St. Valentine and Real Love

Every February 14, for about 1700 years, people have remembered St Valentine, a man who died because he was in love.

He discovered a unique type of love. A love so exciting, so powerful, so overwhelming as to make the romance of Romeo and Juliet look like puppy love, and the affairs of Josephine and Napoleon, Anthony and Cleopatra, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor look second rate.

From the moment he became a Christian until he was murdered, the threat of death and terrifying torture dangled over his neck every day. But nothing could stop him. He was in love. With innocent Christians suffering unspeakable horrors, dying like flies around him, he was unfazed by the question as to why a God of love would allow such things. He knew a secret.

In the times in which he lived, multiplied thousands were tortured to death. Rather than compromise, they chose to endure indescribable agonies, because each of them was in love – with the same person. God.
All his life, Valentine heard stories of hardship, torture and martyrdom. One day he would shed no tears. They would finally kill him, too. Yet instead of despising the God who allowed this, he just loved him more.


‘How could a God of love let innocent people like you suffer, Valentine?’

‘I’m not innocent,’ St. Valentine whispers.

‘Oh, come on, Valentine! You’re such a good man!’

‘Only one Innocent ever suffered,’ replies Valentine.


The rantings of arm-chair philosophers differ markedly from the findings of people with the deepest experience of both God and suffering. Valentine knew the power of God’s love and comfort in the midst of severe suffering. Such depth of experience does not come cheaply and cannot be passed on by words alone. Intense experience and intimacy with God is a common price. For nearly 2,000 years Valentine’s experience has been reproduced by the torment of thousands of Christian martyrs who have agonised in triumph, rejoicing in the goodness of God.

By the laws of aerodynamics bumble-bees cannot fly, it was once claimed . But people who know bumble-bees could not be hoodwinked. A scientific explanation might elude them, but they know bumble-bees fly. Similarly, people like Valentine who really know God, even those who have suffered as much as is humanly possible, know what they know: God’s love is as mind-boggling as his power. Gaining insight in this matter might not be scientifically satisfying, but it is truth proven by cold reality.

‘When you know God,’ breathed a Nazi concentration camp inmate, ‘you don’t need to know why.’ The hearts of thousands leap in agreement.

No clever argument, however, and no supposed spiritual experience can hide one unavoidable fact: a holy, all-powerful God would yearn to wipe out every cause of pain. And if he eradicated everyone who has ever caused pain by selfishness, cheating, lying, gossiping or hurtful remarks, who would be left?

‘Suffering is God’s fault!’ we sneer, conveniently forgetting times our anger, greed and lies hurt others. We spurn God’s laws, hurt each other, and then have the audacity to blame God for the resulting disaster. Naturally, there is a degree of hurt we deem excusable, and for some suspicious reason the hurt we have inflicted happens to fall within the standard we arbitrarily set. It is like failing an exam and then moving the pass mark to make our score look good. A holy God could not be partner to such hypocrisy. To wipe out some people who cause suffering and spare you and me would make God guilty of gross injustice. If there is a God of love, the people he loves and longs to place in an pain-free world are the very ones who cause humanity’s suffering.

All suffering can be tracked back to human wrong-doing - not necessarily the action of anyone presently alive, but to someone’s deliberate disregard of God and his ways. And why didn’t God strike that person dead before others could be hurt? Because to be fair he should do the same to you and me.

Only a maniac or an ego-maniac would dare demand justice from God. We have each added to humanity’s pain.

Yet humanity can boast one perfect Person. And he suffered. He appeared as the uniquely perfect human who preached impossibly high standards, claimed they were God’s requirements and actually lived them. Turning the cheek, loving his enemies, just as he had preached, Jesus yielded to abuse and torture, somehow absorbing within his mangled body the horrific consequences of all humanity’s sin. Yet our only Innocent gladly suffered the injustice to free the guilty from suffering eternal justice. In this cataclysmic exchange, the Innocent and the guilty traded places, making it spiritually legal for his suffering to end your suffering. As incredible as it seems, this has ushered us to the brink of a new world where the longing deep within us will be met - deceit, abuse, and hurtful actions will be swallowed by goodness; misery will dissolve in endless joy.

