Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
St. Valentines Day is a pagan festival imported into Christianity, but therein lies an important insight into real living.
The original pagan gods involved were Eros (Greek) and Cupid (Latin). To this day Cupid is often pictured as a cherub shooting arrows from his bow, the idea being that if he strikes a couple, they're programmed to fall in love.
The "love" with which they fall in love is of course eros, which is love based on the goodness or the beauty of its object. It is said that all the world loves a couple who are in love. But the eros-love that Cupid shoots in his arrow is not a lasting love unless the other love, agape, takes its place. Only agape love "never fails" (1 Cor. 13:8).
Cupid may do very well shooting his arrows to lead couples to fall in love, but the problem is that he can also shoot arrows to cause them to fall out of love. Broken hearts and bitter lives can follow.
Through Satan's deceptive wiles, youth imagine that the love that is agape spoils all the fun, and they instinctively avoid becoming involved. "Falling in love is my business!" they say. But let's not forget that the Son of God, the Savior, gave Himself for us, bought us and redeemed us from the kind of death that is eternal. His utterly self-sacrificing love deserves His having what He paid for--your affections.
When youth recognize that eternal truth that shines in the cross of Christ, they will outwit Cupid. Their love will be purified from selfishness--that bitter enemy of love. Their love will be incomparably delightful. The love they will know together will be a fabric woven stronger than any loom on earth can weave. Their love will be that described in the Song of Solomon: "Love is as strong as death, ... no flood can drown it" (8:6, 7).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 14, 2006.
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