The Greatest Love of All

Love is in the air.

Valentine’s Day is upon us, and we are once again inundated with our cultural ideas of love.

Valentine became famous for marrying couples who were in love but couldn’t get legally married in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, who outlawed weddings. Claudius wanted to recruit lots of men to be soldiers in his army and thought that marriage would be an obstacle to recruiting new soldiers. He also wanted to prevent his existing soldiers from getting married because he thought that marriage would distract them from their work.

When Emperor Claudius discovered that Valentine was performing weddings, he sent Valentine to jail. 

He befriended his jailer, Asterious, who became so impressed with Valentine’s wisdom that he asked Valentine to help his daughter, Julia, with her lessons. Julia was blind and needed someone to read material for her to learn it. Valentine became friends with Julia through his work with her when she came to visit him in jail.

Emperor Claudius also came to like Valentine. He offered to pardon Valentine and set him free if Valentine would renounce his Christian faith and agree to worship the Roman gods. Not only did Valentine refuse to leave his faith, he also encouraged Emperor Claudius to place his trust in Christ. Valentine’s faithful choices cost him his life. Emperor Claudius was so enraged at Valentine’s response that he sentenced Valentine to die.

Before he was killed, Valentine wrote a last note to encourage Julia to stay close to Jesus and to thank her for being his friend. He signed the note: “From your Valentine.” That note inspired people to begin writing their own loving messages.

Valentine was beaten, stoned, and beheaded on February 14, 270. 

(Article by Whitney Hopner - learnreligions.com)

Our culture packages love in jewelry boxes, flower bouquets, and boxes of candy.

They tell us that love is found in same sex relationships.

They tell us that we can fall in and out of love in the blink of an eye. Thus, marriage is seen as simply a temporary arrangement, rather than a life time commitment.

Such an attitude is often used to justify adultery.

Celebrities pair up and break up so regularly that weekly magazines and gossip websites thrive on the intrigue, and we are entertained by this sin.

Contemporary romantic comedies promote an "if-it-feels-good-it-must-be-love" mentality that leaves many people feeling empty—especially when their real life simply can’t compete.

Our culture has largely made us feel dead to love.

In short, we’ve been conned. The world has turned God’s beautiful creation of love into a cover for sin!

We are told to follow our heart, but the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer 17:9)

Love—the kind that’s real—doesn’t come gift-wrapped on Valentine’s Day.

It’s not the momentary glow of a fresh relationship.

It’s not the reuniting of two characters in some sappy Hallmark movie.

Real love is explained in the Bible. Real love is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional.

Jesus taught and modeled love

John 15:13

John 15:13 NKJV

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

1 John 3:16

1 John 3:16 NKJV

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

In our self-indulgent world, a love so sacrificial and selfless may sound like some impossible ideal, but it’s not.

It really happened, and it happened for us. No Strings Attached

Personal experience may have taught you that love comes conditionally.

If you mess up, it’s gone. If you don’t pay the cost, it disappears.

But that’s not real love.

The Bible tells us what real love is

1 Corinthians 13:4–7

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NKJV

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And there’s Someone who loves like that.

He gave up more riches than you could imagine to come on a rescue mission.

Although He didn't deserve it, He was betrayed, tortured, and beaten to fulfill that mission.

He died by one of the most painful forms of execution that humans have ever invented.

He loved us and “gave His life a ransom for all”.

Jesus paid the price for love

1 Timothy 2:6

1 Timothy 2:6 NKJV

who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

Our Rescuer—Jesus—died out of love.

He lived entirely without sin, yet He walked up a hill in Israel 2,000 years ago and sacrificed His life to save sinners from God’s wrath.

***What does love look like? Heart/cross illustration

Love is not flowers in the hand, but a hole in the hand. (Nail scarred hands)

He took the punishment we deserve for our sin.

Romans 5:9

Romans 5:9 NKJV

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

He didn’t put stipulations on His love, like waiting for us to clean up our act first.

Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 NKJV

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus died for all

He didn't die for only the “best” of mankind.

1 Corinthians 1:26

1 Corinthians 1:26 NKJV

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.

He died for all, even the worst of the worst, because He loves us and wants us in His family.

Jesus lives for all

Three days later, Jesus rose to life just as He proclaimed, proving He is the Son of God.

Matthew 12:40

Matthew 12:40 NKJV

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Revelation 1:18

Revelation 1:18 NKJV

I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

He proved that He can indeed give us new life.

God is true love

1 John 4:8

1 John 4:8 NKJV

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

and it beautifully summarizes what He did:

John 3:16

John 3:16 NKJV

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.