February is the month we acknowledge and celebrate love. People have written a lot about the wonder of love. Some of the quotations we’ve memorized, we’ve heard them so much: “Love is blind” (Geoffrey Chauncer); “Love conquers all” (Virgil); and “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” (Alfred Lord Tennyson).

But the world’s views on love pale in the light of God’s revelation. Scripture declares God is love, so who is better qualified to tell us what it is? Real love is not a romantic, idealized state of bliss that two people who are attracted to one another experience. It’s a laying down of rights, privileges, maybe even well-being, to win another’s heart. Jesus told His disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13 NASB).

God’s love is not romantically ideal – it’s messy and painful – but it’s remarkably powerful as well. It’s able to break through the highest walls and the strongest fortresses. It perseveres, despite the challenges, because it knows that on the other side of the wall is a quivering, terrified soul who needs to be rescued. Love sees the need and moves to meet it, long before the person realizes how desperate he is. “For God so loved the world…”

I’m sure we’ve all speculated about why King David (with all his flaws) was dubbed “a man after God’s own heart.” Here’s how I see it: I believe he recognized, better than anyone else at that time, the loving nature of God. The Israelites often saw Him as a harsh taskmaster, someone who demanded the impossible from them. They felt His laws were too hard and His standards too high. But David saw Him in a different light – as Someone who longed to pour out love and blessing on His undeserving people.

In Psalm 31 David says, “I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. … Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love” (vv. 7-8, 16). In Psalm 136, David recounts the faithfulness of God. His refrain (over and over)? “His love endures forever.”

God’s loving nature was grieved by the effects of sin. Generation after generation experienced a recurring cycle of hatred, bloodshed, cruelty, and war. Compassion dwindled as man’s selfish desire for power and wealth, often at the expense of others, grew. How would God ever break through and reach the trembling souls on the other side of their fortresses?

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son,” Galatians 4:4 tells us. God’s plan for rescue was a beautiful gift of love wrapped in human flesh. “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4-5). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Only God could have come up with something so radical, so effective, and so sacrificial to win us back to himself.

When I was a little girl I loved going to Sunday school and hearing about Jesus. But I always recoiled when someone mentioned the cross. To me (and I’m sure to many other people), it represented something so ugly, it repulsed me. It was too brutal, too humiliating for someone as wonderful as Jesus. The injustice also disturbed me. The God man murdered for crimes He didn’t do? It was a despicable tragedy I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around, and because of that, I didn’t want to fully embrace it. Only when I became an adult and I understood the magnitude of my sin did I come to see it through the eyes of a grateful and redeemed sinner. The Holy Spirit helped me see the enormity of God’s wisdom hidden in the cross. When I finally embraced it as God’s love reaching out to me, I could sing …

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell, it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell; the guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win: His erring child He reconciled and pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure – the saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, tho stretched from sky to sky.  (“The Love of God” by Frederick M. Lehman, 1917)

God wants us to partner with Him in His rescue mission. As His ambassadors, we can help to bring others out from behind their fortresses into the Light of God’s love. This partnership is what Jesus had in mind when He said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). All of us feel ill-equipped to do this, but we do have the resources we need. As the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:5, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Instead of embracing the world’s ideas, our perspective on love comes from the One who is love. Here are just a few quotes (taken from Scripture) that’ll help us celebrate and practice real love … not just in February, but all year long.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3:16)

“Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)

“This is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.” (2 John 1:6)

“Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:10)

And from the well-known love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 …“Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. LOVE NEVER FAILS.”