I love Valentine’s Day!! I mean it’s a day where we can just go crazy with our love for each other. Some may wonder, what is a single person doing loving Valentine’s Day, but I say what is a Christian doing not getting excited about this day?!! In Ephesians 5:2 it says, “Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” We should live lives of love daily, but today we get to go all out. Plus we don’t get weird looks from those receiving our acts of kindness, but smiles! Sure this may be just some Hallmark holiday, but we can make it into so much more. We can look at this holiday as a great opportunity to show the world our love for God and them!! We can live out 1 Thessalonians 3:12 where it says, “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else.” God loves us so much that our lives should overflow with love. This is a day that celebrates what we already love doing—loving! Some also make the argument of how we shouldn’t need a holiday to do what we should already do. True, but we all need reminders, and hey why not celebrate? I’ve been reading this book by Mark Batterson called, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, and in it it says “Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can.” I love God, so of course I am going to be all for a day where I can celebrate this love, even if that wasn’t the exact purpose of the holiday. Hey, why not turn it into that? Or perhaps you are one of those people who needs the reminder to do what you should be doing daily. Well than use this day to remind yourself of the greatest love story of all time! Maybe you’re single and little sad (celebrating single’s awareness day!), well hey that greatest love story of all time is about God’s amazing love for YOU!!! So why am I excited about, and in love with, Valentine’s Day? Because I have more reasons than not to celebrate! I am loved by the King of kings! I get this opportunity to tell the ones I love that they are so special to me, and see the smiles that it brings! And because loving others is just a good thing to celebrate in general! Valentine’s Day is a day that celebrates love, and I worship, and am in love with, the God not of love, but who is love, and so today is just beautiful!
“Since God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:11-12). So in honor of today let’s take on this challenge of letting God’s love be made complete in us, and to remember His great love for us. Let’s let today be another way where we live in this world but not of this world. Let’s take a holiday that this world has created, and use it to further glorify God, and live for Him!! Happy Valentine’s Day!

P.S. I really do love that book by Mark Batterson, here’s a cool quote from it.
The Lion Chaser’s Manifesto:
"Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion."