The Greatest Gift
This Sunday, February 14, 2021, is Valentine’s Day. Even though the holiday has pagan connections like Christmas and Easter, I think it’s good to take back the God part of these holidays and honor Him! After all, God Is Love! “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8 And, love is the greatest gift a person can give to another person.
Giving love may look a little different for each of us. Jesus came to this nasty, dark, world and went through hell so we could have heaven. Only He could give that gift of love. However, we can give the gift of love in other more simple ways. We can listen to a hurting friend, or give a helping hand. A smile, a kind word, a hug, a thoughtful gift, all say in some small way “I love you”, “I see you”, “I hear you”, “I care about you”.
One of the best gifts of love that I ever received happened more than a decade ago. My mother had just passed away and fortunately my Dad, all my siblings, and I were there by her bedside. I wasn’t alone, but I couldn’t bear the thought that my husband and children weren’t going to be at the memorial service. I had flown down to Florida to my parent’s house by myself. We didn’t know when mom would pass, and so my family stayed home. However, the same night my siblings and I arrived and surrounded her bed in prayer and song, mom breathed her last breath. She knew we were all there and peacefully passed.
It was difficult watching her go, but even harder for me was not having my husband and children there. Weddings and funerals are times when families come together to support each other in good and bad. I felt heartbroken thinking that they wouldn’t be there.
However, after talking with my husband at length, he said he would come. He and the kids worked so hard to get things together and drive non-stop from Michigan to Florida, a 19 hour drive, to arrive the day before the memorial service. It meant so much to me that I still tear up thinking about this wonderful act and gift of love.
Do you have a special gift of love story? If so, tell me about it in the comment section. I’d love to hear it. Even though flowers, chocolates, gifts, etc. are wonderful to get, love is so much more. Love is a choice to be there through thick and thin. Paul the apostle put it this way, in the passage below.
The Greatest Gift
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
On this earth, we only understand love in part. But, someday when we’re face to face with God, we’ll understand love more clearly. In the meantime, may you abide in faith, hope, and the greatest gift of all, the gift of love. May God’s love bless you so much that it flows out to bless others In Jesus Name! Happy Valentine’s Day! Go forth bold, blessed, and brilliant! Subscribe and comment below.