With the dawning of February, we once again encounter the traditional symbols of Valentine’s Day.
The verbal symbol we use is the word love. The visual symbol is a heart. We sometimes confess, “I love you with all my heart.”
If we were to conduct a survey asking the question, “Are you a loving person,” what answers would we get? Some might simply declare, “Of course I am.” Others might modify their answer by responding, “I am most of the time.” Honesty might compel some to say, “I am trying to be.” Others might reply, “I am toward some people.” Other responses might include, “Not yet, but I want to be” or might reflect a cynical note, saying, “No, but neither are others.” Sadly, absolute honesty might have to acknowledge, “I used to be.”
Expectations
When we read our New Testament, we meet the reality that Jesus expects His followers to be loving persons. In particular, He expects us to love Him. This was the issue when He probed Peter with the thrice repeated question, “Do you love Me” (John 21:15–17)? What truths can we take away from that early morning probing of Peter?
One is that we can love Jesus in spite of past behavior. Peter had returned to his pre-discipleship occupation of fishing. That return had overtones of forsaking and denying attached to it. As modern-day followers of Christ, we do well to face honestly the question: Is there anything about us that would cause onlookers to doubt our love for Jesus? If the answer is yes, that does not have to be the end of our story. We can renew our love for our Lord.
Declarations
Another realization we can take from Jesus’ questioning of Peter is that we should love Christ in greater measure than other loves. To Peter, Jesus posed the question, “Do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). Imagine Jesus sweeping his arm toward the other disciples as He asks Peter this question. In that scenario, the question would be whether Peter loved Jesus more than the other disciples loved Him. Considered another way, Jesus could have been questioning whether Peter loved Jesus more than he loved his friends. Still again, Jesus could have gestured toward the fishing nets and boats, thereby calling Peter to love Him more than he loved his former occupation of fishing.
Jesus’ repeated questioning of Peter was to elicit from Peter a threefold verbal declaration of his love. Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession of love was to ask of the disciple a practical demonstration of his love for his Lord by ministering to others of the Lord’s followers. After all, life’s greatest virtue is love. As Paul would later write, “Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).
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