(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Rivulets V: X Valentines”, originally shared on February 14, 2022. It was the 190th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Are you exchanging valentines? Today we’re
sending you ten of them that could provide the means by which someone is
transformed by the love of God.
Roman Numerals are fun. Yesterday was Super
Bowl L-V-1, or 50+5+1, or 56.
If you hold up two fingers you make a V for
5 or two digits for 2.
Roman Numerals are the fuel for the old
joke, “A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says, “Five beers
please.”
Today is Valentine’s Day. It’s a Christian
holiday known as St. Valentine’s Day, but our culture has long abandoned it as
a religious celebration in favor of one celebrating romance. There is some basis for that too in the
Christian origin of the holiday, or “holy day”.
We have no record of a single historic
figure called St. Valentine, but several Christian martyrs named Valentine or
Valentinus have similar life and death stories that have combined to provide
common ground since the late 300’s.
These elements include doing secret weddings
for Roman soldiers and their fiancés when the Roman empire thought that single
men made better soldiers and forbade marriage, imprisonment in a nobleman’s
home and the healing of his daughter resulting in the whole household
converting to Christianity, being sent to prison as a result and sending the
girl a letter saying that he had no regrets which he signed, “Your Valentine”, and
being tortured and then decapitated on February 14th. Red is the
liturgical color for martyrs.
It was a martyr’s holiday for a saint who
healed until the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer connected it with romantic love
in the late 1300’s. And that’s how we celebrate it in our time.
Today, we’re going to associate it with
something else: rivulets.
We’ve previously uploaded videos/blogs/podcasts
called “Rivulets of Living Water”, “Rivulets: The Sequel”, “Rivulets III: More
Flow”, “Rivulets IV: Return of The Rivulets”, and now “Rivulets V: X Valentines.
A rivulet is a small stream. It can be the
means by which people come to the larger stream.
Today we’re going to look at X (10) more
“rivulets”. That is, practical means that might guide people to receive the
streams of living water that is God, the Holy Spirit, and be filled for life
transformation.
Today’s rivulets contain words that are
especially meaningful for Valentine’s Day, a day celebrating a life lived for
God.
These
rivulets won’t make people Christians. But they can be the conduits by which
the Holy Spirit works in people’s hearts, that is, their true selves, to lead
them to new life in Jesus Christ, and we pray that they will.
And maybe these 10 rivulets (II times V?) will
stimulate your own thinking about how you can share the faith that God has
given you.
41. Speak Directly
Eventually, we must invite the person to
open their heart and respond to the work of the Holy Spirit
within them to bring about life transformation. For example, “Would you say
that you have ever opened up to the work of God, or are you still on the way?”
or “What do you think is holding you back from receiving the gift of faith?”
42.
Respond to Provocation with Love
Some people, when they’ve learned that we
are Christians, try to draw a negative reaction from us with provocative
behavior or language. Listen to the voice of God within you. Find a way to
respond casually with selfless love. Bring a word of healing
to people’s pain.
43.
Be an Ambassador
You are not Jesus. You are a communicator for
and a representative of Jesus. You are not the light. You are a reflector of
the light. Don’t’ expect too much of yourself. Point to Jesus and the love
of God that makes people a new creation in Christ.
44.
Speak Directly From Your Heart
Don’t work on what you are going to say.
Open your heart to receive the transformative power of God in the
work of the Holy Spirit. Work on being who God has made you to be, on being
obedient to God, and on growing into the likeness of Christ. Speak from that.
45.
Be Eyewitness News
How is God moving in your life or in the
lives of Christians you know? How has your faith made a
difference in your life? Make that a part of your ordinary conversation with
people you know and care about.
46.
Share What You Experience at Worship with Others
What does worship mean to you? What do you
do when you go to worship with others? How does your common relationship
of faith with God effect your relationship with others at worship? Talk about
it with fellow Christians to build them up. Talk about it with others when you
invite them to experience true community in worship.
47.
Forward Your Email
Do you get email from your church? Have you
read email that was especially meaningful to you? Forward it to anyone you
know, from a casual acquaintance to your marriage partner (if you
are married), to a friend who might act on it.
48.
Don’t necessarily Follow the Crowd
Our witness is more often formed by our
choices than by our circumstances. Make choices that reflect your character,
whatever the cost. Don’t go along to get along.
49.
Text Somebody With Emojis
Text somebody this week and invite them to
come to church with you next week. Use your heart emojis to
express your feelings about worship and your desire for them to share it with
you.
50.
Share Your Swag
Do you know where the word “swag” comes from
other than being short for “swagger”? It’s an acronym for “Stuff We All Get.”
Does your church provide swag? Share it with anyone you can and invite them to
join you at worship. If your church doesn’t have swag, encourage a fund to
provide pens, tote bags, phone stands, T-shirts, key chains, first aid kits,
etc., imprinted with your church name, website, slogan, whatever. A small
financial sacrifice can make the reminder someone needs when they
are moved to go someplace to worship.
These X (ten) rivulets may be the means by
which the Holy Spirit works in people you know and care about. They may be the
valentines that convey the love of God.
The love that Christians carry in their
hearts is selfless love, “agape” in the Greek language of the New Testament. It
is a love that is not natural to us. It can only come from God and is part of
the new life given to us in the Holy Spirit.
Does our culture know what true love is?
The British/American rock band, Foreigner,
released a song titled “I Want to Know What Love Is” in 1984 that’s still
played today. Its chorus starts, “I want to know what love is. I want you to
show me.”
Our answer, and the basis for all our
“rivulets”, is this, in this passage on the nature of selfless love, in 1
John 4:7-12,
7 Beloved, let us
love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God
and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not
know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was
revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we
might live through him. 10 In this is love, not
that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning
sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved
us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No
one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is
perfected in us.
Every place where “love” appears in that
text is the translation of the Greek word “agape”, meaning “selfless love”.
May
you be led by the Holy Spirit to share this love on this Valentine’s Day.
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