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Articles
“I Love You”
Being Valentine’s Day, the phrase “I love you” will probably be spoken today more than usual. It is also recorded in the Bible. What can and should we learn about it there?
Love involves more than just words. The Lord told the Israelites, “Since you are precious in My sight, since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.” (Isa 43:4). Here the Lord demonstrated what it really means to love someone by doing something for them because of His love. He did a similar thing because of His love for the world when He “gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and Jesus demonstrated this kind of love when He laid down Himself for us (1 John 3:16).
He expects the same in return from those who love Him. When He asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?”, and each time Peter responded, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you”, Jesus told him to prove his love by his actions (“Feed My sheep” - John 21:15-17). He earlier told all His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (14:15, 21, 23). Paul told those in Corinth, “I love you”, and demonstrated it by his willingness to “gladly spend and be spent for your souls” (2 Cor 12:15). We should do the same by spending and being spent for the Lord.
Love also involves more than action. Delilah asked Samson, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me?” (Judges 16:15). She may have asked the question trying to entice him (:5), but that point does not change the fact that it is a great question to consider. The Lord said of the Israelites in the days of Isaiah, “Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,” (Isa 29:13). Jesus repeated these words to the Pharisees and scribes of His day and said their worship was in vain (Matt 15:8-9). In other words, they were all saying they loved God and going through the motions of it, but their actions were in vain because their hearts were not in what they were doing. Today we may sing songs about how much we love God, but is our heart with Him? Words and actions are empty that do not come from our heart.
May we join David in saying, “I love You, O LORD, my strength” (Psalm 18:1), and prove it by taking refuge in Him (:2).
