Beloved

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine..." Song of Solomon 6:3 As I mentioned last week, God is leading my posts for February to be written on 'the heart'. With Valentine's Day fast approaching, I know of no better week to write about the emotion that the heart is best known for...love. Don't know about you, but in my 32 years, I have never really "checked into" why we celebrate Valentine's Day anyway. I do remember, though, that while in school, it was very cool to get something delivered to you on this day of love. As we become older, the Love Day is held to an even higher standard for a husband/wife to express their love for each other. When I began researching the origin of Valentine's Day, I found lots of 'tales' claiming to be the real reason behind the occasion. But one story, caught my eye. The story said that there was a priest by the name of (you guessed it) Valentine, who disagreed with a Roman law that young men remain unmarried. This concept was said to be created to use as a tactic to build up the Roman army by implying that "married men didn't make good soldiers". Valentine secretly began marrying soldiers and their fiances and was jailed for his behavior. While in jail, the priest befriended the jailers daughter. The legend goes that on the night before his execution, he wrote a note to the jailers daughter, whom he referred to as his beloved. The priest signed the note, 'from your Valentine'. Before you thank me for giving you such a happy story, I want us to examine the word beloved. Beloved, by definition, means 'dearly loved' or 'dear to the heart'. It is precious to me to know that God intends for His relationship with us to be compared to a romance. All throughout the Bible there are stories and parables that compare the love of a husband and wife to us and God. In fact, I believe He refers to us as His beloved. The song of Solomon is a good example. This book tells us of a Shulammite maiden who catches Solomon's eye because she is so very beautiful. Solomon takes her to his palace and tries to win her love. He cannot. Why? The maiden is in love with a shepherd... a shepherd who is away but is coming for her someday (sound familiar?). She refers to him as her beloved. My question to you is do you know that you are very dear to God's heart? If you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, He calls you His beloved. Perhaps, even as a Christian, you are longing for a relationship. A relationship in which you always know you are loved more than you can imagine. How sad it is for God to know that all we have to do is say, "Yes", but we say," No". "I have no time for you today, God. I promise I will spend more time with you tomorrow." We are His beloved. If you are reading this and you say that you have never known real love. I have good news for you. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us in sending His Son to be the way to take away our sins." You see, God is our Valentine because we are His beloved. The verse says the real definition of love is not what or how we love God, it is accepting His love for us, His Son. He has sent us the most special Valentine's present of all... Jesus. He died so that you and I can not only have an eternity, but His death made it possible for you and I to have a relationship with God on a daily basis. I am so very thankful for that. I hope you will join me in forgetting about what we think we have to do for God, like we have some spiritual check list. But that we will spend time with Him, talk to Him, and listen for Him because we love Him and we accept that He loves us more than we can ever know. With this in mind, I believe our Valentine's Day, might just be the best one we've ever had... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I love you. Thank you for loving me through Calvary. Forgive me when I place anything and everyone in front of you. I want to spend time with you because you loved me first. I want to talk to you and tell you my fears because your love sustains me through them all. I am so happy you love me. Help me to accept it daily...