"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself”. Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." John 13:34-35 (NIV).

Throughout his ministry on Earth, Jesus spoke often of love. I've noted two of his most famous statements about love in the verses above. February, probably because of Valentine’s Day, is considered by many to be the month associated with love. But as Christians, do we truly "love our neighbor as ourselves”, or do we just make an effort to be "nice“ to them”? I have to admit that I've struggled to love one of my neighbors over the past years. But each time I've attempted to say anything to her, she turns her head and refuses to talk. I'm doing my best to love her even though she's making it tough for me to even like her.

February 14th is Valentine's Day, a day when we give our loved ones, or at least our spouses, pretty cards with special messages, along with chocolates and flowers and perhaps even other gifts as a sign of our love for them. But the fact that we love them doesn't mean that we always agree with their behavior. Parents love their children, but that doesn't mean that we should always support or empower them when they do something wrong. We love them, but there are limits, not to our love for them, but to our willingness to tolerate wrong behavior. Jesus loves us, so much so that He went to the cross for us, but He doesn't like it when we sin. He is quick to forgive, when we genuinely repent and make every effort to avoid sin in our lives. His love is unconditional, but there are still times when people reject that love. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their refusal to accept Him as the Son of God, but even they had the opportunity to believe, and in the New Testament we know that some, like Nicodemus and Paul, finally accepted and became strong leaders in the early church.

So we need to make every day of the year a Valentine's Day of a sort. We love God,we love family, we love our friends, and we even love that crochety neighbor who is so difficult to love. Because when we demonstrate love in our actions, we show "all men that we are his disciples." Paul said our goal as Christians is to be "imitators of God" (Ephesians 5:1). Make February 14th a day like every other. Show love always, whenever you have an opportunity, to everyone God has put in your life. And know that you're always loved and in my prayers.

Ray