Skip to main content

A Valentine From God!


Valentine’s Day – it’s supposed to be a day of communicating those matters of the heart as they relate to love and affection.  While Valentine’s Day has come and gone, perhaps there is room for one more Valentine…

In regard to those matters of the heart, if I were to paraphrase dictionary definitions, the heart is the center of the total personality, especially with reference to intuition, feeling or emotion.

So, how about this as a matter of the heart?   “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.”  (Psalm 33:11)

The plans of His heart…could it be that God’s plans are based on His emotions or feelings?

I must confess that I am more used to plans that come from the mind.  For that reason, Jeremiah 29:11 resonates more with me:  “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” 

Did you catch the “For I know”?  To know is to perceive or understand as fact or truth, to have fixed in the mind or memory.  Furthermore, the mind is the intellect or that which reasons, thinks, perceives and knows. The verse then from Jeremiah seems to point to God’s plans being based on knowledge. 

So, I can somewhat grasp the plans He has for me that are based on reason, perception, thinking and understanding.   Such plans seem pragmatic, factual and objective.  But from a human perspective, plans from the heart seem to be subjective, intuitive and yes, even emotional.  And for us, emotions and feelings are not always so very reliable.  Yet, from the verse from the Psalm, it seems that the plans from His heart, based on emotions and feelings, stand forever thus making them quite reliable.

However it all works out or is done, God has plans for you that come from both His heart and from His mind.  These plans are truly “forever yours”, that’s Valentine’s speak for I love you lots and lots!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...
Post a Comment
Read more

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Year Trash or Treasure?

You probably know the old saying:  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I am not going to try to prove or disprove it, just look at it from a different angle. Cheryl and I were recently walking on a beach in Florida .  A man was walking along with a bag and was picking up trash and putting it in the bag.  Was he picking up things of value? We also saw a different man walking along the same beach with a metal detector.  He would swing it back and forth and would occasionally stop and dig in the sand.  Was he looking for things of value? Both were intent.  Both were focused.  Both were diligent. I’m guessing that the one picking up trash was not looking for things of value.  I’m also guessing that, by picking up trash, he was valuing the beauty of the beach and didn’t want the trash to mar it.  The one with the metal detector, I’m guessing that he was not looking for metallic items of trash but was looking for...
1 comment
Read more