Love Up!!! {Romance in Marriage}

The following story’ No Small Affair,  was written and posted by Lysa TerKeurst on October 23^rd, 2008.

I have posted it for someone who desperately needs to read it today, before electing to enter a wrong relationship. I have also posted it for another who has started what needs to be stopped. Today.

Having said it before, I shall say it again: the covenant love of husband and wife is the greatest relationship two people can share, other than the love between each of us and GOD!

HE alone will fill every void in your life – we were created to worship HIM!

No Small Affair

Lysa TerKeurst

Devotion:

A few years ago, I sat with a beautiful young woman and watched the tears stream down her face. Six months before our meeting, her world was filled with so much — a loving husband, a healthy toddler, and fun friends.

Life was full.

But some part of her heart still felt restless, unsettled, and a little empty.

She started to feel detached from her husband and disappointed in their relationship. Why couldn’t he make her feel loved? Wasn’t he supposed to right her wrongs, fill up her insecurities, and give her a lasting feeling of love?

Then one day she met a man who said things she’d longed to hear her husband say. He made her feel pretty and witty. Soon, she rationalized that she’d never really loved her husband in the first place. A web of lies was spun. She fell into the arms of the other man.

She had not wanted to come to the women’s retreat. She knew it might make her feel guilty and she was past having any guilty feelings. She was just waiting for the right time to leave her husband and start over with the new love of her life. But her friends had started to grow suspicious of her pulling back from so many church activities. So, to appease them, she went.

Over the course of the weekend, the walls she’d so carefully constructed to keep everyone at a distance and her secret safe, started to crumble. By Saturday night, she sat down with me and confessed her affair. She desperately wanted to know how I felt so full of GOD’s love. She was now convinced it wasn’t the love of another man her heart craved; it was the love of GOD.

Chasing love outside the will of GOD invites the exact opposite of love into our lives. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is a picture of GOD’s perfect love. It is patient. It is kind. It does not envy… it is not self-seeking… it does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth… it always protects… it always perseveres. Love never fails. The things we chase in this world are opposite from GOD’s love. False attempts at love will make us impatient, unkind, envious, self-seeking, resistant to the truth, reckless and temporary.

1 Corinthians 13 is not a description of what is inherently ours when we fall in love with another person. It is a description of GOD’s love. This kind of love can be ours as we become more Christ-like. It is never focused inwardly. It is never about what I’m going to get from another person. It is deciding that this is the kind of love I will give away.

I am challenged by this. Because our souls were designed for GOD’s fulfilling love, if we aren’t staying closely connected to HIM everyday, our hearts will start to feel empty. Restless. Unfulfilled.

Let us never get to the place where we think we are strong enough to not be tempted in this way. If we are all completely honest, we are only a few bad decisions away from the same kind of mess my sweet friend is now trying to untangle herself from.

While I have complete hope in GOD’s ability to restore her, the consequences of her chase for love will be severe on many levels.

The kind of love our souls crave will never be found in the things of this world. Lasting and perfectly satisfying love will only be found when we stop chasing the wrong kind of love and start living out the truths of GOD.

Dear LORD, help me rest in the security of Your love. Make me wise in how I guard my heart. May I never get lured into any kind of worldly, fake love. But if I ever start to get drawn away, GOD surround me with people who are bold enough to speak truth into my life. In JESUS’ Name, Amen.

Thank you, Lysa.

Now, short  as the story is, we get the point. Most wrong actions stem from wrong ‘thinking’: some from un-renewed minds, most from stony hearts.

Most people characterize lust, as they do jealousy, greed, and wrath – - as merely emotions, as if emotions are only fleeting thoughts or mood.

But there is often a spirit behind these forces, and we find that when such ‘emotions’ dominate and consume people, they generate disordered hearts that often manifest, over time, if left unchecked – - without renewal, repentance, deliverance, and sanctification – - in heart diseases, spiritual, and then, physical.

Think about some of those we know, who suffer the symptoms of heart disease, not all, no – but some. Remember their personal histories and herstories.

Look at your own heart.

Are you secretly nursing bitterness, malice, resentment, jealousy or lust towards anyone?

Let us pray:

FatherGOD, in the precious and mighty Name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, have Your way in my life. Divinely separate me LORD, from every thought, practice, habit, desire and relationship that does not give YOU Glory, in JESUS Name!

Cleanse, renew, and sanctify me, indwelling me with YOUR HOLY SPIRIT that I may be used to YOUR Glory, in JESUS’ matchless and mighty Name. Amen.

SELAH*!

*SELAH – Hebrew for pause and  meditate on this?

The story of David and Jonathan is the story of deep affection between two men – - neither homosexual, nor effeminate in any way – - yet it is worthy of discussing within the context of marriage, because marriage is always about covenant, and marriage is usually between two best friends.

David’s and Jonathan’s affection was both a godly affection and a covenant affection, the integrity and intensity of which outlasted Jonathan’s sad and needless death beside his father, King Saul. And the affection between David and Jonathan bore fruit years later in the restoration of Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, languishing – - till David located him – - in that desolate wasteland called Lo Debar.

