Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romantic love. The kind of love that includes attraction, affection, a warm fuzzy feeling. Although wonderful, it is merely a shadow of the love God has for you.
The first fruit of the spirit is Love. This love is “Agape” love. A love that is born by choice. A love that is unmerited and seeks the best for another. It is sacrificial and unconditional. God is the only perfect example of this type of love, a love he freely gives to us. He loves us not because of who we are or what we do, he loves us because he made a choice to love us. He sees us from a lens of eternity. I like to think of it this way, God sees our complete self, he doesn’t get fixated on a micro-version of us. He can see past the mistakes we’ve made. He is always calling us forward and seeking the best for us.
I can’t create this love in me, for others, without God’s help. Thankfully, when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, agape love begins to grow within us.
My wish for you on this Valentine’s Day is that you will take time to look at the mystery of God’s love for you. Paul says this better in Ephesians, chapter 3:18-19
“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
You are perfectly loved.
