christian holiday, love is the central Christian virtue. Jesus said that God's will for humans boils down to this: Love God, and love one another.
Loving God means getting to know him. Not just knowing about him, mind you, but knowing him. Some of the meanest people I've ever met knew a lot "about" God from studying the Bible and going to church. But what they knew seemed to be for the sake of arguing. Winning at verbal fisticuffs. Proving themselves right and everyone else wrong. Beating people up with Bible facts.
Knowing God, on the other hand, is about spending time with him. Letting some of him "rub off on" you. Picking up his attitudes and habits. There is precious little credibility for the person who says "I love God!" and turns right around to insult, take advantage of, or abuse someone created in his image.
Loving one another means caring. Valentine's Day is focused on romantic love, and that's a wonderful form of love. Heavenly, in fact. But even romantic love, if genuine, begins in simple caring. Concern for his welfare. Wanting to do good things for her. Being moved to help when they are in some sort of distress.
Most of us seem to have reduced love to mushiness. Sentimentality. Or, perhaps more commonly still, lust. Thieves, racists, liars, stingy people, people who cheat on their mates, adults who abuse children – their fundamental sin is against love. They violate their basic link with humanity by refusing to care that they are exploiting, hurting, or otherwise diminishing the well-being of another.
Want to find out if you really know the meaning of love? Then read Paul's beautiful love poem at 1 Corinthians 13 and insert your name for the word "love" when you see it: John is patient, Latitia is kind, Evan isn't jealous, and so on.
Seems like everybody is looking for love these days. Once you discover it in God as The Source, you can get over the selfish quest to find love and be that rare soul who knows how to give it away. It is the essence of your humanity.
