A Love Like No Other
We are in the “love” month! As someone who does not have a valentine this year, Valentine’s Day can be overwhelming with feelings of loneliness or thoughts of missing out. In our world, this holiday links love with tangible gifts of gigantic teddy bears, unwanted chocolate, and overpriced red roses.
But surely this is not what signifies true love? If that were the case, there would be a lot of disappointment on Friday.
But I have good news! True love is not just a day we celebrate on February 14 with these things; it is an ongoing, never-ending, unconditional, inexpressible love that was displayed through our loving and giving Savior, Jesus Christ. Whether you are single or have been married for over 50 years, this Valentine’s Day, let us fix our eyes on a love like no other—the inexpressible love of God!
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
God has wild, reckless love for you. It is displayed in His sacrifice of sending His one and only Son to save us from our perishing sin, so we could have a relationship with Him for eternity. God the Father gave His Son, and Jesus the Son of God, gave Himself. Jesus gave the greatest thing anyone could every give – Himself. All out of His love for you.
Truly Jesus loved you so much to die to know you!
His love was always there, from before the foundations of the world. He knew you intimately and loved you endlessly. He adores you to no end. He cares for you like no other. He loves you selflessly. Not just in words, but in the greatest action of giving Himself to save you.
This is what true love looks like. For your Valentine’s Day week and the rest of your days, meditate on these words and stamp these fourteen truths about God’s love for you:
1. God’s Love is Eternal
Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
2. God’s Love is Unconditional
Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
3. God’s Love is Sacrificial
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
4. God’s Love is Perfect
1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
5. God’s Love is Redeeming
Isaiah 44:22 “I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
6. God’s Love is Steadfast
Lamentations 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
7. God’s Love is Unchanging
James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
8. God’s Love is Life-Giving
Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—"
9. God’s Love is Kind
Titus 3:4-5 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”
10. God’s Love is Patient
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
11. God’s Love is Forgiving
Micah 7:18 “He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
12. God’s Love is Transformative
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
13. God’s Love is All-Encompassing
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
14. God’s Love is Intimate
Psalm 139:13-16 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
How great is the love of God!
There is no other love like it.