A CUP OF COLD WATER

VALENTINE’S DAY 2024

I don’t think there is anyone who needs reminding that February is the ‘Love’ month and that Valentine’s Day is around the corner. The shops remind us, the TV and Radio stations remind us, hotels and places of entertainment have special packages to celebrate the special day with our loved one. But what happens after Valentine’s Day? Well, as for the shops, they promptly remove their Valentine Day wares and replace them with Easter wares. The whole tempo changes, and suddenly people are not that loving anymore!

As followers of Jesus, however, love cannot be a one day affair, neither can it be a seasonal thing. Love for us is a duty, a major part of our job description. We do not get promoted from the job of loving, neither do we retire from it. It is a lifelong activity.  God commands us to love when He said: ‘And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma’. (Ephesians 5:2). So who are we to love? Only those who love us? No! We learn from Scripture that we are first to love God, love followers of Jesus, our neighbours (as we love ourselves), our enemies and lastly, we are to love ourselves.

We love God because He first loved us by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, and by His resurrection make the only way by which we can be reconciled to God.  We also love God by making sure we know and obey His commandments. We love fellow followers of Jesus by serving and encouraging each other to love and to do good works we have been assigned by God.  By serving and encouraging each other to love and fellowship with one another, we are identifying ourselves as followers of Jesus and preparing ourselves for His second coming. When it comes to loving our enemies, this is hard for us because our enemies are usually not our favourite people, but we are commanded by God to love them anyway. Loving our enemies means forgiving them for wrongs they did to us and also praying for them. We must always remember that God loved us when we were unlovable, alienated from Him and did not even have Him in our thoughts! It was in this state of our enmity towards God that He reconciled us to himself, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:21-22). Is it easy to love our enemies? No. However, God gives us grace to be able to do so, and help us carry out His command. We love ourselves by remembering that our bodies are the temple of God and are careful with what we put in it, on it and what we do with it.

I find the comparison of loving our neighbour with loving ourselves interesting. Who is our neighbour? Is it the person who lives next to us, sits next to us in the office or bus, or is it someone with whom we share common interests? How about the person with whom we disagree, could they be our neighbour? Jesus was asked this question, to which He replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 10, and verses 25 to 37.  He said that the neighbour of the man who fell among thieves is the one who showed him mercy. Our neighbour is anyone to whom we must show mercy and that includes the people we live, work, hang-out with; those we meet in our communities and everywhere we go, especially, everyone who has not yet believed in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. There are many practical ways to love our neighbour such as acts of kindness, watching out for them, being a good neighbour, treating them how we would like to be treated and so on. While all these are good, the greatest way to love our neighbour is to tell them the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Telling our neighbour the good news of God’s saving grace so that they also can have the opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved, is loving them like we love ourselves. Since we are already saved and will spend eternity with God when we exit this life, we want the same for them. As a matter of fact, as followers of Jesus, we are commanded by Him to tell everyone the good news of salvation. We are commanded to: ‘Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen’ (Matthew 28:18-20). So we love our neighbour by telling them the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, because if we do not tell them, who will? And if they do not hear, how will they believe and be saved? The good news that we tell them is as follows:

1.      That sin is a fact and that we all have sinned - Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

2.      That there is a penalty for sin and that God sent Jesus Christ to pay the penalty on our behalf - Romans 6:23a - For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

3.      That Jesus is the only way to God - John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father except through Me”.

4.      That if they believe that Jesus died and rose again to pay the penalty for their sin, they will be saved - Romans 10:10 - For with the heart one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

What if my neighbour responds? You have won a soul for Jesus Christ! Disciple them or hand them over to a church that does discipleship. What if my neighbour does not respond or is not interested? Our job is to tell them the message of salvation and God will do the rest. They may not believe right away, but you have been obedient to the commandment and have told them about God’s plan for their salvation. The next step is to pray for them.                        

On this Valentine’s Day, find a neighbour to whom you can share the love of God with. In the book of Isaiah, chapter  ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns!’

I am wishing all my esteemed readers a Happy Valentine’s Day!