JESUS
IS MY VALENTINE!
Song
8:7
7
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would
give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
[All the stuff in a man’s house would not equal the value of love.]
Today
is Saint Valentine’s Day. This day commemorates the martyrdom of Valentinus,
a priest during the rule of Claudius II. Under Claudius, Rome was engaged in
wars on many fronts and Claudius suspended weddings and marriages because he
thought his soldiers would be distracted by romance and family. He needed
strong soldiers who had no attachment to wife and children.
Valentine
secretly and illegally performed weddings in violation of the emperor’s
ban. He was eventually discovered and placed in prison. While in prison he sent
letters to his friends asking them to pray for his release. He was executed on
the 14th of February in the year 269 or 270. He is remembered on
this day as one who encouraged love.
There
is another martyr who was pretty keen on love. His name is
Jesus and He died loving you with an unquenchable love. A river of blood could
not quench His love and the Bible asks the question: “For what shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul?” Mark 8:36-37 Jesus is my Valentine. His
love letter is the Bible.
C.
S. Lewis said:
If
God is love,
he is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from
all the records, that though he has often rebuked us and condemned us, he has
never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of
loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.
Dear
Lord, thank you for loving me with an everlasting and self-sacrificing love.
AMEN
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