Pursuing Love While Considering DivorceSýnishorn

Living Out the Design for Marriage

Ephesians 4 shows us how marriage models Christ’s relationship with His church. Looking at Christ’s life, then, will give us a model for how to practically live in ways that lead to the flourishing relationships he has designed for us. 

Christ’s entire life was about sacrifice. He sacrificed the extravagant comfort of Heaven in exchange for a nomadic existence in a broken world. He sacrificed constant worship and praise in exchange for betrayal and mocking, and most significantly, He sacrificed His life in exchange for death on a cross. He did this all for us, and He did this all for love. 

This is the life Paul compares to marriage. This is how husbands and wives are called to love one another, through sacrifice and humility.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he gives a long list of what love is and what it is not. Likely, you’ve heard this read at a wedding and maybe you even had it read at yours. The familiarity of the verses makes it an easy passage to skim over, but it actually calls God’s people to an extreme way of life. 

Practicing patience and kindness in our relationships is rebellious to our natural, selfish ways of being. We naturally want to think primarily of ourselves, but God calls us to think primarily of our spouse no matter what. The verses about love are unconditional. We are to act this way no matter how our spouse responds, and that is a difficult call. 

Luckily, Christ also understands that difficulty. Scripture tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” meaning He did not wait for us to fix ourselves before loving us. When we do not have the strength to love our spouses in this way, we can be fueled by His love for us and hold on to the grace and love of God in our own lives.   

The scriptures for today may seem impossible to live up to but remember that if you have the Holy Spirit within you, He can help guide you and lead you in the ways of the Lord. Pray that you lean on His power instead of your own.