Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. – 1 John 4:8

Valentine’s Day brings out the most interesting responses from people. You can quickly tell where a person is at in their life based on their Valentine’s Day plans. Young or newly formed couples make the most of the opportunity to shower their beloved with gifts, cards, flowers, dinner and romance. To not go overboard would in some way leave their significant questioning their relationship. Veteran couples recognize the day, probably through a card or some dedicated time to be spent together apart from the busyness of schedules and the normalcy of life. And how can we forget the single-folk who spend the day wearing black, celebrating SAD (Singles Awareness Day) and being very intentional about how they do not recognize the “Hallmark Holiday.”

I find it interesting how we find ourselves in each of these different places over the course of our lives. Most people will eventually find their way to experiencing all three of these – I myself know all three very well. I guess I bring them up to establish the basic human nature of dealing with love in its various stages in our lives. From the time we first experience the feeling of mutual attraction, we find ourselves searching for ways to fulfill our needs through love in one form or another. Like many things in life, we have taken the idea of love and modified it to meet our individual needs. So we buy cards, flowers, gifts, candy, movie tickets, and the like so that our personal needs can get met. That may sound selfish, but tell me how many people love someone in a truly selfless manner? It’s not impossible, but to accomplish it you have to seek the source of true love.

1 John 4 identifies God as love. He is the model by which all love is measured. His love for us is boundless and best demonstrated through the life, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ whose love for us gives us yet another wonderful gift: life. In John 11:25, Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” The love of God gives us life. The love of God gives us eternal life. And until such time as God leads us home to be with Him, we live our lives modeling His love in every situation.

When the flowers wilt, the cards are recycled, and the calories from the chocolate are burned off on the treadmill, the love of God will remain. Let that love live in you, that it might lead others to the Source.