The Blue Church

As a Christian, I believe that God is the embodiment of love and that He loves me and my spouse (and family). But, how does that help me to get more love in my marriage? When we first became Christians, we accepted that God loved us and we decided that we wanted to love Him back. But our connection to Him is thin and congested with our sin nature. God wants this connection to be as big and open as possible, so He can pour His love through us to all of those we are around. So He molds and shapes us to be the best vessel or pipe we can be.

Now God is pure love, He has no sin, no self-centeredness, no unrighteous anger, no stinginess or any of the other faults like we have that can destroy our marriage. So as we pursue godliness, (i.e. become more like Him and thus closer to Him) we will have a greater capability to love others and thus be exposed to more love.

So what process does God use to help us become more like Himself? He exposes our sins and helps us to see how ugly they are. Then, through the Holy Spirit, He helps us to repent and stop that particular activity or habit. God typically uses other people in this process.

I am pretty sure that He created marriage as one of the best ways to do this. Marriage shows us our blemishes and imperfections like few other relationships can. What better way is there to get two sinners to readily agree to stay together and have their sins revealed?

Now, we do it because there are benefits in being married. Benefits that are best (and probably only) enjoyed when we are each pursuing godliness. So, when we sin, a spouse who is also pursuing godliness will be willing to forgive us. And we in turn will repent and hopefully be less likely to sin that way again.

One of the biggest benefits we get is the opportunity to practice loving each other by forgiving each other when we sin and hurt our spouse. As we come closer to God and become more like Him, we gain a greater capacity to love everyone around us. The more we love, the more love we experience and receive and the closer we get to God.

For Jan & I, we have found that the more we pursue God together each day, the less friction we have and the more love we experience. We do this by together reading the Bible and praying about our day and our concerns and also trying to honor each other throughout the day. We actively work at loving God by helping each other and others and have found that the more we do this the more love we experience. How do you pursue God and His love in your marriage?

May God abundantly bless you,

Mark & Jan