“If you keep My
commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s
commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My
joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay
down one’s life for his friends.” – John
15:10-13
I was talking to a friend the
other day and he commented that I was spoiling my wife. I responded by saying, “My wife is the most important
person on this planet, as far as I am concerned, why wouldn’t I shower her with
blessings and attention?” Husbands – wives – is that that how you see your
spouse? Are you willing to lay your life down for them – if Jesus said we
should for our friends – how much more for the person that we have committed
our lives to in marriage? The thing is – for a marriage to be what God intended
– it doesn't take two, it takes five. Where both the husband and wife are submitted, by faith in Jesus,
to God the Father by the indwelling and submission to the Spirit and to each
other.
To love others the way Jesus
said we are to love others requires that we be “right” spiritually. It all
begins there – with our relationship with God. I am not suggesting that people
apart from God cannot love. What I am saying is that for our “joy to be full”,
for us to experience what it is that God intended in the marriage relationship,
it must be lived out as each of us walks in obedience to the Lord. Loving my
wife is a natural manifestation of my love for God. How much I love my wife and
the way I love my wife is a reflection of how much and the way I love God. I am
not making this up – although as I type, I did not think this was the direction
I was going this morning.
That guy that suggested that
perhaps I was doing more for my wife than was necessary? He is a Christian so I
could speak to him “spiritually’. I say this because the natural man cannot
understand spiritual truth – it is foolishness to them (1 Corinthians 2:14). So
I pointed him to the Book of Ephesians.
“Husbands, love your
wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He
might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He
might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands
ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves
himself.” – Ephesians 5:25-27
What did Jesus do for the church?
He laid his life down. The way husbands
and wives love each other should be a bright light in a dark culture. Do you remember the words you spoke at your wedding?
“…. to have and to hold, from
this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to
God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge myself to you."
There is an assumption in
those words, that you each are submitted to God and obedience to Him by the
power of the Spirit and not the strength of your will. Enter Satan with the
words, “Did God really mean that?” What if you decide it just isn’t working? I
would suggest that it is a love problem – not between the husband and wife only,
but between one or both of them and God. I can’t love my wife the way God says
to love her if I don’t first love Him.
Pretty simple – but often overlooked or just ignored. Two cannot become
one apart from the “glue” that sticks and holds them together – their faith and
the Spirit of God. God is the root – Jesus is the vine and we are the branches –
the fruit – our love and the quality of our marriage is a result of that. That
is why we are warned to not be unevenly yoked.
“Do not be unequally yoked
together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with
lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has
Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what
agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the
living God.” – 2 Corinthians 6:14-16
Many marriages start out with
God no where to be found. Even though the ceremony may be in a church and the
vows before God said. That is just part of the ritual. When the couple leaves
the church building, they leave God behind. They may both not even be
Christians. I know that I was not when I married Martie. It is by God’s grace
that we both were born again some years later.
So today, the words I shared with my friend would not have come out of
the mouth of the man who made the vows that he might not have been willing to keep
– what's more, would not have been able to keep on his own. But because I abide in Christ
– there is fruit. Husbands – wives – I am
not suggesting you decide to love each other more – but that you decide to love
God more – and loving each other will be the fruit from your staying connected to the
root.
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