Love Up!!! {Romance in Marriage}

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image,
to be like ourselves. They would reign over the the fish in
the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals
on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings in his own image.In the image of God
he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them
and said, “ Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.
Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the
animals that scurry along the ground.” [Genesis 1: 26-28]

Well, there is indeed great power in taking authority over “outer space.” But our loving, tender GOD–Father, Son & HOLY SPIRIT– also gave man and woman the most precious gift of love, and bonding in love, which I call the victory of “inner space”: warm and vibrant, CHRIST-centered married life.

Mammals couple, fish — as actor Marshall Fields, once confirmed — copulate, but for those human beings so blessed and privileged to experience it, GOD conferred upon us more than just the need to have sex; GOD gave us the desire and the capacity to build a home in one another, and shaped and fashioned the delicate cleaving of one man to one woman in two Divinely-ordered institutions-in-one: marriage and family.

GOD’s awesome concept of marriage establishes husband and wife as co-equals having different but complementary roles. GOD places man as the spiritual cover and physical protector of his woman, and woman as her man’s helpmate (one who helps him to meet his destiny and in so doing, meets her own) and homemaker.

The husband is the head of the home, directing; while the wife is the centre that holds the home together, coordinating. How these roles unfold and play out is as diverse and variegated as the number of married couples (husbands and wives) on the earth, but central to GOD’s commandment for “outer space”– that man and woman should exercise dominion together– are the subtle and beautiful dynamics of “inner space”: sound and loving relationship-building for harmonious and victorious intimate living.

GOD created sexuality and sensuality for far more than simple reproduction, otherwise most people would just couple like rats, in multiple continuous acts of intercourse with diverse ‘partners’—as some hapless people do, indeed. However, GOD created both sexuality and sensuality for the joys of Holy Matrimony, as the smallest foundational unit that serves as an institution of transformation.

Love Up is the term I repeatedly encourage married couples with, that expresses and encapsulates the joyful notion that in, and through CHRIST JESUS, man and woman who are blessed and made to become husband and wife, do not fall in love, (for that is a lie of the devil that falsely lifts up and assigns great value to “soulish” infatuation and sexual lust).

Love Up expresses the love that holds nothing back, fully forgiving, fully accepting our Beloved, generous in affection and understanding; short on anger, long on love, CHRIST-like in sacrifice, continuously resurrecting love and desire from the dead.

For as GOD defines it,

We must ensure that we say what we mean, and we mean what pleases and glorifies GOD.

The concept of Love Up reminds us that, as Children of GOD, as we live and move and have our being in CHRIST, our trajectory — our path of movement – is upward, progressive, GOD-led, GOD-facing.

Moreover, many Christians, despite so much enlightenment, still harbor the wrongest ideas of love, sex and marriage, trying to assert that sex was, is, and shall be for reproduction only, as if the same loving Father GOD who created love and beauty and joy and faith, is not creativity Himself.

GOD created sex for marital bliss, for the sweetness, the tenderness, the passion and the intimacy that color, enlarge and involute loving and love.

If in doubt, open your Bible, and read ‘Song of Solomon.’(Please read discussion on this ode to marital bliss in this Blog).

Sex is not just base or animal. Sex is also spiritual, and its positive spiritual dimensions meet boundlessness in the integrity, love, exclusivity and faithfulness of marriage in CHRIST, where as CHRIST Himself said it:

For this reason,
a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.
And the two shall become one,
…and this is the mystery…” [Ephesians 5: 31]

Falling in Lust

Secular propaganda has, for centuries, popularized the concept of falling in love, which many of us will readily understand as really falling in lust.

Did you know that fewer than 30% of Hollywood movies feature married men and women in bed together? Everything around us in the society — in the world — promotes fornication and adultery, so why be surprised that we — our wives, our husbands, our children — are ‘beset about by diverse temptations?’

We must rise above the winds, whims and caprices of the world, and forsake ‘deceitful lusts.’

And in the midst of the desert storms that may whip up around your marriage, do not be moved.

Love Up.

When s/he has hurt your feelings, remember that love and marriage are not about moods, they are not about feelings; marital love (even more than parental love) is about deep covenant, that is, commitment — ordained by GOD, and sustained by HIS Grace.

Love Up.

When you feel “ fed up”, frustrated, and cast down – even suppressed, repressed and depressed – remember Whose you are, Whom you serve and worship, and Who died for you that you could claim an eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of GOD, and the fulfillment of joy in this life.

The WORD of GOD (the Manufacturer’s Manual) exhorts and encourages us to pray ceaselessly, to rejoice in the LORD, and in all our asking for (and believing) GOD to give us, that we forgive others their trespasses ( sins and offenses against us) as we would have them forgive our own.

Forgiveness

In fact and in truth, — except in cases of violence, abuse and terrorism committed by a lifemate (and even therein, sometimes) — it is likely that both husband and wife will have multiple occasions to seek each other’s forgiveness, for it can hardly be a one-way street, and two people, living and loving, and struggling and triumphing as ONE, must meet challenges in each other’s personalities, characters, attitudes and behaviors, from time to time.

Yet over time, our maturing in CHRIST — looking less like ourselves, and more like HIM, like JESUS — should steadily reduce, even dissipate these challenges, as we crucify “the flesh” and take on more of the CHRIST nature.

In any case, and pay special attention to this point, PLEASE: our obtaining GOD’s forgiveness and our having our faith answered, are directly tied to our own genuine forgiveness of others.

Please read indeed, Nota Bene (note well) the exhortation of our LORD JESUS Himself:

Then Jesus said to the disciples,

“ Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to
this mountain,‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’
and it will happen. But you must really believe that it will happen
and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything
and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.
But when you are praying, first forgive anyone
you are holding a grudge against, so that
your Father in heaven will forgive
your sins, too. [Mark 11: 22-26]

LOVE UP.

There’s no such thing as loving without forgiving. And often, your truly and genuinely forgiving your Beloved for some old or new hurt can be just the trigger, the catalyst for a fundamental change or transformation in your marriage, and in you, yourselves.

Love Up expresses the love that holds nothing back, fully forgiving, fully accepting our Beloved, generous in affection and understanding, short on anger, long on love, CHRIST-like in sacrifice, resurrecting desire from the dead.

If GOD says it, Do it. Your obedience always yields positive results.

LOVE UP, for loving is love.

Words to the Wise and Wonderful :

Let love and faithfullness

never leave you: bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart.[Proverbs 3:3]

 

Selah