LifeLink Devotions

Wednesday, February 14, 2023

Philippians 1:9 “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more…”

2 John 1:6 “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

There are a lot of joybells ringing today. Cards, gifts and flowers are being delivered to people all over the world as an expression of deep and sincere love. Everyone wants to have a valentine and to be a valentine to someone else. But the holiday for expressing love may be tainted by the motivation of the gift-giver. In the best-case scenario, the gifts are well thought out and have been planned for days or even weeks in advance. These gifts are the expression of true love that considers the other person first with no thought for the return benefit. The giver of the gift is stating clearly, “No matter what happens in life or regardless of your response, I will love you and give myself for you because you have captured my heart. Nothing in life can separate me from you.”

But other gifts are designed to elicit a certain response from the recipient, and in varying degrees are manipulative and self-serving. The giver has planned a gift that they know will be meaningful to the recipient, but the purpose of the gift is to have a reciprocation that makes them feel loved. In their mind they are saying, “I know this will make you express your love to me so that I can feel like a valentine to someone.”

And still others are scrambling to find that last minute card or gift in an attempt to avoid the appearance of not caring, when in fact the lack of planning to express love may reflect the self-centered nature of the gift. This person is saying to himself, “Oh no! I had better find something good to cover up for the reality that I didn’t care enough to plan this out. If I can find just the right thing, they will never have to know that other events in my life were more important than they were.”

Selfishness affects us all. But it has never affected God. His gift of love to us in the person of Jesus Christ was planned before the foundations of the world. Read with joy the following passage from the heart of God:

Ephesians 1:3-8 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love hepredestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace ⁸that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.”

God gave His gift with no strings attached and no need for reciprocation. John 3:16 quotes Jesus when He says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  His gift was an expression of His heart and His unconditional love. Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  God gave the perfect Valentine – His Son – to die for our sins so that we might know what real love is. And now that we know, we are privileged to live in that love in relationship to others.

 So today when you give your cards, flowers, and gifts to the one you love, let it be an expression of God’s love – unselfish, undemanding, and with no need for reciprocity. Let your gift be an expression of your love and commitment to another person regardless of their response, and then let your love be lavished on that person in such a way that it honors God and demonstrates the reality of His love in your heart.

Pastor John