I’m writing this on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. Today is particularly significant to many, for some observe it as Ash Wednesday, others as Valentine’s Day, some as both, and I know at least one couple who will celebrate it also as their wedding anniversary. All these observances have something to do with love.

Love has been ‘in the air’ ever since God created air. Love has been shared with mankind ever since God created Adam and Eve, placing them in time with His celestial markers of days, weeks, months, and years. The Bible tells us that God’s love, the source of all love, is an every-day thing. Even from ‘Lamentations’, the Biblical book that perhaps expresses the greatest sorrow, comes this well known verse:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

God’s steadfast love for mankind has been described by the Greek word ‘agape’. One Bible scholar, Kenneth Wuest, calls agape the “noblest word for love in the Greek language” and says agape “is not kindled by the merit or worth of its object, but it originates in its own God-given nature … It delights in giving. This love keeps on loving even when the loved one is unresponsive, unkind, unlovable, and unworthy. It is unconditional love. Agapē desires only the good of the one loved. It is a consuming passion for the well-being of others.”

Agape is the love described in 1 Corinthians 13, which all Bible believers should aspire to demonstrate in their relationships, as evidence that the love of God has indeed been ‘poured into our hearts’ (Romans 5:5).  In the 1 Corinthians 13 ‘love passage’, verses 4-8 give God’s own description of agape:

“Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not brag, it is not puffed up, it does not behave inappropriately, it does not seek its own way, it is not provoked, it keeps no account of wrong, it does not rejoice over injustice but rejoices in the truth; it bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things. Love never fails.”

However, the love that many around the world annually celebrate on February 14 is not agape. It is described by the Greek word ‘eros’, defined by psychiatrist and author Neel Burton in the following terms (my emphasis added by capitalization): “Eros is sexual or passionate love … most akin to our modern construct of romantic love. In GREEK MYTH, it is a form of madness brought about by one of Cupid’s arrows. The arrow breaches us and we ‘fall’ in love, as did Paris with Helen, leading to the Trojan War and the downfall of Troy and much of the assembled Greek army. In modern times, eros has been amalgamated with the broader life force, something akin to Schopenhauer’s will, a fundamentally blind process of striving for survival and reproduction. Eros has also been contrasted with Logos, or Reason, and Cupid painted as a blindfolded child.”

Some will celebrate other kinds of love on Valentine’s day as well – the love based on family relationships (Greek ‘storge’), the love based on friendship (Greek ‘phileo’), or the ‘love’ defined by Burton under ‘ludus’ (which the Bible would call lust) and under ‘pragma’, which would base parentally or personally arranged marriages on practical rather than romantic considerations.

Yet, the greatest love that can be celebrated today is the love of God and love for God, which is somewhat associated with the Ash Wednesday aspect of this year’s February 14. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It is a day traditionally associated with repentance (hence the ‘ashes’ symbolism in its history). Repentance is the first step in ‘returning’ or drawing closer to God from a distanced position, seeking a restored or enhanced love relationship with Him, and preparing ourselves to demonstrate our love for Him through His favourite love language, which is obedience from those who claim to love Him.

As the beginning of the 40-day Lenten period, Ash Wednesday also commemorates Yeshua’s 40-day 40-night fast and resistance of temptation in the wilderness. This completed the preparation for His world-changing ministry to mankind, motivated by God’s love for His creation. This 40-day 40 night fast was Yeshua’s first widely acknowledged act of sacrificial love for the people He was sent to save. Had He not submitted Himself to this fasting (this humbling of His human soul, this affliction of His mortal body through abstention from food) for 40 days and 40 nights, and to addressing every temptation that Satan thought appropriate to hurl at Someone of His stature, Yeshua would not have been able to accomplish God’s loving objective in sending Him to us. By submitting to the fast (and prophetically to all else that He would be called on to suffer for our sake) He countersigned God’s love letter to mankind.

We must respond to God’s love letter; so above all our celebrations, let us requite His matchless love with our own devotion and acceptance of His. Let God love on you today. His John 3:16 message is so much better than a ‘sweet nothing’ – “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.“