Healing Rays of Righteousness

Valentine’s Day is celebrated as a day of expressing our love to another. Valentine’s Day is also an excellent day to be reminded that God sends us a most beautiful and glorious love message every day of our lives, and not just on one special day of the year. 

This most amazing love message is found in the fourth chapter of John’s first letter, which he wrote to instruct and encourage the early Christians.   In verse 8, John tells us that “God is love.” And these three little words get to the heart of what John believed about God’s character.  These three little words describe God as pure self-giving love and that he so greatly cares about you and me.

How do we know this to be true?  How can we be certain that “the love of God is greater far, than tongue or pen can ever tell”?  My friend, if you daily walk close with Jesus, you will know it to be true. 

Never has there been a more awesome display of LOVE than on Good Friday, when Jesus shouldered our sins upon himself and carried them to the cross.  And never has there been a more awesome display of the power of LOVE than on Easter morning, when God raised Christ from the dead and he emerged victorious from the tomb.

This is the reality that John points to when he writes in verse 9 that “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.”  And in verse 10 he adds, “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 fondly remember the bedtime ritual of our small children coming to me for a goodnight kiss. Each time I would say “I love you” and they would respond, “I love you, too, Daddy.”  This bedtime ritual later became our good-bye ritual as they became teenagers and young adults, and continues yet today.

I have no doubt that my children dearly love me.  But I can recall a time when love was not the issue. They needed Mom and Dad.  They were utterly and totally dependent on us.  Their love for us as their parents came later. Their ability to love was and is a “learned” emotion.  And their learning was in response to our enduring, sacrificial, parental love for them throughout their growing, maturing years. 

From the very first sight of our children, the first touch, the first sound of a cry, the first cradling, I was deeply in love with them.  I loved them simply because they were our children.  They did not earn it, and neither did they necessarily deserve it. Furthermore, they expected a lot from us as their mother and dad and were costly in both time and money.  But above and beyond any of that, they were our children.  And nothing they could ever do or become would stop us from loving them.        

Most importantly, while growing up in that steady environment of love, they began to love me and their mother as their parents.  And today, when they say “I love you” we know they speak from their heart, because we now are frequently the recipient of their many acts of love.

In verse 19, John says God’s parental relationship with us is like our relationship with our children.  We love (God) because he first loved us.”  And nothing we could ever do will stop God from loving us.

But there is something more.  As our children grew and matured, year after year, we modeled and encouraged certain expectations of them.  We desired that they would deeply love the Lord Jesus and others, being honest, fair, and kind in all their relationships, becoming like Jesus in every way.

And, it should not surprise us that as God’s children we too are greeted with expectations from our Heavenly Parent.  John believes that the implications of God’s amazing love is clear.  “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  (v.11).

If we are experiencing God’s atoning forgiveness and love through Christ, and if we are experiencing God’s love through the indwelling presence of the God’s Spirit, then God expects us to be loving others. “And he has given us this command; Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  (v.21). There is no wiggle room in that commanded expectation from God.

Echoing the apostle John’s teaching letter, Mother Teresa urges us to “Spread love everywhere you go; first of all, in your own home.  Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next-door neighbor. … Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.  Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”

SO BE IT, and may your Valentine’s Day be extra special with God’s love spilling over you!

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Ray M. Geigley – “Healing Rays of Righteousness” – www.geigler13.wordpress.com – 2/12/25