Shepard's Heart 

Shepherds Heart “…God is love.” 1 John 4:8

Today is Valentine’s Day and so love will be the focus of this Shepherd’s Heart. If you’re married or in a significant relationship, I hope this isn’t your first reminder of the holiday. Ideally you managed to carve out some time to express love and affection for the partner God has given you. If you are reading this early in the morning be of good cheer: you still have time. Experience tells me single people often struggle with Valentine’s Day, since it can be a painful reminder of unfulfilled desires. Alternatively, married folks might struggle with a painful reminder of a failure to plan! But whether married or single, and whether you like it or not, today our culture celebrates love. Unfortunately, there are so many conflicting and contradictory ideas concerning the nature of love that many are utterly lost in understanding the concept. Is love sex? Can you love someone with your words alone? Is love a feeling? Is it something more?

If contemporary culture has any objective meaning behind the word love I cannot discern it. Love, today, means whatever one wants it to mean. Like other words which point towards transcendental reality, the meaning of the word has been emptied of almost all objective content. Despite the abuses of language, there is a deep and primal understanding of how important love is to human flourishing. So, when in 1967 the Beetle’s released their smash hit All you need is love, they were tapping into something deep within the human spirit. Besides the catchy tune, the chorus is perceptive if incomplete: all you need is love…love is all you need. While it’s not exactly clear what the Beetles were talking about, there is truth to the statement. We are all dreadfully in need of love. But love in the abstract is not enough. We need something tangible. Hence, the perennial human quest for satisfaction in love. Sadly, the secular pursuit for love is a fruitless enterprise. Johnny Lee wisely points out that we are lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, lookin’ for love in too many faces. While we all possess this deep and basic need to love and be loved, our desires are warped and perverted by indwelling sin. Thus, we take what ought to be satisfied in God alone and pour it out on every object or person which suites our fancy. Society is filled with those desperate for love, but true love comes from only one Source.

Let us then present to the World the real measure and meaning of love. God is love. God loves this world and everyone in it (Jn. 3:16). Because God is love, He is the source and the very definition of love. Thus, to know God is to know love (1 Jn. 4:8). Is it any wonder we are commanded to love the God of love with every fiber of our being (Matt. 22:37)? But our sins have made a separation between us and the God of infinite love (Isa. 59:2, Rom. 3:23), and the love which ought have been given back to God is instead given to objects and people which cannot ultimately satisfy (Jer. 2:13). This is idolatry, the effect of misplaced love. Instead of being destroyed, our capacities to love are warped and perverted. Herein is our hideous tragedy manifested, so sad it’s unbearable: Creatures formed in the image of God, made with the capacity to know and experience God’s love instead crawl around giving up their dignity to perversion and empty promises. What was God to do? We forfeited our Love—the very source of life! —with no possibility of getting it back. So, God manifested love by stepping into our dark and ugly world (Jn 1:4,14). Love itself left the brilliance of heaven and walked among depraved creatures. He then showed us the measure of real love by pouring out his blood for our sins (1 Jn. 4:9). And God’s love is always past tense. He loved us and sent his Son to be our sacrifice even while we were adulterous and unfaithful lovers (Rom. 5:8, 1 Jn. 4:10). God satisfied our deepest need to love and be loved and showed us what love is in the broken and pierced body of Jesus Christ. He was resurrected from dead and ascended to the right hand of Father, opening the way once more into the presence of God. Not even the wickedness and depravity of mankind need separate us from the God who loves us if we will only repent and confess Christ as Savior and Lord. Johnny Lee was on to something; Love does have a face. And we come to know the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6) Unless and until you are satisfied in the love of God, it is simply impossible to be satisfied in the love of another person. But now that we know and love God, we can give to one another that which comes from God: love.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Pastor John