I had a recent Facebook conversation with a friend I knew in high school about relationships. It seems that this person has had a history of being hurt by members of the opposite sex. She wanted to know how she could know for sure that the other person is being genuine in their love. There is no doubt that relationships can be complicated. When you get two people together there are so many factors that play into the relationship that predictability of longevity is next to impossible. In today’s “throw-away” culture it seems that marriage, too, becomes a “use-it-until-it-wears-out” commodity.
As I said in my conversation with this individual, I am not trained as a marriage or relationship counselor, but I have seen many people do things the right way, and many others do things the wrong way. I can only speak from my experience and from what I have seen work, not just in everyone else’s relationship, but in my own as well. I am proud to say that my beautiful wife and I are nearing 22 years of marriage. I have had lots of experience at doing things the wrong way, but by the grace of God, I have done things the right way also.
With this friend I started with the one thing I know works, “LOVE.” I noticed that on her Facebook timeline she had a quote, which will be familiar to many, from 1 Corinthians 13
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Most of my readers have probably heard some, or all, of this before. It’s “old school.” But the question I asked her is this: As you consider your love for the other person, put your name in place of the word “love” in this Scripture. Can you say that you qualify in every aspect consistently? In other words, using my name…”Mike is patient, Mike is kind. Mike does not envy, Mike does not boast, Mike is not proud. 5 Mike is not rude, Mike is not self-seeking, Mike is not easily angered, Mike keeps no record of wrongs…so on, and so on.
The truth is if this is the way love is measured, then my love falls short. I don’t qualify. And to expect that someone else is going to qualify is hypocritical on my part. So, her question was a logical one: How does that work out in relationships then?
1 John 4:8 says, “…God is love.” Marriage, and relationships, originated with God. He is the glue that holds relationships together. It was God’s intent from the very beginning that a man and a woman be individually united to Him prior to being united to one another. And since “God is love,” and we don’t measure up to all He is, He makes up for what we lack when it comes to loving others, even our spouse.
When it comes to relationships Jesus gives us the key when He gave us the Great Commandment in Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” In this, Christ was referring to how to have a proper relationship with God; however, as you enter into a relationship with the opposite sex, if both individuals have grounded themselves in these two commandments then there is no way that a relationship should EVER end. Within every relationship the other person would always be more important than yourself.
This is why it is crucial to have Christ as the center of a relationship. The marriage vow is an ever-lasting covenant established by God that really can work out “for richer, or for poorer, in sickness, or in health, ’til death do you part.”
That is the key to a great relationship!
Learn More
37 … Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
John 7
Are you thirsty? The pace of life can get out of hand very quickly and as we all hurry from one expectation to the next it becomes very easy to forget the need to stop and REFRESH! Somewhere within the routine of life we lose our passion for living. It all becomes routine, boring, and we become overburdened with it all. And somewhere along the way we lose touch with the One who sustains us…the One who adds the passion for life. All of us have experienced a dry spell in our spiritual relationship. Pastor Mike will begin a new series this Sunday morning at 11AM entitled, “Come Thirsty!”
You’re aquainted with physical thirst. Stop drinking and see what happens. Coherent thoughts vanish, skin grows clammy, and vital organs shut down. Deprive your body of necessary fluid, and it will tell you.
Deprive your soul of spiritual water, and it will tell you. Dehydrated hearts send desperate messages. Snarling tempers rage. Waves of worry overcome you. Growing guilt and fear control your actions. Hopelessness. Resentment. Loneliness. Insecurity.
But you don’t have to live with a dehydrated heart. God invites you to treat your thirsty soul as you would treat your physical thirst. Just visit the WELL and drink deeply. This sermon series will give you some tools built around the acronym W-E-L-L:
Receive Christ’s WORK on the cross,
The ENERGY of His Spirit,
His LORDSHIP over your life,
And His unending, unfailing LOVE.
He does the hard part. All you do is ask. There is no spiritual “to do” list for you to tackle, no inventory of rules and regulations. Just drink. Let Christ be the water for your soul. COME THIRSTY! Drink the water of life!
Come Thirsty! is based on a book by Max Lucado with the same title.
Learn More
Verse of the Day
