Love is...

¡Feliz Día de San Valentín! – Happy Valentine’s Day!  For many, Valentine’s Day is the quintessential time to express love on so many levels, whether its agape (godly love that we receive from Him), phileo (brotherly love that we express towards each other) – hence we have: Philadelphia “The City of Brotherly Love,” or eros, (the special love that is meant to be shared with our partners and spouses).

For us, as we journey through life, it can be lonely at times.  Know that you are loved!  You were fashioned in the image of God.  God is love, and love is all around us and ever present – even in this upside down world, the island home in which we live.  Love covers a multitude of injustices and iniquities.  Love saved you and preserved you for such a time as this.  In as much as you have received love, I charge you to share and spread this ever precious gift. 

In the Gospel of St. Matthew 22:37, Jesus quotes the Mosaic Law from Deuteronomy with this verse “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If I were to put a spin on this, I would say that in addition to loving God and our neighbors whole heartedly, that we should look within and love ourselves.  

As I close, I leave with you the Apostle Paul’s explanation of what love is to the church at Corinth, which can be found in I Corinthians 13:4-8.  “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, 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.”  Remember that if God is love, then love NEVER fails. There is no failure in God.  May the peace and love of God encompass you and over flow into the lives of those to whom you are connected.

Peace,

Karsten