Last week I heard from a few of our readers, and of their disappointment that we didn't have a Valentine's Day post. In point of fact, we've never addressed the holiday here at Think-Biblically.com and it's not an oversight. We've never talked about the holiday because it's not a Biblical one. I assure all our readers that it probably isn't because I happen to be single. We have done articles on how to have Godly relationships, however,which are easily searched for. While this post is titled "Love", I sense it isn't what our readers are hoping for either.

While not romantically related, the love we talk about today is the love with which God loves us and the love which enables us to love our neighbor as ourselves. As we mentioned yesterday, God has given us three important gifts through his Holy Spirit: power, love and self-control. The power of God enables us to provide witness to unbelievers, but it does more than that. The Holy spirit also enables us to love the unlovable. There is a relationship between these two, in that the more we love God and others, the more we are empowered. But don't take my word for it:

I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. — Ephesians 3.16-19

Since the fall of Satan, all false gods try to gain the allegiance of man through a display of their power; only the one true God displays his love instead. For this reason the Great Commandment has become the Law of God: Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments, and all the law of God, was given to protect love, and love is the meaning of the Law. Under Christ, the old law has not passed away but the new law of love reigns over all. God is love; his Spirit empowers us to love. It makes sense, then, that the more we allow the Spirit to control our thoughts and actions the more capable we are to love others.

I've said it before but it bears repeating, God id love. To demonstrate this I wish to examine the New Testament's key passage on love, replacing it with the name of Jesus:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have Jesus, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have Jesus, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have Jesus, I receive no benefit. Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus is not envious. Jesus does not brag, Jesus is not puffed up. Jesus is not rude, Jesus is not self-serving, Jesus is not easily angered or resentful. Jesus is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

God is love, and we reveal God to others when we love like God. Let the verses above instruct you on how to live your life, love God and love others.