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Love Valentines way
Love Valentines way
Prayer Requests
Youth Truth
What is your idea of a perfect Valentine?
What would you give to your favorite person for Valentine’s Day?
Good morning and Happy Valentines Day. Today is a day that’s been observed for centuries as a day for lovers. Valentine’s Day was first observed by the Roman Catholics commemorating two martyred priests in the 3rd Century AD. The Roman Catholic church would celebrate with the Feast of Lupercalia beginning in the late 5th century. Even though the church was observing, this celebration has pagan undertones which included the sacrificing of animals, a goat and a dog, and whipping women with their hides as a way of increasing fertility. Lupercalia was later outlawed and abolished.
Geoffrey Chaucer referred to February 14th as a romantic holiday in 1375 in his poem “Parliament of Fowls”. This is where the term love birds comes from.
Writings of valentines didn’t really occur until the early 1400’s. Charles Dukes poem to his wife while he was imprisoned at the tower of London is the oldest poem still in existence for valentines day.
We as Americans started exchanging Valentine cards in the early 1700’s. Today alone 145 million Valentine cards are sent each year.
Look at what valentines day stands for in America Today.
Love Sincerity Romance
Valentines Day traditionally marked by Love, Flowers, Candy, Cards, and Dinner.
According to the national retail federation the average consumer will spend $162 men spend 2x more than women. 51% of all Americans participate in the holiday spending 21.8 Billion total.
Stats on spending
Jewelry 3.9 Billion
Candy 1.8 Billion
Flowers 1.9 Billion
Cards 933 Million
Date night 3.5 Billion
Families spend an average of $39/child for Valentines day
Here is an interesting stat just to keep things in perspective 53% of the Women surveyed said they would break up with their significant other if he forgot Valentines day.
Here we go so we have adopted this Holiday as a society and made it like our own.
While these are all nice gestures to show love and wonder they’re Temporary and in and on a society that is in fear Yet we spend ourselves into a temporary happy state. NOT!!!
How can man take a celebration initially ment for God and turn into a pagan festival the now sells billions of dollars worth of goods and services for a one day a year celebration on things that are temporary? At the end of it all every one who is not a Christian is still looking for Love.
Lets explore what Jesus has to offer through HIS LOVE:
First he offers us Identity in who we are in him
In Ephesian 1 Paul tells us we are Chosen, to be Holy and blameless in his sight, We are predestined, adopted into his family
lets Read Ephesians 1:4
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship n through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.1
We get to have all of this freely thru Jesus Christ.
We are his creation meaning he is pleased with what he has made. It gives him pleasure when we do the good works He prepared us to do. Love your neighbor, give of yourself, put others before our selves. As Christians our identify is in Christ thru his sonship we’re blameless, holy in his sight. and he has prepared works for us to accomplish in his name and to give him glory. Why not, after all he Loves us this much in fact in John 10 Jesus goes on to explain to the pharisees how his flock knows him.
Lets read a shepherd knows his flock. John 10;14
John 10:14 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—1
Jesus knows his flock and the flock knows him and enters by the gate because he is the Gate and the way. He is our Identity thru the Gate.
Secondly were redeemed
Jesus paid the ultimate Price for our sin with his death on a cross. Our Freedom came at a high cost.
Galatians 3:13 - 14
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” r 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
HE blew their theory about being cursed right up. HE defeated death on a cross, he became the curse who tore the vail and rose from the dead. Death Defeated!!! Always know that God sets things up to bring him glory by way of the father. Its thru His redemption we Christ ones get to inherit this freedom in Christ that lasts for eternity.
What did we sing about that this morning in My Rock My Redeemer. He is the solid Rock our foundation.
3rd Compassion and Forgiveness
John 3:16 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.
Who would give up his life for a friend? Who would give up his life for an enemy? Better yet who would give up their only son for his enemies? Jesus did this just for you and I. If this don’t say Love we are missing something. Love extends thru all our actions and Jesus actions spoke loud and clear. We were all enemies of God before we acknowledged the son. Romans 5:10 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.
Unintentionally we had no sonship in with Jesus yet he willingly HE laid down His Life for you and I in order that we could be saved from the wrath of God. Praise God!!!
4th His creation/Majesty
Look at the magnificient amazing world we live in. The Trees, the land, the water the sky, the sunsets, the sunrises, the Ocean and the animals, all in it were created by his handy work. He created everything in this world we can seen and the unseen and gave it to humanity. What a blessing this should be.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.1
That’s all we need to know isn’t it? We as part of his creation get to be joined with him in relationship. What a privilege it is to call him father. He created it all for you and I now we get to enjoy his creations. When I think about it its kinda like the children he gave us. They are for our enjoyment to watch them grow and glow as life leads them down roads. He makes it personal. We get to experience a small piece of that personal relationship with him thru each one.
5th Authority
He gave us authority to pass it on to be like him. He left us his wisdom to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit and his living word. We can pick up this book, his word, HIS LOVE LETTER to us, anytime we want and be touched and taught. Paul shares with us in Philippians how were supposed to be.
Philippians 2:1-8
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
To recap .
We have been redeemed, bought with His life blood to come to him and dwell in his kingdom. Thru the cross he had compassion and forgiveness of our sins. HE saved when he didn’t have to. The father God created this wonderful majestic world we live in and Jesus obediently completed the works his father ask him to. Then he gave us as Christ ones the authority to carry on his work thru the finished work of Jesus Christ death and crucifixion on the Cross. We have full and complete access to him any time we ask. As long as we hold true to his word and teach the gospel, preach the gospel, and help others learn to do the same, we are doing what he calls us to do, take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
This is true love that lasts
A sincerity for ever
A Romance For People to Cherish by the minute for eternity
I would like to remind you of the name board and those that don’t have access to the gospel. How are you doing in your prayer for them? Lets continue to pray. There’s a hurting world looking for answers to life’s problems and we have the answers to life of the full that lasts. I ask you to start to spend some time with them this month building relationship with them. Maybe take them out for lunch or dinner, have a coffee with em. reach out to them somehow. Remember we can be a giver even after Valentines day. If man can take a celebration of martyred men and turn it into a celebration of love over the course of several hundred years why can’t we take a truth and and keep it alive as Christ is alive and with us until the revelation of a new world come?
LEts Pray
Prayer out
How Great thou art. .