Valentine's Day 2016: Bible Verses for a God-Centered Valentine's Day

By Ann Dee
Valentine's day
Red roses are pictured in a flower shop the day before Valentine's day in Vienna February 13, 2012. Photo: Reuters

With Valentine's Day just around the corner (and already happening in some other parts of the world), it is too easy to be caught up in the commercial aspect of it all. 

Looking for flowers, chocolates, or jewelry for your love one? Do not forget to insert some Bible verses on your cards to remind each other that the center of your relationship is God. 

Struggling with the fact that you are alone on this heart's day? Let some scriptures remind you that God's love will never fail you. 

Here are 14 apt and encouraging Bible verses for Valentine's Day: 

1.     "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."  Psalms 37:4

2.     "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."  Numbers 6:24-26

3.     "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.   It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.   When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."  1 Corinthians 13:4-15

4.     "To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."  Mark 12:33

5.     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

6.     "Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs."  Proverbs 10:12

7.     "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."  1 John 3:18

8.     "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."  1 John 4:7-8

9.     "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them."  1 John 4:16

10.   "Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.  If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned."  Song of Songs 8:7a

11.  But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me."  Ruth 1:16 - 17

12.  "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  Matthew 22:37-39

13.  "And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."  Romans 5:5

14.  "We love because he first loved us."  1 John 4:19

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  Let God's love be felt this very special day and beyond.