When you and your Beloved (wife or husband) met and decided to marry, didn’t your soul knit with that of your Beloved?

And, when you finally married, wasn’t it that same sweet and deep affection that led you to make covenant vows to each other, “till death (or Rapture) do you part?”

Jonathan died in battle beside his father, Saul, but the covenant between David and Jonathan did not die with him.

In the fullness of time, David – now King – remembered his covenant with Jonathan, and he sought out Jonathan’s seed – his only surviving son – until they found him in destitution and loneliness in Lo Debar.

Then David, faithful to the covenant, took Mephibosheth to dwell with him in the palace, and eat with King David daily at his banquet table.

It is a wonderful story, graphically painting the workings of affection.

Covenant affection is meant to be a lasting affection that bears fruit even in our posterity.

Then, what manner of evil or madness would make us forget the affection we have nurtured for each other over the years, or make dull and blurred the sharp outline of the love that has brought so much joy before?

If affection now seems to be missing in your marriage, or you feel the need for much more, rekindle your affection for your Beloved, consciously remembering (if you’ve forgotten) what encouraged you to cherish your Beloved to begin with.

And re-ignite your Beloved’s affection for you, that your joy may be complete in each other, and last, still bearing fruit, both in your own covenant seed, and in your good works, together, from generation to generation, to generation.

The affection between husband and wife is predestined and ordained to be the deepest affection between two people.

Always honor that affection between you and your Beloved.

Restore it, renew it, enjoy it.

GOD is love.

GOD is good.

GOD is beauty. Praise HIM!

When more and more people started following LOVE UP, they were so excited, then pointedly asked me why I specifically wrote for those who know and claim CHRIST JESUS, first.

I explained that while LOVE UP was written to bless all marriages, I had written on this extremely important subject for ‘Christians,’ first and foremost, for these reasons:

1. Christians subscribe to, or at least try to practice and honor certain unique and vital values and principles, without much argument, these being the importance of:

• Praising & Worshipping GOD:

Apart from being necessary sacrifices to Father GOD, Praise and Worship are understood to be vitally strategic weapons of spiritual warfare in life, and in marriage, in particular.

• Faithfulness & Fidelity:

Like FATHERGOD, LORD JESUS, HOLY SPIRIT, we believe that husband and wife must be dedicated and faithful to each other, therefore, we also hate, resist, and decry as wrong, sex outside marriage (that is, adultery and fornication). Being faithful to one’s wife or husband is not based on mood or feeling. It is an unswerving covenant commitment. it is a matter of obedience to FatherGOD.

• Unspeakable Joy:

Beyond happiness (momentary gladness), joy is a deep and abiding rest of mind and sweetness which persist even in times (moments and periods) of great temptations, trials and tribulations. The extraordinary gift of joy unspeakable comes from knowing and trusting GOD, implicitly and explicitly, even and especially, in what appear to be life’s darkest moments.

• Submission & Respect:

Whether we fully practice it or not, Christian women know that we are required to be submissive to our husbands, while Christian men are required to  nourish and cherish their wives. And the main way that men submit to their wives is by bringing their bodies into subjection to the LORDGOD, that is, by being faithful to their wives, sexually and emotionally (since men somehow seem to be able to separate these far more than women). LOL!!!

• Unwavering, Mountain – Moving Faith:

Faith has been defined as

Sometimes like walking on water, growing a beautiful, joyful and lasting marriage requires that ‘we walk by faith and not by sight’ [2 Corinthians 5:7], believing GOD for everything good and right in our marriage, and having the courage and obedience to do what is good and right in GOD’s sight.

2.      Christian marriages are experiencing more divorce than non-Christian marriage from the United States of America (where statistics are more readily available), to Nigeria, and elsewhere. Organized Church communities have decried the alarming incidence of divorce, and particularly, the greater incidence of divorce among Christians than among non-Christians.

3.     Marriage in CHRIST is under attack because the devil knows that a good and Godly marriage is the bedrock foundation of both good      and Godly family, and good and Godly community.

4.     It seems that many Christians have very wrong notions about GOD’s Will for their married love life.

GOD created romance (that is, deep affection, sensuality, sexual tenderness and passion) uniquely for the bonding of marriage and the nurturing of marital bliss.

Because too many of us grew up imbibing wrong ideas and witnessing wrong practices in marriage, so many have internalized the hideous notions that sex is bad, that sex is only for making babies (reproduction), or that sexual passion is really meant for sex outside marriage. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

You might laugh in disbelief as you read this, yet think about it well: how many married couples (Christians or otherwise) did you observe, while growing up, who openly expressed their affection to each other, touched or embraced each other, demonstrated their physical attraction to each other, and laughed and played with each other, in your presence?

Did your own parents easily do these things in front of you?

Conclusion

Making love is for husband and wife. It is divinely separated from making lust, sex between all others.

Readjust your understanding of and attitude towards making love.

Making love between husband and wife is a gift from GOD for bonding and marital bliss.

In it and through it, we glorify GOD.