I am an Offering

It’s Valentine’s Day and we all know what that means.  A lot of people will be sappily celebrating superficial love, a lot of peope will be miserably lamenting their lack of love, and, a lot of people will be honoring each other with the love that the Bible talks about.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really enjoy Valentine’s Day, but I think it encourages society to view love as something temporary or something that can be bought, and that if you don’t have someone “loving” you on this day, your life is pitiful.  I was glad to see an article on MSN that encouraged people to celebrate their singleness and just plain enjoy the day and realize that it’s really overrated, but I was also sad to see that when I searched for blogs on Valentine’s day, so many people were miserable that they wouldn’t be getting the gifts that everybody else was getting.

So, MSN says that Valentine’s Day love is overrated.  Could it be perhaps that the world’s view of love in general  is overrated?  I think so.  Fairy tales end “happily ever after,” but that is not the case in many of real-life’s stories.  People blog that if they had a date or someone to buy them something on this day, they’d feel loved and happy, yet when the flowers wilt and the day goes away, that happiness could very well turn into a nightmare.

So what is real love?  Jesus says in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”  This same man went on to do just that; lay down His life for all of us so that we could be free.  Jesus also calls us to daily “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow” Him.  And Paul tells us as husbands to “love our wives as Christ loved the church, and gave up Himself for her.”

So how do we apply those things to offer ourselves to God and to others with true, Biblical love?

• Die to ourselves.  Our desires are not to come first.  We die to our pride and deny our desires so that we can follow Jesus first of all.  Then we put aside our pride and desires, sacrificing what we want in order to show true love to our spouses, family and friends.
• Be willing to lay down our lives.  Are we willing to give every area of our life to Jesus?  Every area?  Are we willing to die for someone we say we love?  If you aren’t willing to die for your wife, husbands, you do not have Biblical love as Paul teaches.  If you aren’t willing to lay down everything in your life for Jesus, do you really love Him, or do you just believe in Him?
• Be a living sacrifice.  Every day, realize what is holding you back from loving Jesus and your spouse more, and take it to the Cross and leave it there.