How to Spell Love

What would be a good acrostic for Valentine's Day, I pondered, while still lying in bed early this morning. hmm, how about LOVE. Wow, now that is original. Let's see, L is for... "Love." Now remember, this is a pre-caffeinated and ancient brain here. O is easy--O is for "Others." V sort of had me stumped for a second or two (you can see how much effort was going into this endeavor) until my eureka moment--V is for "Very" as in "Very much." Wow, now I was really cooking! E is for "Especially" as in "Especially Jesus." Love... Others... Very much... Especially Jesus.

I'm thinking Hallmark might be in my future.

Maybe the Nobel prize for literature.

Does anybody have Oprah's phone number?

And then I stopped dead in my tracks. There was no C in this acrostic. There just has to be a C. C is for Chocolate, of course. And C is for Cookies... or how about Cookies with Chocolate Chips. C could even be for Candy... though I'm not much of a candy person myself. C could also be for Cat, though cats generally treat us with bemused detachment or mild disdain. Don't get me wrong. I like cats a lot, but really, if you want to learn about love, get a dog. With dogs we are family. We are the beloved. We are the best. With cats, we are the staff. How on earth did I get onto this subject?!

C is also for Choice. As in Love is a Choice. Isn't that so true. We don't always feel loving. Sometimes we feel irritated or exhausted or overwhelmed or discouraged or just plain selfish. But we don't love others only when we feel like it. We must daily choose to die to our self-centeredness. Die to our pride. Die to our desire to have things just the way we want them. Die to our need to control. Die to our love of stuff and things. Die to our craving for comfort and our preoccupation with pleasure. Die to our need to be perfect... or for others to meet our standard of perfection.

And make the choice to love. Love the irreplaceably precious, but sometimes challenging, people God has placed in our lives--our family, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers. And love those who are sometimes incredibly unlovely, maybe even undeserving. Because such were we, and Christ died for us.

C is for Choice. And it is for Christ.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." I John 3:16

Christ on the Cross spells Love. It's just as simple and profound and utterly earth shattering and life changing as that. If you want to truly understand what love is, look unto Jesus. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning it's shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Heb. 12:2 Done. That is love.

But C is also for Creator. Love is a God who didn't just create a world in which we could reside. He created dogwood trees in bloom and soaring eagles and neon-colored tropical fish and flaming red camilla bushes and snow topped mountain peaks and crooning mockingbirds and crimson sunrises and sunsets. You know, He could have just made us a sun--did He really need to have the sun rise and set with such panache, such showy staggering beauty? Nope. But such is our God and that is Love.

Love is an extravagant, loving Creator who entered His creation to love and die and save those He had made. Those who rejected Him, those who failed Him, those who miss the mark again and again and again. And He just keeps loving and forgiving and sustaining and upholding it all by His almighty power and grace and goodness and glory. How can we not respond to such a Lord with all our hearts?

But we have to make the choice. The choice to love Him as our Savior and the choice to daily die to ourselves and to love others with the love He has showered upon us. Might we choose today to Love. Because He is worthy, and He showed the way, and He will enable us if we call on Him in faith. To our Creator, to our Christ, who showed us what real Love is, be all the glory.