I'm thinking this morning about love, marriage, and true friendship. It seems only appropriate that we talk about love on Valentine's Day, right. John 15:13 says that "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). What that scripture tells me is that love is the world's greatest power. It can even conquer sin. It could be looked at like a tidal wave, a tsunami, coming in to conquer and devour the earth.
"Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). I think marriage is a symbol of two things. 1) God's "creative" love or "life giving" love and 2) God's "redemptive" love or "forgiving and faithful" love. Most marriages today are more of a contract than a covenant I think! A contract is meant to protect ones own personal interest in life and a covenant is put in place to protect a "commitment to love and serve one another." A covenant is a mutual pledge to be faithful to one another forever, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. Just as we ought to be faithful to God.
A marriage, a unitive and procreative bond between two people. By unitive I mean love-giving and forgiving and by procreative I mean life-giving and life nourishing. A Christian marriage should be one where the love of husband and wife never stops continuing to grow stronger each day. Their love should imitate God's love for us. It should be forgiving and they should be able to forgive the hurts they inflict upon one another, whether those be intentional or unintentional. That would represent God's ability to forgive us. His perfect love.
Prayer: Father God, please help us to understand fully what our responsibility is to you and to each other so that we too can experience all the joys that marriage can bring.
Random Thought: In my life, I've always wanted to be loved. Sometimes struggling with that and being deceived by the feeling I have, I have questioned what love really feels like! I'm pretty sure I figured that out when I watched my kids Zarria, Savanah, Faith, Hunter, and Mia interact and respond to me and their mother. There is no love in this world I've ever experienced like the love of a 5 year old and their parents. I think if we could figure out a way to preserve that we'd be one step closer to living in heaven.
Revelation 3:20-22 "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit has to say to the churches."
Our faith journey begins with God knocking at the door of our heart. I guess that could take many forms, a spiritual hunger, inspiring person, or a loving friend. During this journey we can expect to fall or screw up and we can expect that God will be there for us when we do. God respects our freedom and lets us make our own choices. He will not force us to be obedient to Him, meaning if God's gift of grace is going to change us or redeem us, we must ourselves be open to it. We must work as if all depends on us but trust that it all depends on God.
For so many years of my life I've not put out the effort to really know God or what He wants of me. What I realize today is that He is my father who is living in heaven and that the only way I can get to know Him is by reading and studying His notes that He left for me so that I would know who He is. Just as I am doing for my kids today. And that if I ask my brothers and sisters in Christ what my father was like, they can also help me to get to know my father hallowed be His name who art in heaven. Now doesn't every little boy and girl really want to know their father? I do!!
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