Christian marriage/ Unconditional Love

Considering conditional love: that thought of loving “If you love me back.”

We are commanded to love (Jn.15:17).  We are also told that “loving” someone isn’t enough-we must love them from the heart, and with actions (1 Jn. 3:18-19).  Or else we are not loving God (1 Jn. 4:20) or allowing God (who is in us) (who is love) to abide in us (1 Jn. 4:16). 

Talk about a spiritual gauge.  If I am struggling with love I am well below par.

Take that struggle within a marriage. To struggle with loving unconditionally one’s spouse-the one person I am to be committed to more than anyone or thing. My own flesh.

I am called to love an imperfect person who may not always love me back, act lovingly, or even be a lovely person.

Hmm-maybe we should trade out the traditional wedding vows for something more like this:

-Will you promise to- Love this person who may or may not act unloving and be, at times, very much an unlovely person-who may undermine or usurp your position?To respect and submit yourself to this person who may or may not be worthy of that respect-who may take advantage of your position?

-Will you vow to- Love, honor, and cherish this sinful, self-struggling, imperfect person who may or may not offer you the same love, honor or cherishing back?  In strength and in weakness-be it physical, emotional, spiritual or even weakness of character…accepting all their flaws and their imperfect human status, becoming one flesh with them?Til death, and nothing else-your choice or theirs, do you part?

I DO.

So it isn’t romantic, or ideal.  Maybe its not even reality for everyone, but I think it is real, not all of the time, hopefully not even most of the time, but real nonetheless. 

I wonder how many people would get divorced if their wedding vows resembled this?!

If we made that decision would we be surprised by the unlovely moments of marriage (and they do exist!)?  Would we be prepared to love our spouse 100%, no matter what percent they brought to the table?

What security would we have in that relationship, that marriage; when our spouse enters it knowing us to be weak, to be self-centered, knowing our struggles, flaws and imperfections yet commits to loving us and sharing a life with us, making a life with us anyway!

What gift could I offer of a love that is constant, based on me not on my spouse?  Based on my choice, not on their actions or reciprocal love.

Wait a second-that sounds like God and how He loves us.

Ahh…lightbulb.
Marriage is to be an image, or reflection of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:32).

But I am not called to produce God’s love myself.  As if I could.  God will produce the fruit of love within me as a natural byproduct of my closeness with Him (Gal. 5:22).  God will love through me if I yield to the Holy Spirit.  God’s love is inside of me because God is in me, if I abide in Him His love is perfected in me (1 Jn. 4:12).

How different could my marriage be if I let God love my spouse through me?

Exodus 33:7-11

Have you ever had a passage of scripture just stick with you for a while? You keep thinking about it and turning it over again and again in your mind?  I have been really stuck on a passage from the book of Exodus lately, "stuck" in a good way, but stuck I am.  So I'll share why this has grabbed ahold of me.


You can read the passage here if you like.  Basically, its just after God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, they have witnessed so much of His power in Egypt, then His provision thus far on their journey in the desert.  Now they have been set apart for God and after vowing faithfulness they wait for Moses to come down from the mountain where God is.  Moses takes longer than they thought and the people lose faith, they persuade Aaron to make for them an idol (and that is a whole other subject!) and we all pretty much know that didn't turn out well.  


So anyway, after that Moses set up a tent, outside of camp and called it "the tent of meeting".  In Exodus 33:7 it says that "everyone who sought the LORD" would go to the tent.  And then the next verse tells about how when Moses was going out to the tent all the people would stand in the entrance of his own tent and watch Moses walk out there.  When Moses would enter the tent, the pillar of cloud (representing God) would come and rest at the entrance of the tent and God would speak with Moses.  All those people watching Moses, standing at the entrance of their own tents would see that cloud and they would worship.


There is such imagery in this passage to me.  Moses walking through the camp with everyone getting up and standing in the doorways of their tents watching him.  Maybe millions of people waiting to see that God still was with them in some way. All those people worshiping at that sight.  


But what struck me was the repeated reference of the people standing, watching, worshiping from their doorways.  


Also, at verse 11 you see Joshua, it says that when Moses would leave the tent that Joshua stayed. He stayed at the tent of meeting. 


