We’re about to celebrate another traditional “holiday” of sorts in America this coming weekend, and that is Valentine’s Day. According to our current culture, this is a day to celebrate romantic love. In so doing, pressure comes strong to send a card or gift expressing affection to our sweetheart. The coercion comes to young and old because there is substantial commercial reaping ahead for those in the “celebrate romance” industry. I even received a personal phone call from a local business reminding me to get my flower order in early to take advantage of a discount offer! (I have been a faithful flower patron for many years, so I supposed I’ve asked for it). Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Valentine’s Day, but I have been thinking more about supposed “holidays” of late because the things we choose to participate in matter more and more as our culture spirals wildly downward. The hard reality of the past year is inspiring me to ponder more deeply on many subjects that I never really gave much thought to in past times. In truth, the origins of Valentine’s Day are a little weird, and so I am not desiring to honor any of that questionable secular stuff. But I do hope to communicate that I greatly value my wife; that I do not take her for granted.

I’ve been looking at the New Testament Epistle James, Chapter One, over and over as the last year has unfolded, and so I’m back there again now in light of Valentine’s Day:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2–4)

James addresses trials and suffering in the Christian life and tells us that both are a net plus for believers in Jesus Christ! That is a very counter-culture position, which should make us rethink pretty much everything. So, I am now asking myself today, why have I sent Cynthia flowers on February 14^th every year since 1976, the year I first laid eyes on her? Besides supporting Hallmark and FTD and whoever else has gladly taken my money this time of year, what have I honestly been expressing in my heart year on year? Have the threats and pressures of this past season given me any improved clarity about romantic love? Or, for that matter, about love in general?

Well, just so you know, I have ordered the flowers and gotten the discount. But I have also put very determined thought into the incredible gift that God has given me in my wife of nearly forty years. Trials help us do that. Sufferings tend to force you and me to appreciate better what we have, and maybe never fully understood. Pain allows us to see God’s unfathomable goodness even as temporal circumstances unravel. Negative pressures send us in search of truth, and as a pastor, I tell you emphatically, the only source of the truth that we need for life and doctrine is holy Scripture.

So, I went to Scripture in my thinking about Valentine’s Day and romantic love. The proverbial “go to” verses on love in the Bible are, of course, found in First Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–6)

This passage certainly has application for romantic love. However, as I went back and looked more carefully at this well-known passage, I saw two crucial revelations that I want to share today.

 The first revelation is the importance of considering the 1 Cor 13 “love passage” in its Biblical context. In his letter to the churches at Corinth, the Apostle Paul was addressing serious problems and doctrinally important questions emanating from an immature church. The new believers in Corinth struggled to reject their pre-conversion behaviors to live in Christ-honoring holiness within the polytheistic and corrupt culture of greater Rome. Paul had to confront the negative realities of church division, an absence of discipline rooted in confusion about permissible freedoms, and toleration of immorality. Springing from these immature church dynamics came questions for Paul concerning marriage, virgins, things offered to idols, matters of public assembly, spiritual gifts, the resurrection, and giving. His letter to the church addressing these critical topics proved a powerful teaching tool, coming to them in God’s power as if he were speaking to them in person.

The epistle reads like a Q & A wherein Paul is working his way down the list of this immature church’s top concerns. By the time he gets to chapter thirteen, he is on spiritual gifts and church unity. Paul gave detailed counsel concerning God’s provision of spiritual gifts and the believer’s exercising of them (12:1–14:40). Paul also strongly emphasized their sole, edifying purpose: to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord (12:1–3)—that’s it, that’s the entire point and purpose. It’s never to be about you or me.

Paul elaborated on the unity and diversity of the gifts in 12:4–31, and through the entirety of Chapter 13, he profoundly clarified the essentiality that the gifts be leveraged in selfless love. Absent selfless love as the motivator, Paul asserted a person “is nothing” and “gains nothing” (13: 2–3) in exercising gifts. So, these “go-to” love verses were not so much about romantic love! They were about Christ’s transcendent love that believers are to emulate as we are sanctified daily.

First John 4:7–12 says this about love:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7–12)

God is love! As we use Scripture to clarify Scripture—always with the goal of more deeply understanding God’s truth—we see that we cannot comprehend nor exercise authentic love apart from a saving relationship with Christ alone. Unbelievers can love because of common grace, but they cannot fathom love absent the gift of the Holy Spirit, which comes at conversion by faith. I can only think in a mature way about love, which includes my love for Christ, my love for His church, and then my love for my wife and family, because He first loved me.

Because Christ and love are synonymous, try inserting the name of Christ in the 1 Cor 1 passage where you see the word love: Christ is patient and kind, Christ is never envious, boastful, or arrogant…you get the picture. This passage is setting a very high bar for every believer to shoot for, every day, all day! It’s not just a once-a-year nod to romantic love in the context of Valentine’s Day.

This conclusion brings me to my second revelation. I realize that I do not deserve the gift of Cynthia any more than I deserve eternal salvation. Therefore, I can only strive to love as Christ loves in every relationship I have, not just my precious, personal ones. I also realize I need to see my wife of forty years as my Lord revealing Himself to me every day, all day. Cynthia is so much the picture of 1 Cor 13 that I would be utterly blind to miss Christ ministering to me through her. Such revelation adds a whole new meaning to me, saying that I’m blessed to be with her, words that have easily rolled off my tongue, but perhaps in an ultimately unappreciative way. Now, more and more, I take no day for granted. I am overwhelmed by God’s goodness and grace.

So, even as the flowers will come next Friday to her office at GCS, I am endeavoring to love her at a new level every single day. That is sanctification—growing to be more like Christ every day so that tomorrow we can say that we might be more like him than we were today. As Cynthia’s husband, I’m going to love her today and tomorrow and the next day just as “Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her.”  Ephesians 5:25.

Happy valentine’s Day!