A Valentine's Day Card From Jesus

I thought we should take a time-out today from our study of Acts to do a special post about Valentine's Day because it's a day with the potential to make people sad or discontent. It's a day that can make the lonely feel like no one loves or cares about them. I've been there myself. I've spent some of the Valentine Days of my life in bitterness. But we don't have to feel that way. There is Someone who wants to be our Valentine today and every day. There is Someone who loves us more than anyone else ever could and who will do more for us than anyone else ever will.

There is no sweeter valentine than the Lord Jesus Christ. No one has ever loved us more than He does. Who else has died for us? Who else has taken our punishment on themselves? Who else is with us every second of every day and knows all the thoughts in our heads and all the desires of our hearts? Who else made a way for us to live forever in heaven?

Some of my readers may feel lonely at Valentine's Day, and I can assure you it hasn't always been a popular holiday in my house either. It's one of those holidays that makes people feel bad if they aren't in a relationship, or if they are in a relationship but it's an unhappy one, or if their spouse has passed on and they are living alone. 

The Valentine's Day marketing campaigns have the tendency to make us feel like we're nobodies if somebody isn't thinking about us and buying us candy or flowers or nice dinners or diamond rings. But I want you to know that Jesus doesn't think you're a nobody. He thinks you are worth dying for. He thinks you are worth giving everything He has. He thinks about you all the time, not just on a special holiday. You were on His mind before the creation of the world. He loved you even then, long before you ever existed. If you feel today like no one is thinking about you or that no one cares about you, it isn't true. Jesus loves you! There is never a second of any day that He isn't loving you and thinking about you.

Look, sweet friends: here is the love letter of the Lord Jesus Christ to you! If you thought you weren't going to receive a Valentine's Day card today, here it is. Here is how Jesus displayed His love for you. This is how He asks you to be His valentine. You mean so much to Him that He went through all this to ask you, "Will you be Mine?"

"Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,
    nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces

   He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

    each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on Him

    the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet He did not open his mouth;
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so He did not open his mouth.
 By oppression and judgment He was taken away.
    Yet who of His generation protested?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people He was punished.
 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in His death,
though He had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in His mouth.

 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer,

    and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin,

He will see His offspring and prolong his days,

    and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

 After He has suffered,       
   He will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by His knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

    and He will bear their iniquities. 

Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great,

    and He will divide the spoils with the strong,

because He poured out his life unto death,

    and was numbered with the transgressors.

For He bore the sin of many,

    and made intercession for the transgressors."

Isaiah 53 NIV