A Day of Love
Valentine’s Day
We just celebrated Valentine’s Day. It’s a day that often drives me crazy because so much emphasis is on one day to express your love. The local roadside flower stand is busy. Cars are quickly pulling off the road to purchase flowers sitting in a bucket. While the gesture is appreciated, I can’t help but feel the purchase to show one’s love is hollow, with little effort exerted.
Love
When we show love it shouldn’t be one day of giving a card or flowers. Real love is so much more. Love takes time, nourishment, tenderness and strength. I feel loved when my husband reaches to hold my hand when going for a walk, changes the windshield wipers so I can safely drive, leaves a love note, wipes away my tears when I’ve received bad news, or a hundred other little things. That to me is love. Love nourished, cherished, and demonstrated. Love is not just a bouquet of flowers given on Feb 14th.
Marriage Like Christ and the Church
Ephesians 5:28-29 , “…husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. No one ever hated their own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. “ Ephesians 5:33 gives us the other part of the relationship, “and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”
The Wisdom of James
Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. James 3:12 – 4:12
What a very sad and disgraceful day in America, January 06,2021. Let us pray for restoration and healing throughout our land and end the bitter jealousy, lies, and selfish ambition so that we as a nation can draw our focus on what is good, and pure.