Valentines Booklet

A VALENTINE’S NOTE FOR YOU Give Me Your... HEART? JABE NICHOLSON



Give Me Your...HEART? I was deeply moved by this incident in Richard Selzer’s book, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery. “I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on....[T]o remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so gen- erously, greedily? The young woman speaks. ‘Will my mouth always be like this?’ she asks. 1

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’ She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. ‘I like it,’ he says, ‘It’s kind of cute.’...[H]e bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.” AN EVEN GREATER LOVE Will we ever understand how much the Lord Jesus had to adjust in accommodat- ing himself to us? To enter time, landing on this pale blue speck in his vast universe. To become human, live in poverty, be falsely accused, betrayed, crucified. And all this for love, even for those who would never love him back. “Give me your heart” (Prov 23:26), he asks. What else can we give him that isn’t already his? Friendship with God is the 2

greatest offer ever made, shocking because we aren’t his type. The evening news—and our own souls—tell us how much damage we’ve done on our end. Is there any way back into such a relation- ship? That’s the ultimate valentine! THE HEART OF THE MATTER Of course, God isn’t asking for our physical heart, but it is an amaz- ing picture of what’s in- volved. Half your heart moves oxygen-poor blood into the lungs to purify it. The other half pumps the rejuve- nated blood into the body to sustain life. They illustrate history’s two greatest events. Christ’s death for us, like the right side of the heart, deals with the pollution of our sin; his resurrection life in us, like the left side, provides life as it was meant to be. What an offer! But... 3

...it isn’t automatic. Jesus, the consummate gentleman, offers a choice. True love is always a choice. And like all healthy relationships, he asks two things. First, honesty: agreeing that I’m the sinner he died for. After all, we don’t even come up to our own standards, let alone God’s. Second, trust: he wants us to entrust ourselves to him, accepting him as the Savior we need. See the two sides here: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23). Christ gave his life for us to do what we couldn’t do—pay our sin debt. Then he rose again, conquering death, and when we receive him he gives his life to us, flowing through us so we can live joyfully and obediently in God’s eternal friendship. Happy Valentine’s Day! 4

Would you like to find out more about this true love? Visit: www.uplook.tv