HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
Today is a day which is all about love between two people. Cards are exchanged. Candy and flowers are bought by the armloads. Restaurants are full of couples celebrating the day of love as they spend time together. For so many people, it is simply another day where they pretend that everything is OK in their lives. It is a dream unattainable in their estimation. People get hurt. They are disappointed with one another. Bitter words are exchanged many times. Human love eventually wears thin. That is understandable. As the old expression goes for churches, so it also goes for marriage. When you have more than one person in a relationship, you have the potential for problems.
Love is a beautiful thing when God is intertwined in it with two people. There are so many facets to His love that life is never boring, always exciting as we discover new beauty in our loved one. The Lord causes us to see the strengths and goodness of our loved ones. He causes us to find no fault in the other one. The problem is that human love fails after a short period of time. In any relationship, there comes a point in time when people look at one another and there is not the spark there used to be. What happened to it? There is a better way to have a relationship of love. It is when God is the third person in the relationship. His love never ends, never fails, never wears out. His love is not temporary. His love is the same forever, never bending to circumstances or time. When we are hooked to Him, we are hooked to the greatest love in the universe. His love makes our love for one another the greatest love in the universe because we choose to look at each other through His eyes.
On the dresser in my husband’s and my bedroom is a plaque to remind us that love is forever and includes God in the equation always. Marriage: A successful triangle between a man, a woman and God.
I know 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is a passage of scripture which is used over and over where love is concerned, but nothing can top it. I am going to read it from the Amplified Bible and from the New Living Translation. If we will put these words into actions in our relationships and not just talk about it, we will live days of heaven on earth.
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking,; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever….
Know this of a certainty: GOD’S LOVE IN US NEVER FAILS!