God’s Valentine to Us
1JN 3:1 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! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
1JN 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1JN 3:7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
1JN 3:11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
1JN 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1JN 3:21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Valentine’s Day every Feb. 14th we celebrate this day of Love. It is a day for remembering one’s vows of love to one another, and it’s a day for those who are desperate to try to win the affection of another male or female by enticing them with fattening gifts.
One figure who is usually associated with Valentine’s Day is Cupid. “Cupid has always played a role in the celebrations of love and lovers. He is known as a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows would pierce the hearts of his victims causing them to fall deeply in love. In ancient Greece he was known as Eros the young son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. To the Romans he was Cupid, and his mother was Venus.”
According to church tradition St. Valentine was a priest near Rome in about the year A.D. 270. Now some have rejected the story because of its similarity to that of Paul. At that time the Roman Emperor was imprisoning Christians for not worshipping the Roman gods. During this persecution Valentine was arrested. Some say he was arrested because he was performing Christian marriages, but others say it was for helping Christians escape prison.
During the trial they asked Valentine what he thought of the Roman gods Jupiter and Mercury. Of course Valentine said they were false gods and that the God that Jesus called Father was the only true God. So the Romans threw him in prison for insulting the gods.
While in prison Valentine continued to minister. He witnessed to the guards. One of the guards was a good man who had adopted a blind girl. He asked Valentine if his God could help his daughter. Valentine prayed and the girl was given her sight. The guard and his whole family, 46 people, believed in Jesus and were baptized. Because these people had come to know Jesus, Valentine praised God right there in his prison cell. When the emperor heard about this he was furious that Valentine was still making converts even in prison, so he had Valentine beheaded.
We know it as a day of love, but what is love? Now the Greek has 4 different terms for this word, the New Testament uses three of them. Philas which means brotherly love, it is the root word for Philadelphia, which is called the city of brotherly love. Delphi is Greek for city, Philas Greek for brotherly love. The second Greek term is Eros, the root word for our word erotic, it is sexual love between a man and woman, never meant anything else. Yet what does that have to do with Valentine’s Day and this passage? All the words for Love are encompassed in the third Greek word.
Agapao= we all understand that this word means unconditional love. God’s great love is unconditional. We have done nothing to deserve it yet God gives it without a hitch. That famous verse of Paul’s writings Romans 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In his demand for love Jesus took previous sayings: Love God; love your neighbor; do unto others as you would have the do unto you. However, he did so in a startlingly exclusive and unconditional way. Love of God means total commitment and total commitment and total trust (Mt. 5:29-30; 6:24ff). It encompasses total loyalty to God alone. Not divided between priorities, it means God comes first. This is the command found in the first four commandments.
1JN 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1JN 3:7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
Our Love for God should be to keep his commandments. But it is also doing them for no other reason other than it is right. If we have any other motive, then it is not done out of LOVE. If we do not love God enough to keep his commandments how can we say then that we are Children of God? Pure love (agapao) is unconditional, we then do what is right because it is right.
Jesus also spoke of another lover. Love of neighbor accompanies love of God (Mt 22:39) There is no abstract love of humanity. It is covered but not exclusive to the remaining commandments. 1JN 3:11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
Nevertheless, it transcends any restriction to compatriots; the neighbor is simply the person in need, or rather, the neighbor is the person nearby who acts in neighborly fashion to the one in need. These actions derive from a response of the heart and consist of doing in all sobriety what the occasion requires. We see this illustrated in the story of the Good Samaritan. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. We see it in action in the life of Jesus. Many times the gospel writers speak of Jesus’ emotions saying he was filled with compassion. Compassion is a fruit of this love, compassion is being filled with sympathy or pity. But it is not enough to have pity or sympathy, love requires action. Jesus had compassion and did something about it. Whether it was healing, feeding, mercy or forgiveness, Jesus took his compassion to the next level. God had compassion on mankind in our fallen state and did something about. Agapao shows emotion and requires action. But the action is not limited to our neighbors.
Love of neighbor definitely includes love of enemies (Mt. 5:43-44). This love of God’s new people which they show not merely to one another but even to those of the present age who persecute them. Jesus had compassion on all of us, he had mercy on our condition to become like one of us. But then his love compelled him to become our sacrifice. Hebrews 7:27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
Hebrews 9:12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
In his great compassion and love, Jesus did what was necessary to bring us back to God, he paid the price once for all time. His death on the Cross is sufficient for all of us to come back to God.
But agapao is more than compassion and sacrificial. It is thus completely sacrificial. The martyr becomes the intercessor for the hostile world that imposes martyrdom. Jesus makes this demand with full realism but also with full seriousness. In Jesus we see the martyred becoming also our intercessor. 1 Timothy 2:5 says; For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
HEB 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 12:24 Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Therefore we have one Savior, one Mediator, one who has proved his love for us, and calls us to share that love with everyone. Not to gain love, but because we are loved. For this reason we are God’s valentine to the world, we are his examples of love. Thereby doing what he has commanded LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEARTS AND TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS AS OURSELVES. Practicing agapao with the world.
