While the true origin of St. Valentine’s Day is unknown or suspect, I’d like to apply a Christian principle from it that Jesus would love: Energize your marriage with His sacrificial love this week.

The only sexual relationship allowed by Jesus is marriage between a man and a woman, because Jesus spoke against having sexual pleasure and sexual activity outside of marriage:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-29 NKJV)

 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” (Mark 7:20-23 NKJV)

Yet while naming these sexual sins, Jesus wholeheartedly celebrated the creation and beauty and purpose of marriage between one man and one woman. This was demonstrated by His first public miracle, at a wedding, where He changed water into wine. Then, in Matthew 19, Jesus powerfully defined marriage, parenthood, and family, and warned against divorce, all in one answer:

The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:7-9 NKJV)

Therefore, I urge you to use this week to invigorate your marriage with loving words and actions. You can stand up for marriage between a man and a woman in society, but liberals are right to accuse of hypocrisy if you don’t stand against divorce too. For Jesus hated divorce because He loved marriage. This week, celebrate your marriage and the marriage of others in a way that pleases the Savior. By doing so, you’ll help make marriage between a man and a woman more attractive to young people.

Jesus has given husbands and wives “batteries” to energize their marriage. Will you “tap into” His power?

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NKJV