But temporary earthly pain continues for a wonderful reason. A paradise of harmony, trust, openness and love would quickly spoil if just one of its citizens acted remotely like we presently behave. To enter a perfect world without shattering its perfection, would require a personality transformation more radical than ever seen on earth. Through Jesus’ intervention, God can perform this miracle and make us fit for such a world, but he won’t abuse us by forcing a personality change upon us against our will. We must be willing to let God take our pet sins from us and let him, in his unlimited wisdom and love, rule every part of our lives.

Humanity quivers on the brink of extinction, mesmerised by sin like serpent’s prey. Each moment that God suppresses his explosive urge to extinguish evil, is a moment in which billions of us have yet another chance to come to our senses and let Jesus deliver us from our infatuation with sin. But the end of this period of grace is hurtling toward us. Soon all suffering will cease. All wrongdoing will be destroyed, along with everyone still caught in its deadly embrace.

Many of us would go to any lengths - even to accusing our Judge of injustice - in an unconscious attempt to push the spotlight away from the recesses of a dirty conscience. If only we could smear God, narrowing the gap between his perfection and our shabby behaviour, we’d feel better.

It would be the height of hypocrisy to dare criticise God for not always interfering when tragedy looms. Time after time we have each proved by our actions that we don’t want his love and wisdom cramping our style.

But there must be a Day of reckoning. All evil must be removed. Even the self-righteous have been demanding it for millennia, though they have no idea what they are asking. Our response before that awesome moment will determine whether we’ll be around to enjoy an evil-free environment.
You Can Find Love
What Your Secret Dreams Tell You


Finding the perfect partner

Many of the most popular people in the world have not found love that lasts. For you, however, it can be different.

It could seem that deep inside of you is a hole that not even a hundred lovers could fill. Yet still there is hope.

Be brave enough to dream

How beautiful must a woman be before she no longer needs love? How many times must a man see pictures of naked women to kill the pain of loneliness?

Everything within us cries out for love. Nothing can take its place. Scientists have studied people who cannot stop sex habits that have nothing to do with love – looking at pictures, showing themselves to people, sex telephone calls, and so on. They found that even these dear people are usually driven by a need for love. [1]

Yet being in love has its dangers. People’s beliefs and habits change. Their minds and bodies begin to grow old. At any moment we could lose the one we love through death, or any number of things. The greater our love the greater the pain we are in danger of suffering.

Our present life disappoints us, but most of us are too scared to even think about the things we would really like to find in a partner. We fear that thinking about this would only increase our painful desire for a partner we can never have. Our secret wishes seem beyond reach, yet still they remain, like a dull pain that will not go away.

Just for a moment, face your deepest desires, no matter how impossible they seem. Be brave enough to see what they show.

You ache for someone you:

* will forever be proud of

* can trust completely

* can be totally yourself with.

Your secret wish is for someone:

* who has not just heard of everything you have suffered and enjoyed since birth, but was there with you

* who always and fully understands you

* whose intelligence, strength and beauty will not grow less as the years go by.

You need someone who:

* meets your needs so exactly that it seems you were made for each other

* always brings the best out of you, helping you reach the highest you are capable of

* not just feels your pain but can always help you no matter how serious your needs become

* knows your darkest secret, your every thought, and yet thinks highly of you

* can always be with you, no matter where you are, the moment you want your partner

* will forever love you with a love so great that it always thrills and satisfies.

You want someone who always helps you, yet never stops your growth as a person; someone you will never get tired of, and yet someone who will never change.

Lastly, you do not want the constant fear of losing the person who means the most to you. You need a lover who could never be hit by sickness or injury or death.
This is stupid (foolish)!

A person would have to be God to satisfy us! And how could he help? We are flesh and blood. God, if he exists, is some distant, unknowable Spirit. The thought of a friendship with God is stupid.

Or is it? In places totally unknown to us, almost anything could exist – even a God ready to surprise us by breaking into our lives. Why do we have deep desires that could never be satisfied? Is the God who made us playing cruel games? Or did he put within you those wishes for a perfect partner because he wants to meet those needs by becoming your closest friend? Could it be that God seems cold and unfeeling only because you hardly know him? If God does not have feelings or cannot love or speak, that would mean we have more abilities than our Maker. That makes no sense. If we can do these things, our Maker can do all that and more. God is warm.

