Valentine’s Day has gotten a bad wrap, especially among Christians. In the midst of ‘single’s awareness day’ comments and a culture that promotes selfishness and indifference, we need a Valentine’s Day more than ever! Maybe even a week!
What if we didn’t take people for granted? What if we loved our neighbors, families, friends and peers? What if we remembered the forgotten? What would that day look like? What if we kept it up for a week, a month, a year? What if we became known by the way we loved instead of our style, job, or relationship? Would the world call us fools? Maybe, but I think they’d see our God a little more clearly.
“Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” – 1 John 4:7-12
You see God is love, and Valentine’s Day is all about sharing the Love. So heretofore we should be sharing the Lord! So here is the challenge, better yet, the dare: I dare you to spend the next week being a little foolish. I dare you to look at the world the way God sees it. Find the hurting and the forgotten, they are much closer than you think! Come on friends, let’s walk what we talk!
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Cor 13:4-8
DAY 1: Love your family: When was the last time you thanked your parents for giving you life, or your siblings for not ending it early? Our families are so easy to take for granted. If you have someone in your corner, someone who loves you in spite of yourself, let them know how much you appreciate them. Don’t be sarcastic. If it’s too hard to say, write it down. You know them better than anyone and a little love and encouragement can go a long way. “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Phil 2: 1-4
DAY 2: Love your friends: sometimes we are the guy on the mat. If that’s you, thank those who’ve been carrying you. If not, look for those who may need a lift. Which of your friends is stressed? Worried? Broken hearted? Disappointed? How about carrying them to the feet of the one who could heal them?
“When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”- Mark 2:1-5
DAY 3: Love your coworkers/classmates: How can you encourage your peers? How much more would get done if we helped instead of complained?
“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” – Romans 15: 1-2
Day 4: Love your neighbors: We’ve debated for centuries who all this includes, but I’m pretty darn sure it includes the people in my apartment building, your dorm hall and the guy whose yard your dog uses as his regular restroom. So go ahead, shovel a walk, clip some hedges or bake a treat. At the very least, MEET your neighbors.
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” – Gal 5:13-15
Day 5: Love your enemy: Ok so you’re saying “Mo, I don’t have enemies!” Maybe you don’t have anyone out to take you down, but who is that person you try to avoid? Who is hard to love? God loves him or her, you probably should get on board. How can you repay them with kindness?
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6: 35-36
Day 6: Love a stranger, especially a widow or orphan. Give blood. Visit a nursing home. Have patience in traffic. Clothe and feed the homeless. See the invisible. Remember the forgotten.
“Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Heb 13:1-3
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27
Day 7: Love yourself: You’re God’s kid, remind yourself of that daily! When you put yourself down, you are insulting God’s creation, not cool. I pray that you would learn to see yourself the way God sees you and learn to love who you are!
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Eph 3: 14-21
I was going to include more verses on the love of God but the truth is he wrote a whole book about it! If you haven’t taken time to read it lately, you should, but that's a dare for another day.
So there you have it. The challenge. Go out and love people like God does.
Be a fool for Christ, I dare you:-)
Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends!
Thank you for making my life brighter and warmer by your presence in it!
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