And this is what I have been mulling: The contrast between the people in the their doorways worshiping God from afar, and Joshua who stayed as near to God's presence as he could. 


 At first I was just blown away by Joshua, and my first inclination was to want to ask Who am I more like? Do I stand in a doorway trying to worship God from where I am most comfortable, or am I like Joshua-staying as close to God as I can?  


But then I realized (and this is the awesome part!) I'm not like the either one, I can admire Joshua for what he did, and even sympathize with the Israelites' insecurities.  I'm not even like Moses, who was able to talk with God face-to-face, like a friend.  


I am a child of God, I have access to His throne 24 hours a day.  He lives inside of me. He lives inside of me! Praise God. 


Has anything stuck with you lately?

A Lesson in Timing

We know that when we pray God will always answer us. We are taught in Sunday School that He hears us and that He will always give us an answer-either a "yes", "no", or "wait".

Oh, the dreaded "wait". Don't we hate that? Have you ever wondered how long we are to "wait"? Do you ever feel that your "wait" had turned into an unequivocal "no"? I know I have!

But then,

I think on the story of the Prodigal Son.
Luke 15:11-32
In His story, Jesus never says how long it took the son to squander his money, or how much time he wasted debasing himself. I think that is very purposeful-I tend to think it was a long time...years. Years of prayers and heartache for the father, years God was working on the son's heart. And finally, the son came home to his waiting father's arms.
A faithful prayer answered.

I think of Elizabeth and Zacharias.
Luke 1:5-25, 57-80
They prayed and served and waited for a child. I think there must have been a moment, an age, when they felt it wasn't going to happen-that they had received a "no". God was preparing the world for his "forerunner" - timing. Then the unthinkable, a miracle-an angel comes and tells Zacharias they will have a son-John.
The answer to a long forgotten prayer.

And what about the crippled man that Peter healed?

Acts 3-4:31

He was there, at the temple, every day. People passed him by for years. He had been afflicted since his birth and when we meet him he is past 40! We see him asking for alms, but I'm sure he longed for healing. Can you imagine the years in Jesus' active ministry? When He was healing and preforming miracles, He was in and out of the temple-yet Jesus, who was very aware of his need, never healed this man. Why? Timing. Peter and John receive the Holy Spirit and burst onto the scene of an emotionally charged Jerusalem. They are approached by this man, as they probably had been before, and their response is healing-full, complete, healing.

An answer to a prayer possible unuttered.

I think about that "wait" answer...it can be so hard to wait. But we can rest! Because we have a great God who is perfect and outside of time and we can know that He has the "timing" perfect.

Shine

Reading Philippians 2 I saw something and was reminded of something-thought I'd share...

God has a plan for our lives, and while they all intersects and lean on each other, I think you can see three aspects of that plan; Upward (in praising and glorifying Him), Inward (in our personal relationship and growth in Him), and Outward (He wants us impact the world around us). In this dark place, we who have the Light of the world in us can shine so brightly, and we need to!

Our church was recently asked the question by our speaker, "How can the world know you are different, if you don't look any differently than they do?" Good question.

Philippians 2:15 says that we, as believers, are to be "blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world"

Anybody else hearing the children's' song, This Little Light of Mine, echoing in their heads? I've been humming it all day and singing it with Luke.

This little light of mine,

I'm gonna let it shine

This little light of mine,

I'm gonna let it shine

This little light of mine,

I'm gonna let it shine

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I'm gonna let it shine

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I'm gonna let it shine

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I'm gonna let it shine

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

Won't let Satan blow it out,

I'm gonna let it shine

Won't let Satan blow it out,

I'm gonna let it shine

Won't let Satan blow it out,

I'm gonna let it shine

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

I hope I got you humming, maybe even singing, and if that song doesn't work, maybe this one will...Go Light Your World!

Long devotion share:

I think sometimes I have gotten so familiar with some passages in the Bible, that I can read it over and over again without seeing something new. It can be difficult for me not to skim. I bring this up because I consider the Gospels fairly familiar, and recently I was reading Luke one of his books that has Bible stories in it and I came across something new. Now, not "new" obviously, but something I don't ever remember reflecting on. This isn't necessary a failing on my part, but more a testament to God's Word always being relevant and alive and having such depths to it that we can never be in It enough! That God is always showing us something, sometimes familiar, and sometimes "new"! How amazing.

