GOD’S VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS

Did you get your Valentine Day’s card from God yet? You should have. God sent it to every human who ever lived. Reflect on them. What follows is the Valentine’s God sent us.

John 3:16 gives us a glimpse of how much God loves us. The greatest Valentine gift must be Jesus, Son of God, Savior. It is a sign of how much God loves each of us.

Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.^g 12If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?^h 13No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.ⁱ 14And just as Moses lifted up^* the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,^j 15^* so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 16For God so loved the world that he gave^* his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.^k 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn^* the world, but that the world might be saved through him.^l 18Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.^m 19^* And this is the verdict,ⁿ that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. 20For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.^o 21But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.^p God hand delivers each card to you at birth, the invitation to be an adopted son of the Father. All you have to do is read it and accept this love in your heart.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/3

The depth of God’s love motivates us to bend our knees at the mere mention of His name.

5Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^* 6Who,^* though he was in the form of God,^d did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.^* 7Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness;^* and found human in appearance,^e 8he humbled himself,^f becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^* 9Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name^* that is above every name,^g 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,^* of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,^* to the glory of God the Father.ⁱ

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/philippians/2

The purpose of life needed to be clarified in the Old Testament. The Messiah came to establish the new Jerusalem not with the sacrifice of bullocks and goats but with the only gift that mattered, the emptying of self (kenosis) in the act of unconditional love. Humans could not do this by themselves. They needed help. Jesus became one of us to fulfill the purpose of the Old Testament and expand the covenant to all humans. Read the purpose of life as God intends it to be and the fulfillment of Jesus.

34ⁱ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them [a scholar of the law]^* tested him by asking, 36“Teacher,^* which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37^j He said to him,^* “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39^k The second is like it:^* You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40^* l The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Love is your heart comes from being present to the heart of Christ and assimilating that sacrifice of self on the altar of the world so that Christ might dwell in you more and more and you become less and less of a mere human. The next stage in human evolution is to be more than a human. It is to be incorruptible. All of this is so much gibberish if there is no Resurrection of Christ from the dead. As St. Paul mentioned, we must live a life of Christ crucified in our martyrdom of everyday living as we try to keep ourselves centered on the Christ Principle.

1When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God,^* I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.^a 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness^* and fear and much trembling, 4and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom,^* but with a demonstration of spirit and power,^c 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.^d

The True Wisdom.^*

6Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. 7Rather, we speak God’s wisdom,^* mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, 8and which none of the rulers of this age^* knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.9But as it is written:

“What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,”^e 10^f this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. 11Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.^* 14Now the natural person^* does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. 15The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment^* by anyone. 16For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.^g

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/2

Praise be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. The God who is, who was, and who comes at the end of the ages. –Cistercian doxology