Matthew 22:37 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
One daily devotional teaches
that according to the Lord Jesus, this is “the great commandment of the law”
and this is also the first verse in the New Testament to associate “love” and
the “heart.” This “love,” of course, is not romantic love (the Greek word
for that love is never used in the New Testament at all), but the
divine type of love (Greek “agape”), as in “God so loved the world.”
The message explains that the
“heart” (Greek “kardia”, from which come such English words as cardiology)
is mentioned often in the Bible, but almost never means the actual physical
organ. It refers to the emotional and spiritual components of man’s nature — “the hidden man of the heart” (1 Peter 3:4). We use “heart” for the
same purposes in English.
Just how this particular
date came to celebrate the heart as a symbol of romantic love and to be called
Valentine’s Day is uncertain. There were various emperors, popes, and religious
leaders named Valentine in the early history of Christendom, including two
Roman Catholics designated as Saint Valentine. In any case, Christians should
remember that true Christian agape love should be manifested in our
lives every day of the year. To that end, “see
that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:22).
True Christian love can only
be expressed out of a heart that has been made pure. As Paul wrote young
Timothy, “Now the end of the commandment
is charity [that is, agape love] out of a pure heart, and of a good
conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:5). And remember that,
first of all, we must “love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with
all thy strength: this is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30).
Love and Blessings
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