We are so blessed to share with you this AWESOME message of GOD’S LOVE from our Dear, Dear Friend Pastor Rick Frederickson of the Springfield, Minnesota United Church. So very thankful that Rick answered the call to become a Pastor, he has the true heart of a Pastor. I am praying for more Rick’s! It takes two, I know, I have Sharon with me and Rick has his angel wife Sue! I pray this picture of Pastor Rick and Sue makes my Minnesota friends WARM this February morning! Just think Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training this week! LOL! 
Love, God
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. It’s a time of love. We buy flowers and candy, we search for perfect card with just the right sentiment, and we may even have a special date or meal.
We want to show those we love just how much we love them. Our feelings of intense affection are true and real.
And yet, because we are not perfect, our love is not perfect. Because we are sinful, it a difficult to fully comprehend the fullest, truest meaning of love. And, until we see Jesus face to face, we never will.
Because of our imperfection and sin, we love conditionally, we love others because they love us. We love others because they are cute, because they take care of us, or because they are fun to be with. We sometimes think of love as mere sexual attraction.
Our love is also ever changing. Because we love based on feelings and emotions that change from one moment to the next, we fall into love and fall out of love.
Can anyone really comprehend “unconditional” love? Perhaps love that parents have for their children is as close to unconditional love as we can get. We continue to love our children through good times and bad, and we love them even when they don’t meet our expectations.
We choose to love our children even when we consider them unlovable; our love doesn’t stop when we don’t “feel” love for them. This is similar to God’s love for us, but His love is greater than our ability to fully comprehend it.
God’s wants you to know His intense affection and true love – His unconditionally and forever love.
The Bible is full of God’s assurances of His undying love for us. God’s words are true: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).
He care is constant. He has given us all good things including the gift of human love.
However, His greatest gift and greatest show of love for us is His son.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
God sacrificed His only Son so that we, who put our faith in His Son, will not spend eternity separated from Him. Even though we are the ones who choose to reject God it is God who repairs the separation through His intense personal sacrifice. All we have to do is accept His gift.
If God didn’t love us, would He have sent Christ into the world to save us? If God didn’t love us, would Jesus have given His life for our salvation?
God’s love note for you comes from 1 John 4:7-11:
“Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.”
Love, God
—
Rick Frederickson, Pastor
