“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
-John 13:34-35
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is a day of warm affectionate feelings, hearts and flowers and chocolates. A day to be nice to others, especially the opposite sex from you.
Jesus, 2nd Person of the Trinity, created humans to have these affectionate feelings within us. And yet we are called, even challenged,by these verses to an even deeper expression of ‘love.’ The word for love used is not the Greek for ‘family love’, nor ‘brotherly affection,’ and not even ‘married love’ (Greek has different words for each kind of love) but the word that includes those emotions and also the idea of expecting nothing in return.
This is the same Greek word used in John 3:16 for God’s motivation to send His Son to the cross for us. God has given free will all the way back in the Garden of Eden, and now we see why He gave that gift. So we can chose to ‘love’ and not be forced into an emotion we would not consciously decide to do on our own. That is part of being made in God’s image – deciding on our own to ‘love’ the way He loves us.
That Godly kind of love is our motivation for sharing the Good News of sins forgiven – so that another person sees, and feels, His love. And His love is best seen in how we are ‘loving’ to each other. May the Holy Spirit help us do this even better than we already do now.
