As we grow up and notice what our culture has presented to us about marriage, we realize it is a very shallow view. Cultures around the world are different, but they are all contrary to the Word of God. Most of us have a selfish idea about marriage.
In the West, and increasing elsewhere around the world, there is a romantic view of marriage. The purview is, that love is something you fall into, can be evidenced by divorce rates, and is something you fall out of, as well. If marriage isn’t easy and full of romance, people feel that something is quite wrong. When they don’t feel in love anymore, they stop communicating and start living separate lives until they reach the point that they might as well have separate lives, and they divorce.
Is love a disease that we catch and fall in and out of?
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9
Love is based on action, not feelings: feelings come and go: I feel sick; I feel better: I feel tired; I feel energetic: I feel happy; I feel sad: I feel like working; I feel lazy. Since we cannot base our job on how we feel on any given day, then how can we base our marriage on it?
In the West our relationships start out with intense feelings of attraction and infatuation which have their basis in lust. It cannot be a basis for a lifelong relationship. Lust can go a innumerable directions toward innumerable women or men. True love must move from these lower emotions toward the action word: agape. God loved us and as a result he acted: he sent his only begotten Son into the world to die for our sins.
Love, that God calls us to, in marriage is an unselfish, serving love. When we are married we commit to loving each other whatever the circumstances. Our love commitment isn’t based upon whether our spouse is worthy of it. It is based upon our covenant with God. This is unchanging, so our love must be unchanging. We love and serve and care for each other regardless of how our spouse treats us. If they berate us, are unkind to us, etc. that does not matter at all. We love them no matter what. Love studies what the other person likes or dislikes and serves them accordingly. As men, we take time to connect with our wife, speak our deepest thoughts and listen to her deepest thoughts. Making your wife the one person that you express your heart to gives her a chance to express her heart to you, as well. Make your wife your partner in prayer. If you are a minister, make your wife the first person you share what the Lord is speaking to you about.
If you are not a minister, we should do the same. We must encourage our wives in the Lord.
Wives, listen to your husbands and pray with them. It can be hard for men to express their hearts: encourage him when he does; thank him when he does. Be the person to pray with, and for, your husband. God put you both together so that you can share this spiritual life together. He wants you to grow together in Him. Wives do not nag your husbands; pray for them, but do not nag them. Husbands study your wives to know what they are thinking and feeling and love them accordingly. I recommend all mates to find the “Five Love Languages” quiz online. Search Google for “five love languages quiz” and take it to find out each other’s love language and start loving each other.
Genesis 1:26-27 informs us:
“And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Notice, God made man male and female and that is the image and likeness of God. It is together, as male and female that the image and likeness of God is reflected. In other words, God is made visible through both male and female.
“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:23-24
God’s purpose for marriage is to express himself, to make himself visible. God’s plan for marriage is that there be oneness between husband and wife. It is not for merely sexual oneness, but oneness physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Now, this oneness does not come about by mere existence. It comes through a covenant between husband and wife and God. Secondly, it comes through constant, mutual effort, communication, prayer, self-denial, discipline and love. It is an unselfish love, whose focus is on pleasing God and not self.
Through this communion as husband and wife a oneness is developed and God is expressed to the world. It is through children, through Christian ministry (not necessarily preachers) and service to others that God expresses himself to the world.