But God spoils our fun! Or is it sin that ends up spoiling fun? Sin promises so much and gives bad feelings later. It gives a headache after drinking too much. It gives the unwanted baby and the sex disease. Sin brings shame, pain, and guilt. Speak to people who have been hurt by someone’s sin – people who have had things stolen from them, people whose husband or wife suddenly left them, people hurt by drunk drivers, people who have been lied to or had bad lies told about them. And what about those who find they cannot stop doing bad things that they once liked doing but now hate? Ask any of these people whether God’s ways spoil happiness or make happiness.

But God is dull and boring! Are you sure? The God who can do anything – things so wonderful that we cannot even think of them? Would not it be a life full of surprises to be in love with the only Person who can always do more than you could dream?

This exciting Person can give you never-ending friendship. He has endless power. Only he can fill the big empty feeling inside you. He is the perfect partner you painfully wish for.

But I need someone I can touch. God knows your every need.
The greatest romance

You are deeply loved. To other people you might be just one of thousands, but not to the One who made you. In the eyes of the one Person who really matters, you are special. You mean so much to him that what God wants with you is like a perfect marriage.

Believing in someone does not make you married. Neither does believing in God give us the right to live with God. It is not enough to walk down a church. True marriage is believing in someone so completely that you give all that you are, and all that you have, to that person for life. Your Maker wants to do that for you. But it takes two partners to make a marriage work.

If a homeless girl married a rich man, he would gain her shame and she would gain his honor. She would get his riches and he would have to pay everything she owes people. For this to happen, she must turn from other men and give herself (and the few things she owns) to this man in marriage. He would give her everything he has, if she gave him everything she has.

In a similar way, if we give to God everything we have – our time, abilities, friendships, and everything we own – he will give us everything that he has. We hand over to Jesus the shameful things we have done, giving up even our favorite wrong things. They become his. That is what killed him. In return, Jesus’ goodness and perfection becomes ours, so that we can enjoy the closest friendship with the Holy God.

By becoming one with God, we give him the right to do whatever he likes with everything we own, but the Owner of the universe makes his riches available to us. We trade our abilities, for his unlimited power, and our attempts to run our lives, for his unlimited wisdom. We give him our time on earth and he gives us eternity.

In every way you gain from God’s offer and he loses. But God is in love with you. He wants this holy union more than you can imagine. Do not make him sad by holding back.
A marriage made in heaven

The following is like a wedding in which you give yourself to the Lord, and so make him your God. In turn, the King of kings makes you worthy to be spiritually joined to him, and he promises to give himself completely to you. If the following describes your feelings, you can make it your prayer by reading it to God.

Dear God,

It hurts to admit how bad I have been. Even though I have caused you sorrow, you sent your Son, Jesus. He gave his life and defeated death so that I do not have to receive the punishment I deserve.

You have given yourself totally for me and I long to return your great love, by giving myself to you. I want to please you with all I have. I will love, honor and obey you. I hand over my sins, giving up even those wrong things that I like. I accept that you now treat me as if I had never done a thing wrong in my life and that you have now given me the power to live a life that pleases you.

Thank you that we have now begun a friendship so close and so powerful that not even death can break it.

The Lord of heaven and earth knows your secret thoughts. If you prayed the full prayer honestly, you have entered a new spiritual world. That is hard to believe. Everything seems the same. But not from heaven’s view. Your life-changing ‘marriage’ has begun.

The proof lies not in your feelings (such as whether you feel guilty or happy), but in the honesty of the Holy God. He has given his word (in the Bible) that whoever turns from sin and looks to Jesus to be made clean, has a totally new future. God is no liar!

If this is the first time you have sincerely prayed such a prayer, you need further help immediately. E-mail me now. Just a few words from you allows me to pray for you, and to send you more help.
manuelamueller.b@gmail.com

The perfect partner

Years ago, young lovers used to let go of reality and let their dreams run wild. Even though they were often not religious people they found themselves using religious words:

* She idolizes him (makes him her idol)

* He adores her (adore is another word for worship)

* You are divine

* He is heavenly

* He worships the ground she walks on

* A marriage made in heaven.

