7 Truths of Marriage: Rest in ConnectionSample

Truth In Love

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self­ control. - Galatians 5:22-23

Truth in love starts with the most basic of all truths. Without the Holy Spirit living and working inside of us, we really have zero capacity to love others. Love is a choice and not a wishy-washy made for prime-time TV emotion. That’s the truth too, but nothing even gets started without God in our life. 

Our ability to choose to give and receive love is rooted solely in our understanding of what love is. And, since God is love, how could we ever expect to truly know love without first knowing God?

Can you be married without knowing God? Sure you can. But that’s not a Christ-centered covenant marriage. That’s a civil contractual agreement based on government regulation. Without God, marriage is missing out on the power of love’s supernatural relationship. To experience the truth in love means first surrendering to God, and each other because the reality of love is that sacrificially serving each other is God-like. 

The truth is, without God in your life and marriage you cannot love at the depth of love that God wants to love you. Agape love as we find in the Bible is the most intense, everlasting, and uninhibited expression we can choose to share with one another. This is the way Jesus loves us. 

Agape love isn’t based on emotion or how you might be feeling from one day to the next. It’s a choice to love no matter what comes at you as a married couple. Aren’t you glad Jesus doesn’t love us based on how He feels or how we perform? True love is a decision we make to love our spouse and that’s the truth.

Truth Time:

Pray over the decision you made to love your spouse. Was it based on the sacrificially serving model that Jesus portrayed or was it based on something you felt or wanted?