Healing Rays of Righteousness

Valentine’s Day is celebrated as a day of expressing love to another.  And we Americans spend billions of dollars on chocolate candy, cards, and roses in our efforts to show our affection for another.  But sadly, these extravagant expressions of love are often very short lived and the relationship becomes broken or destroyed by the evil selfish emotions of anger, greed, or lust.

I think Valentine’s Day is also an excellent day to remind ourselves of God’s most beautiful and glorious love message that he sends us, not one day of the year, but every day of our lives.  And he sends it to us wherever on earth we may be physically and emotionally that day.

In his book Experiencing God, Henry T. Blackaby writes, “God is far more interested in a love relationship with you then He is in what you can do for Him.”

Unfortunately, that ‘love relationship’ is the road less traveled by for many Christians.  We tend more often to relate to God with our hands, by what we do for Him, and shy away from developing an intimate “heart of love” relationship with Him.

Some of the most profound teaching regarding God’s love is found in the third and fourth chapters of John’s first letter.  In verses eight and sixteen of the fourth chapter, John tells us that “God is love.”  

Those three little words get to the heart of what John believed about God.  They tell us that God is pure self-giving love, and that God cares deeply about you and me and covets our love relationship with himself.

But, how do we know that God is love; that he loves us and cares deeply about us, both you and me?  The answer is found in his valentine message of love to us, recorded in 1 John 3:1 and 4:9-10. John begins by gushing out this proclamation;

• How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
• that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!
• This is how God showed his love among us;
• He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
• This is love; not that we loved God,
• but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

I’m reminded of a story out of Roman history.  The Roman army had subdued the kingdom of Armenia, and now the king of Armenia stood before the conquering general.  The king fell to his knees and pled with the Roman general:  “Do whatever you wish with me, but I beg you to spare the lives of my family.”  The Roman general graciously spared the life of both the king and his family.

Later, the king of Armenia asked his wife what had been her impression of the Roman conqueror, but she responded, “I never saw him.”  “How could you have failed to see him?” asked the king.  “He was only a few feet away.  What were you looking at?”

With tears welling up in her eyes, the queen replied, “I saw only you, the one who was willing to die so that I might live.”

Each one of us who has given his or her life to Christ can put ourselves in that story, for we know what it is to have someone love us so much that they willingly die for us.  Such remarkable, amazing love is at the very core of God’s character; at the very center of God’s heart of love.  And nothing we can ever do will stop or hinder God from loving us.

I call this God’s ever-loving valentine to us.  And having received such a beautiful valentine from him, I think it is only appropriate that we respond to his sacrificial love with our own valentine of love and praise as we recommit our life of devoted love to him.

I think an appropriate praise valentine from us to God is found in Psalm 36:5-9;

• Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
• Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.
• O Lord, you preserve both man and beast.
• How priceless is your unfailing love!
• Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
• They feast on the abundance of your house;
• you give them drink from your river of delights.
• For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

The character of God is love.  May you revel in a daily love relationship with Him.

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – February 13, 2019