OPINION: Valentine Still Teaching Many The Importance Of Love

The Right Emphasis
By Doug May

Love is extremely important. We need much more of it. It is appropriate and beneficial to set aside one day a year to emphasize the importance of love. It is love that makes all our labors worthwhile.
But love is not something that comes naturally; it must be learned. If you think that it is natural for us to love, you are probably thinking of love as a sexual activity.
I am speaking of love in a much broader sense. Love is helping another person according to his or her needs. When we are born we naturally love ourselves and have many desires for our enjoyment, but being sensitive to the needs of others and helping them takes a life-time of learning.
The Bible describes love: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Love does not focus on our desires but on the needs of others. We learn this kind of love from God. Christ’s apostle John wrote, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
Our Valentine’s Day gets its name from an ancient bishop in the Christian church who understood God’s love for him.
On February 14, AD 270 Valentine was killed in Rome under the Emperor Claudius because he would not renounce his faith in Christ. Historians tell us that those were days of horror for Christians in the Roman Empire.
“The new persecution, which was begun in 257, seems to have been directed more astutely. The bishops, as the heads of the Church, were singled out and were commanded to do homage to the old gods under pain of exile, Christians were threatened with the death penalty if they so much as went to any of the meetings or services of the Church... In the year 258 a new and more drastic edict was promulgated. It ordered death for bishops, priests, and deacons...”
Persecution of varied intensity continued until AD 323.
Valentine’s love for the Lord was so great that he would rather die than to deny the Savior who died for his forgiveness. Valentine’s love was but a reflection of Christ’s love for him.
Valentine did not invent love, but he knew the love of God in Christ. On the cross God’s Son suffered for our sins. God sent a message to sinners, “I love you.”
Paul, who had previously persecuted Christians, knew the blessings of God’s forgiveness. He wrote, “In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus”
It is appropriate, that in memory of Valentine and his love for Christ that we should show acts of love for one another.
Remember that special one in your life, but also find two or three others who have who are hurting and encourage them with a message or gift. It is inspiring to see the enormous love being showered on the people in Haiti in this time of their great need.
Happy Valentine’s Day!

Doug May is a retired Lutheran pastor and his views do not necessarily represent those of the Mountain Mail

OPINION: Valentine Still Teaching Many The Importance Of Love