As these people learned, hidden below the surface of our mind is the awareness that religion and the greatest love we could wish for, somehow belong together.

The ache deep within you will remain until you enjoy an exciting and fulfilling closeness with the One who made you. God is the perfect partner you yearn for. Yet his very perfection makes him unapproachable. Almighty God is frighteningly pure, totally good, completely without fault. We are not. God is so perfect, he is like blinding light. We are like darkness compared to him. And darkness is destroyed in the presence of light.
Back to real life

We come crashing back to earth. There is an answer, but to understand how wonderful the answer is, we must consider the size of the problem. Facing the problem is so unpleasant that we want to block it out, like people in a dark prison suddenly seeing bright sunlight. Yet facing truth will free you like nothing else can.

If we went into a hospital and met a doctor washed totally clean ready to operate, he could not touch us. We may seem clean, but not by the standards he must keep. We are like that in the presence of the holy Lord. We may be as good as the next person, but by the unreachable perfection of his standards we are moral lepers - spiritually diseased. God must keep his distance.

That seems an over-reaction. Being surrounded by imperfection all our lives has clouded our ability to see ourselves clearly. Deep down we suspect the worst but we run from it like people refusing cancer checks, even though early treatment brings life, not death.

Part of us feels good when we hear of a terrible crime that we would never do. And we take secret pleasure when people who had seemed to be good do wrong. It is not unkindness that leads us to feel this way, so much as a desperate attempt to silence the screams of our own guilty heart. We try to fill our lives with endless activity so that we do not have to think of it. Yet deep down we know we stand dirty in the presence of a pure and perfect God. Even when we think we have pushed it out of our minds, it controls us more than we realize. One way to ease guilt feelings is to find fault with anyone who might give the appearance of living a better life than us. So we find fault, seldom realizing why we do it. Some of us even try accusing God of doing wrong. If only we could muddy his name, we could feel better about our own failures.

We reject God’s laws, hurt each other, and then have the cheek to blame God for the mess we cause. ‘Why do the innocent suffer?’ we complain, forgetting the times our anger, greed and lies have hurt the innocent. Of course, there is a certain amount of hurt we say is not so bad, and the hurt we have caused just happens to be the sort of thing we say is not too bad. It is like failing a test at school and then moving the pass mark to make our own mark look good. A holy God could play no part in such dishonesty.

If God is a God of love, why does he allow all the evil in this world? To anyone not blinded by their own double standards, the reason is obvious. God longs to destroy all evil, and the time is fast approaching when he will (2 Peter 3:9-13). But how, without being totally unfair, could he do this without destroying you and me?

Don’t worry! This story has a happy ending! There are rich rewards for those with the courage to face facts we inwardly know to be true. God can make us more beautiful than we dare dream. So we have no need to act like burn patients smashing mirrors.
Becoming beautiful

Should we change and never so much as think another wrong thought, it would not help. If having sex made you sick with AIDS, deciding to never again have sex will not heal you. Having sin in our past is like having AIDS in our blood. No-one can change the past.

Some things would be wrong for God to do. Think of a man in court found guilty of dangerous driving. The judge happens to be his close friend. Would it be right for the judge to say his guilty friend is innocent? Or could he punish the dangerous driver less because he is his friend? Only a worthless judge could allow law-breaking to go unpunished or be soft with some people just because they are his friends.

And God is our Judge, because there is no such thing as a self-made person. None of us decided to be born, or can even design our children’s finger prints. God made the brains we think with. The Lord is maker – and therefore owner – of all things. Everything we have ever used or abused belongs to him. Like it or not, that means we must answer to God for our every action. Our selfishness has hurt people. It would be very wrong for the Judge of everyone to ignore the wrong we have done. We are the ones who get angry at God when other people do wrong and go unpunished. So although God loves you more than words can say, he must declare you guilty. And the penalty be paid.

That leaves just two choices. Either you pay the penalty, or someone pays it for you.

