The Greatest Love Story of All

Valentine's Day is just two days away, and I can not be more excited! I know what you're probably thinking "But Dev, you're single and you're excited for Valentine's Day?!" You bet your bottom dollar I am! And not for your cliché reason that chocolates are half off on the 15th (though that is really exciting). But simply for the fact that I'm in love with love. I love romance, and the joy people have with someone. I love the sappy pictures of people getting flowers at work and red and pink hearts everywhere. To me, Valentine's Day is as sweet as a heart shaped Strawberries and Crème sucker. I feel like the Grinch in the scene where his heart grows triple the size. Valentine's Day to me is a second Christmas.

Today I was  reading through the greatest act of love in all of history in Luke chapters 23 and 24. It was so amazing to read through this right before the greatest love day of the year.

In the beginning of Luke 23 the chief priests send Jesus to Pilate telling them that they want to kill Him (for claiming to be exactly who He really was), to which Pilate says, "I find no basis or charge against this Man" (4). Of course they couldn't, Jesus was the perfect, holy, blameless Lamb, and Son of God. Many events followed that, in which Jesus could have said, "forget this, I'm out." and could have disappeared and lived, but He didn't do that because He loved us unto death. Instead after they drove nails through His hands and feet, divided up His clothes to bet on them and mocked Him, do you know what He said? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (34). His mercy was so abundant that it overflowed over His pain and onto His persecutors... US.

 If you know the story, you know that Jesus hung on a cross between two criminals (hence why you see three crosses in pictures). It says that the first criminal hurled insults at Him telling Him to save Himself and both of them. To which the second criminal responds saying, "We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong... Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (41-42). The truth that the second criminal spoke is the truth of our lives. We deserve death for our sins. We deserve nothing good. We are sinners, and Jesus is holy. However, Jesus says to him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise." (43). If we put our trust into Jesus the way that the second criminal did, we are granted paradise.

Now, as you read on you can see this beautiful love exchange between Jesus and God. As Jesus was near death God covered the noon sky in darkness, the sun stopped shining, there was an earthquake and the veil was torn in two, and with Jesus' last words on the cross He says to God, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit" (46). As Louie Giglio says, "When Jesus died, our lives began".

As we know Jesus, didn't remain dead. He rose from the grave and then later ascended into heaven. But He defeated death in the most unlikely way possible. By dying. All for us to have access to salvation and an eternity in paradise. And if that isn't the greatest love story of all, I don't know what is.

Even if you are spending Valentine's Day alone, you aren't really spending it alone. Jesus died because He was so in love with you. This makes you chosen and loved. And when you do find that "special someone" Valentine's Day will be sweeter than honey suckle on a warm summer day.


Jesus Loves Me - Chris Tomlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CGkt67F2uI


1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
 ^"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. "