Building Better Love : The Mission of Loving WellSample

Your Marriage and the Gospel

It's so tempting to gather falsehoods from our culture. There are just too many lies that tell us what love is supposed to do for us, but the scriptures turn these deceptions upside down time and time again. We must constantly remind our hearts that love begins with God and that we must possess His love if we are to live it out. It doesn’t always feel good and it doesn’t always give us tingling sensations or butterflies, but it will elevate the existence of your marriage into more purpose and meaning, beyond the emotions and above the feelings.

Sex and the City might teach you a different perspective. Top Chart artists might sing you a different song. But whose report will you choose to believe (Isaiah 53:1)? The glamour, maybe even in the drama, of worldly relationships might seem so very exciting, but you have been called above carnality and into holiness and holiness always results in blessings! We have to allow the Holy Spirit permission to shift our focus onto eternal things and on things above (Colossians 3:2). This will motivate us to cultivate a life of exploring how we can love and serve, instead of judging how we are being served. We should be reflecting on ways we can love our husbands more, rather than how to get them to be more loving to us.

It seems one-sided, but if both spouses operate with this focus, no one is left wanting. This is God’s design for marriage: to put the other’s needs before our own in genuine and unconditional ways and to honor the Lord in our efforts and choices to love one another as He loves us. It starts with your daily choices and it’s your choices that reflect your love.

Sex and emotions and feelings and intimacy are all wonderful and vital and they have their place, but they do not prove love. Scripture makes it very clear that the love of God, which we should be experiencing in our marriages, is much more than emotional or physical feelings. Love is a commandment which we must obey, and Jesus said it’s the greatest (1 Corinthians 13:13). Conflict doesn’t exempt us. Rough seasons won’t excuse us. Love is an action and it’s also a choice. Ultimately, how we love is truly a reflection of the love we claim to have for God.

The longer I am married the more I consider that God’s truest intent and design for marriage is to produce greater godliness within us and point others to the Gospel. This Gospel is not about feeling good all the time or managing to maintain public passion or romantic feelings; it’s about showing and sharing the love of Jesus, which is a fire that will never burn out! Going about the world’s way of love will not solidify spiritual love in your life. At best, its limitations counterfeit a perception of love, which will eventually run out –leading us longing and lonely in the end. But, by laying down our lives as Christ did, living our love with intentionality for one another, and persisting to love beyond simply pursuing good feelings, our marriages will thrive and flourish both in the natural and in the spiritual.

This is the Gospel, and this is what a God-centered marriage looks like. It’s in our relationship with Jesus that we begin to see what loving well in our marriages truly looks like. This begins with an experience of His love, as shown to us through Jesus. It can’t be forced, manipulated, faked, or duplicated. It’s a choice we make by accepting the love of Christ and then allowing His love to flow within us, through us and into our marriages, and out into the world.

In what ways are you allowing the Gospel to transform your marriage?