It would be foolish for me to consider taking your punishment. I have my own wickedness to answer for. But the Son of God, two thousand years ago, left his heavenly judgment seat and came to earth. He became the only human who has lived a perfect life. In the brightness of his purity, our best attempts at doing good look like mud. So when Jesus willingly suffered the pain and shame of dying like an outlaw (a criminal), something of earth-shaking importance was happening. The innocent Son of God was taking upon himself full blame for your sin.

As he was dying, Jesus suffered great pain in his body, and yet the pain in his heart and spirit was greater still. On the cross the only person who forever had been one with God cried, ‘My God, why have you left me?’ Father God had to turn away from his dear Son, treating him as the worst person on earth, until the horrific penalty was paid in full. After suffering the full penalty for the wrong things we have done, Christ broke through to life again, blasting a path for us to follow.

You are the center of this heart-stopping display of love, the greatest love the universe has known. Will you continue to reject it?
Enjoy the greatest love affair

By dying in our place Jesus has made it legal for anyone, though guilty, to go completely free. But there is something you must do before you can walk free.

To be friends with the Lord of the universe; to have God’s power flowing through you; to reach the heights you were made for, you must make a choice. To explain, let us return to the dangerous driver.

A judge would have to set the full penalty ($500) for his friend’s wrongdoing. It is quite legal, however, to give his friend money. It is then up to the guilty man whether he chooses to accept the judge’s gift.

It would break Jesus’ heart if you ignore his offer to suffer for you. That means you must pay the penalty yourself. That is the last thing he wants. More than anything, God wants to save you from the horrors of hell and give you a fulfilling, life-changing partnership with him. But you must accept the gift. That involves admitting that you need the gift – that only Jesus’ death can take away your guilt.

There is one more thing. What if the dangerous driver wants to keep breaking road rules? If he plans to continue driving badly, he is a danger to others. It would be wrong to let him go unpunished.

Similarly, it would be wrong for God to let us go unpunished if we plan to continue breaking God’s laws.

I tremble at the thought of all the thousands of people who have tragically missed this point. A second picture will show how important it is.

You are trapped in a sea of wrongdoing. Deep waters reach cliffs that cannot be climbed. No one can swim forever. The depths frighten you, except for one spot. You have found a place where the deadly waters seem nice. How can anyone believe your cries for help if you are enjoying yourself? And what is the point of saving you if you are hell-bent on diving back into the deadly sea after every attempt to save you? No one who has a suicidal desire to keep doing wrong can be saved.

This does not mean you must start living a life without sin before we can enjoy God’s goodness. We are in sin’s death grip. Only Jesus can break the deadly hold that wrongdoing has on us. But do you want Jesus to set us free from everything he says is wrong? Do you want your favorite type of wrongdoing to be forever taken from you?

God honors us by considering our wishes. If we do not want him to be our God – letting him be in total control of our lives – it saddens and horrifies him, but in his gentleness he will let us go our own way. No one has suffered the pain of rejected love like God.

You can never be forced to love someone. The Giver has done all he can. Now you must choose.

To ignore our Maker is the most selfish thing anyone could do. Every good thing we ever enjoyed comes from God. (Even sin’s short-lived pleasure, that slippery shadow of the real thing grabbed while making him sad, is possible only because God gave us the ability to have nice feelings.) Every wonderful thing we take without thinking comes from him. He even holds together the atoms in our body. He looks after even those who do not want him, giving them time after time to respond to his astounding love. They do not want God to move in their lives, but he does anyhow – showering them with a thousand soft, warm, beautiful, delicious, refreshing, thrilling and uplifting gifts. At death, however, those who on earth wanted to be free from God are finally given their wish. That is the final horror. All love, beauty, fulfillment and joy come from the God who made everything. To be cut off from him forever is too terrifying to think about.

If you want to stop doing what God says is wrong, however, and you rely on the fact that Jesus died for your sins, you let God do what he wants so much to do – pay what you owe to justice and treat you as if you are as perfect as Jesus Christ. That makes you so pure in God’s eyes that you need no longer be kept out of his presence. You can then begin an endless friendship with the most wonderful Person in the universe. from
http://net-burst.net/love/lover.htm