Take Up Your Cross and Follow JesusSample

  

Restoring our Covenant Marriage/Love Relationship with God 

God and His people are in a covenant marriage/love relationship (Isaiah 54:5/ Hosea 2:19-20/ Ezekiel 16:8/ Jeremiah 3:14). The relationship between Christ and His Church is also a covenant marriage/love relationship (Ephesians 5:22-33). 

Yesterday we said that we cultivate our soul, or are rich toward God, by a two step process of trusting Him and submitting our will to His. What are we doing when we do this? We are learning to love God as a faithful wife loves her husband. We are in a beautiful covenant marriage/love relationship with God.

God's heart breaks because His creation has broken this marriage covenant relationship with Him. He longs to reconcile people back into this relationship. 

We who are in this wonderful covenant marriage relationship with God are commissioned to share about Him with people who are rejecting and rebelling against God. We share Christ, who is our husband, naturally and with great joy (Luke 12:8-9). We are sent to a world where people are adulterous and sinning against God—the spurned husband—and we are reconciling people back to the covenant marriage/love relationship with Him (Mark 8:38). 

It is the cross of Jesus Christ that has reconciled us back into this relationship with God (Galatians 6:14). Therefore, we cannot refrain from sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people, for we are not ashamed of it (I Corinthians 2:2/ Romans 1:16). 

Thought to ponder

If we are ashamed to share Christ—our husband—with those who are lost, what do we expect He will do to us?