Well, so the story is found in Luke 5:17-26. Jesus has just begun his earthly ministry, he has been healing and teaching and casting out demons, and just recently called some of his first disciples. The priests are getting interested in Him and were present with a multitude of other people; and Jesus was teaching.
Four men (as it more specifically states in Mark 2:1-13) were bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed. They knew that if they could just get their friend to Jesus, He would heal him. In the story that is just a fact. And they were doing their best to make that happen! They set their paralyzed friend on a pallet and carried him to where Jesus was, but they couldn't get in! Not even close, not even to the doorway of the building where Jesus was inside teaching! But these men loved their friend, and believed in Jesus enough that they just had to get their friend to Him. These guys were admirable, they didn't stop there, they thought outside the box! They got their friend, on his stretcher/pallet, onto the roof, pulled up the roof tiles (carefully-no one is mentioned getting hurt by fallen depris!) and looked down on Jesus. But that wasn't all! They were ready for what they planned to do next- they lowered their friend on his pallet down through the roof! Directly in the center of the room, right in front of Jesus! Talk about mission impossible! And these guys did it!
As they looked down through the hole in the ceiling they had just made at their friend, lying before Jesus, they could do no more. They knew that they had done all they could-they set him before Jesus-in full faith that Jesus could heal him. And you know what? He didn't...well, not at first--> Luke 5:20 says, "And seeing their faith, He said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven you'." That was the heart of the matter with Jesus. Jesus could've just healed him and sent him on his way, but Jesus came to save the world, not just put band-aids on it. What would just healing this man have done? Given him a better life, but eternally-nothing. So Jesus forgives his sins.
Now the Pharisees and scribes and all those people start grumbling...its blasphemy to say that-Jesus is saying He is God, because only God can forgive sins. Jesus knows they are thinking this and He asks them, "Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins have forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? And then in order to prove that He had the authority to forgive sins, He healed the man. And the man was healed! He got up, stronger now too because he picked up his own bed, and he left glorifying God. So awesome. Well, everyone there was pretty amazed too, they all began glorifying God as well, and did Jesus have people following Him after that! Wow.

One of the "new" things I saw was the amazing friends this guy had. They believed in Jesus, and knew that He could heal their friend. They did all they could do to get their friend in front of Jesus, because only then could the healing take place. They worked together, they made a plan, they put thought into this(they made their friend a mobile bed, and made sure there were enough of them to carry it)! But then when that plan wouldn't work all the way(they couldn't get in to see Jesus because of the crowd) , they tweaked it-they looked for a better solution-they thought outside the box (the roof!). But they took this plan and also thought it through-they were careful and prepared(carefully removing the ceiling tiles, and having the rope ready to lower their friend down) . Then, when they had done all they could do, they had faith that Jesus would do the rest, they just waited and trusted. The Bible says that because of their faith, the man's sins were forgiven. Here I notice that these guys maybe didn't get the response from Jesus they were hoping for...forgiven? But we brought him to You to be healed...? Isn't that how it is in our lives? We come before the Lord with what we want, knowing He can provide that for us, but sometimes He doesn't give that to us-sometimes He gives us the better thing that we didn't even know we needed, and then as a bonus He also throws in that other thing we wanted too?! We don't know the condition of this man before he was healed, we know he was paralyzed, but we don't know how badly, or even if he had faith that Jesus could heal him, but we do know his condition after his healing! He left giving Glory to God. And a big part of that was because of his friends.

I guess I come away from that wondering...am a friend like that? When I have a friend who is perhaps unsaved, or hurting-in need of the healing Jesus can bring, am I like these 4 men? Do I do my best to bring them before the Lord? Do I help them when and where I can? Do I go about it purposefully? Do I think outside the box when some of my initial 'plans' or my first trys don't get anywhere? Because of my faith (and prayers), will something amazing happen in the life of someone I love? Will I be a part of something lifechanging in one of my friends' lives? Finally, do I place that person before the Lord in total faith that He can heal my friend? How He sees fit? Great questions. Very challenging to myself.

....and soo....I thought I would share. I hope that you are challenged as well! Thank you for reading.
Love you all, my friends.