Valentine’s Sacrificial Love, Part 1
Do you know that God would love for you to be like Valentine?… But who was Valentine?
No one is totally sure who Valentine was, but he was almost certainly a Christian who was killed for his faith. The most probable “Valentine” that the day is named after was a Christian priest. The emperor had made marriage illegal (so he’d have more single men to fight wars). Valentine knew it was wrong, and secretly performed marriages for many young couples. He was thrown in jail and eventually executed. And sometime in jail, he may have fallen in love with his jailor’s daughter and written her a note that he signed, “From your Valentine.”
But why would Valentine be willing to sacrifice his life so people could be married?
I think it’s because Valentine knew that God love him. He also knew we were created to love God and love people. But too often, we are surrounded by the damage done by people’s failure to love sacrificially.
I don’t know about you, but recently, I’ve seen:
• people thinking everything would be better if they had a sweetheart.
• people struggling with forgiveness (or in bondage to unforgiveness).
• young people not loved by their parents.
• people ignoring their spouse as they escape into the television.
• people with broken hearts because of unhealthy relationships.
But I think we can celebrate Valentine’s sacrificial love. I think we can be God’s Valentines to others.
Valentine loved sacrificially because he knew God loved him sacrificially.
1 John 3 tells us:
How great is the love the Father has given us so freely! Now we can be called children of God. …This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
1 John 4 continues:
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.… And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Accept God’s valentine to yourself today. Look at the cross and see how much God loves you. Go home and look in the mirror and tell yourself, “Jesus loves me!” And ask the Holy Spirit to really help you believe it deep down!