She loves me, she loves me not.....
February 18th, 2024 (Week 57)
1 Corinthians 13
People in countries all around the world have just celebrated Valentine's Day. It’s a day that greetings card manufacturers and florists look forward to as tills ring loudly from dawn ‘till dusk. The earliest known surviving Valentine’s note dates back to 1415, in which a captured French Duke refers to his wife as ‘my very sweet Valentine’. Fast-forward to today and Valentine’s Day is celebrated by the masses across the UK with just over three-quarters of the nation taking part and spending nearly £1.5b.
Few people are aware that St Valentine was imprisoned, beheaded, and buried on 14th February 269AD for helping persecuted Christians and marrying Christian couples. While in prison he prayed for his jailer’s daughter and her blindness was healed. On the day of his execution, he left her a note signed, “Your Valentine”.
Sadly, Valentine's Day has been hijacked to be used as a symbol of romance and affection but love is much more than that. Real love is exemplified by Jesus’s words to Nicodemus, one of the Jewish leaders in John 3:16 when He said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life”. Jesus demonstrated this fully with His death on the cross in an act of absolute sacrificial love.
The idea of showing our love on any particular day is not a bad one. Nor is romance a bad thing in relationships or sending flowers at a given time. But none of this is a replacement for real love.
1 Corinthians 13 may to some, appear overused, cliched even. But it reminds us of the practical ways in which true love is to be demonstrated. Patience, kindness, and truth are all traits we need to display whilst not being jealous, conceited, or proud along with a few other unpleasant behaviours we might find challenging at times. But perhaps the single most important instruction provided in 1 Corinthians 13 is to persist because “love never gives up”.
This is agape love, which is most often crowned as the highest form of Christian love. It is the kind of love and action that shows empathy; extends the desire for the good of the beloved; wants the best; extends help or demonstrates good intentions; and is intended for everyone. Agape love is sacrificial.
It's not easy for the world to grasp that love is not simply a feeling or emotion but is demonstrated much more strongly by our actions. Maybe that is why 1 Corinthians 13 ends by saying that of faith, hope, and love, love is the greatest.
Love isn’t something we fall in and out of but a deliberate commitment to put others first and to sacrifice our own desires.
Prayer: Father God, please help us to grasp the reality of your agape love for us and help us to show it to those we love and to our neighbour.
Neil Bromage, 18/02/2024