Did you learn to love? 

This month many people will celebrate Valentine’s Day on 14th February. But do you
know the real story behind Valentine’s Day? Most sources believe that Saint Valentine’s Day began with a feast in honour of an early Christian martyr named Valentinus and that it is celebrated in mid-February to coincide with his burial.

Saint Valentinus is remembered as a loving, compassionate, courageous person who performed miraculous acts and focused on loving others. As I read about and reflected on his life I was reminded of Bob Jones, a prophet who also focused on love and once had a remarkable supernatural experience.

On August 8,1975 he had an experience with death. During the time he was legally pronounced as dead, he stood in a queue awaiting entrance into Heaven. While waiting he heard Jesus Christ asking each person ahead of him the very same question. Jesus was asking, “Did you learn to love?” When Bob got to the front of the queue, the Lord told him that it wasn’t his time yet, and the prophet returned to life on earth with a new-found focus.

Bob was a prophet gifted by the Holy Spirit and subsequently had other divine supernatural experiences, but his life focus was summed up in these words: learning to love. There were three questions Bob would often ask:

· Have you learnt to become like Him?

· Do you manifest His nature to others in your daily life?

· Do you lay down your life for your brother and prefer your neighbour before yourself?

Each one of us is born again through faith in the finished works of Christ and not by our own works of righteousness, so that no one can boast before the throne (1 Corinthians 1:30-31). Bob Jones was not suggesting anything else. God is love, love is His essential nature and loving God and others, is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:36-40).

So, this Valentine’s Day, whilst many of you will be spending time with the ones you love let me encourage you to ask yourself the question,” Have you learnt to love?”

Then with the same question in mind on an ongoing basis, to pray that the Lord will strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit so that you will be deeply rooted and firmly established in love, that He will empower you to grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” (Ephesians 3:18) and from the wealth of that foundation you will be more fully equipped to reach out with that same love to love others!

Keith Saynor
1st February 2024
Pastor.