Valentine’s Day is all about love. And what better place to be on Valentine’s Day then worshipping the inventor of love, God Himself. As we’ll see, God both invented love and He best exemplifies love. So maybe God has something of importance to teach us about love on this Valentine’s Day 2010.
What was your first experience with falling in love? Do you remember? Maybe it was in middle school or high school and you noticed someone across the classroom or in passing in the hall. You felt like you just had to get to know that person. When you talked to them, you had feelings that you never had before. Your heart beat faster and you had a funny feeling in your stomach. You thought, this must be what love is all about. Love must be this mysterious feeling that I’ve just fallen into. If the feeling is there, I’m in love. If the feeling is gone, I’m out of love. Is that what love is all about?
It seems to me that a lot of people have problems defining what love is all about. The Bible teaches us that love is not just a feeling. The main word the Bible uses to talk about love is agape in the Greek. Agape means to make a choice to appreciate and act in the best interests of someone else. The keyword in that definition is that love is a choice, not a feeling. Love is a choice to do the best for someone else, whether you feel like it or not. Love is a commitment to another person that stands strong through thick and thin.
Today, my message is entitled “Loving From the Heart.” We’re going to be looking at what Jesus taught about love. But Jesus didn’t just teach about love, He showed us what love was all about. He died on the cross for you, because He loved you and wanted a relationship with you. We’ll talk more about that in a few minutes.
1 John 4:19 (NIV) We love because he first loved us.
In other words, we can only truly love God and other people, because God first loved us. We must learn about love from God in order to truly love from the heart.
One day, a Jewish legal expert asked Jesus what he had to do to have eternal life. Jesus asked him what the Bible said and the man …
Luke 10:27 (NIV) He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
Jesus said, that’s right and the man asked “Who’s my neighbor?” In other words, if I’m supposed to love my neighbor as myself, who is my neighbor and how am I supposed to love him? To answer his question, Jesus told a story that showed how to love from the heart. The story that Jesus told explains how to put love into action, even when it’s difficult.
You know, it’s easy to love when everything is going well in a relationship. But true love keeps on loving even when the going gets tough. True love never fails. So, this Valentine’s Day, let’s look at what Jesus taught about love. You can apply these principles to every type of relationship, whether marriage, friendship, family or church family. How can we love from the heart?
Listen to my February 14, 2010 message “Loving From The Heart” (message-notes).