With Valentine’s Day coming in a couple of days I started thinking about love and all of its interesting qualities. Many people have different definitions for love and what it entails. Some people think that love is buying flowers, candy, dinner or materialistic things.
Those are all nice things —- they show how much a person loves someone. They are not given to receive. In today’s society, we equate love with a feeling, but to me love is an action.
As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” For someone to truly show love they must walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Love sacrifices for the greater good of another person, the one you love.
Would you die for the one that you love? I know I would like to say that I would die for the people I love and who are closest to me.
The greatest sacrifice is to giver your life for something greater than yourself. Great leaders throughout history have asked people to give their life for something greater than him or herself.
But would you die for someone who hates you or someone you don’t know? I can say that I don’t know if I could die for someone who truly hated me or someone I did not know. But I will tell you that there is one person I know who died for you and me.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, so that we might have life. He died on the cross knowing that some people would follow him and others would not even give Him the time of day. But He went anyway —- to show us how much He loved us. From the very moment He was born, He knew that He was going to have to die for people who hated Him and for people who would not listen to what He had to say.
Ok, so let’s say that you would give your life for someone who hated you or that you did not know. Service men and women do this every day for our country.But there is something extra special about Jesus.
Jesus did not break one law, commit one sin or harm a person, but He was still sentenced to die. He was perfect and He still gave His life for you and me because He loved us. He suffered whippings, humiliation, torture, pain, death and so much more —- all for other people. This love does not stop there.
On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead and showed the world that He truly did love them. He defeated death and showed everyone that He was God.
I know that this is not the usual mushy kind of love story, but it is the greatest kind of love story because Christ exuded everything that is true about love.
Love is patient, kind, does not envy, rejoices in truth and does not fail.There are many other aspects of love but these are the ones that really stick out at me.Throughout the life of Jesus you see that He lived, taught and died in the name of love.
Jesus was patient when crowds of people came to Him to ask Him to heal them. He was kind when He healed people because He did it out of compassion. He did not envy because he lived a humble life as God’s son.He did not fail because He made a way for common people like you and I to have a relationship with a holy God by living a perfect life, dying on the cross and rising from the dead.
Jesus is love, and we would not truly know what love meant unless Christ came down from heaven and completed the work of the cross and all that was prophesied about Him in the Old Testament. His love is free, but not cheap. It cost Him his life so that we could have life. Without Him no one can truly experience love or what this life is all about.
On Valentine’s Day I pray that you will experience the ultimate love of knowing Jesus as your savior and allow Him to cleanse you from your sin. He will show you what true love is all about and how to really enjoy life. Open your heart and hold on, because you will experience the roller coaster ride of your life with the greatest romantic the world has ever seen —- Jesus Christ.
E-mail Brad with comments at [email protected].