Observing Lent Because I Am Blessed by and Responding to the Giving Love of Jesus!

Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to love, falls on February 14 in 2024, as it does every year. What would you give up to show, or even to prove your love for your spouse, for your child, or for another loved one?

In many ways, I believe that Valentines Day is a product of Hollywood and its portrayal of ‘romantic love.’ According to Hollywood, love makes a person feel great. If someone loves me so that I do feel good, this feeling in many ways is a selfish emotion. According to this idea of love, I am counting on someone else, the person I love, to give me this wonderful feeling. I am receiving FROM them, or even TAKING from them.

But love like God calls for does not take. Godly love GIVES. Consider a few of the Lord’s words to us.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) According to Scripture, God’s love is not selfish. God’s love GIVES.

“13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) The Bible tells us that God’s love, LAYS DOWN ITS LIFE!

“4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) When Scripture defines love we are told that God’s love is PATIENT AND KIND . . . ENDURING ALL THINGS.

““10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11) God’s love pays for our sins!! Godly love does not take. God-like love GIVES..

Not only is February 14 Valentines Day, but in 2024, Ash Wednesday also falls on February 14. Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent. The Lenten season precedes Easter and points to our sin, which led to the suffering and death of Jesus. Lent, therefore, is a time of repentance, and often a time of fasting. That is why we use ashes to begin the Lenten season, as an outward sign of sorrow for our sin.

Lent is also a time when we remember God’s sacrificial love for us in Jesus. Lent has become a time when God’s people seek to grow in our Lord’s saving love through worship and even fasting, giving something up to remember our Lord’s giving love. The outward act of fasting by giving something up means nothing by itself. But, when this act shows a heart sorry for sin, a heart wanting to grow in God’s love, then such an outward action can help us in our faith.

What would you give up to show, or even to prove your love for your spouse, for your child, or for another loved one? How will you grow this Lent in understanding the gift of God’s Son, as the ultimate act of love? I encourage you to remember the words of Jesus, “13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”