Valentine’s Day is always a big deal to me, but maybe not for the reason you’d think. Five years ago today, I went to a conference in Pittsburgh called “Jubilee”. At the time, I was somewhere between Christmas-Easter-Christian and Agnostic (someone who is open to multiple religions). I was only going as a favor to a friend since I had been burned by church in my teens and really wasn’t interested in what these Christians had to say. I believed Christians to be argumentative and close-minded people who would rather win a political debate than love their neighbor, so I went to Jubilee ready for a fight. Was I ever wrong.
At the Jubilee conference, I witnessed a group of Christians reaching out to one another with amazing love. There were plenty of different walks of life represented at the conference (liberal and conservative, rich and poor, black and white), and yet the goal was to worship God together and show His love to the world. On witnessing such an overwhelming love and relearning about Christ’s sacrifice, I couldn’t help but turn my life back over to Him and answer the call to ministry. Just three months later, I was working in my first church.
On Sunday, Pastor Chris will be preaching on one of my favorite Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13. The passage is all about love, but not simply the romantic love we express to each other on Valentine’s Day; it’s the love of God. While flowers may fade and chocolate may get that weird chalky stuff on it after a while, God’s love is never-ending. It is beyond anything we can imagine, and it envelops us constantly as He draws to Him. That’s the love I fell in love with on Valentine’s Day five years ago, and I’m excited to celebrate it once again here at Bayshore.
Grace and Peace,
Tom