Oh, how he loves us!

This Valentine's Day, remember... 

photo by Melissa Dondero

Maybe you are having the most romantic day ever and someone is making you feel so  very loved. That's great and I'm happy that you feel that way because those moments are wonderful. Maybe you are feeling so lonely you feel like that you can't keep going. I'm so sorry if you feel that way. But however you feel, today and every other day, I know only one assurance that makes it all okay: He loves you. He loves you more than anyone else can ever love you. When people let you down, He still loves you. When you do something terribly wrong and no one will forgive you, He will. God has made us to seek love, but guess what? Only He can fill it for us. No one else can.

Life is messy, love is hard, and people are imperfect. How thankful I am that when everyone else let's me down, my wonderful, majestic, all-powerful God still loves me. When the world causes my heart to feel unsure, God steadies it...  

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39 

Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9 

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 1 John 3:1 

By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:9-12