Our daughter, Maribel, got engaged this past weekend. Everything we hear about the young man who has stolen her heart delights us! Her email to us that told us about his romantic proposal, his desire to meld their lives in service to Christ, his respect and honor for us as her parents-- and the way he lights up her life - make us very glad. "Love is a many-splendored thing." Solomon's Song exults in it, "Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned." (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV) God gave the gift of love to us. It reflects His very nature. John reminds us that "God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us." (1 John 4:16, The Message) Are you getting ready to object to my connection of my daughter's romance with God's love? Give me a couple of more moments before you do.
The truth is that real, deep marital love - the covenant commitment of a man and woman to each other- is the Biblical illustration of God's relationship to His Church. We are called the Bride of Christ! He wants to delight us, to captivate us, and to have us respond with intense desire for Him, the same kind of desire that is found in a couple in love! It is God's plan that our delight in Him never wanes, but only deepens over time like love deepens in a carefully tended marriage. Maribel and Dave have a new love, a love that has not yet been tested by trials, kids, sickness, bills, tempers, and all that stuff of real life. When they make the covenant commitment, before God, to love and to cherish, for better and worse; with the help of God they will build on their romantic attraction and create a life together marked by a quality of love that reflects God's own love for them.
Are you captivated by Christ?
Do you think of Him as you awaken, talk with Him as you begin your day, turn to Him through the day, and as the night closes around you, commit yourself to Him?
In my pastoral work, I am often asked to help couples who have 'fallen out of love,' whose marriages are in trouble. When one or both partners fail to care for the marriage or take advantage of their spouse, or break their vows; sorrow is inevitable. Then, too, there are those marriages that run headlong into terrible difficulties, things like huge life change or chronic illness. The restorative power of real love still amazes me! Sometimes I think to myself, "this marriage is beyond salvage, too wrecked to survive," but the couple works hard, digs deep, and draws on God's love and their love, emerging from the the awful pain of broken lives into a love that is stronger than before!
Some Christians have the same experience with the Divine Lover! They neglect Him, or they take advantage of Him, or they even betray Him! They wander from Him, chase after other loves, and feel the coldness of soul. They seem to die while they are still living. Then, when we might conclude that they are beyond hope, they turn in humble repentance, and their love for Him re-emerges deeper,s stronger than before. Others run into testing experiences that make the love of Christ seem like a joke. "How can You love me and let me go through this?" is the cry of their aching soul. Where have you gone? But, with patience and perseverance, they find that He is there, that He does care.
Paul tells us that it is the love of God that brings out the best in us! Take this passage with you today.
Let the image of a newly minted love fire your imagination and give you a renewed desire to know the Love of Christ. Take note what results from knowing His love....
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.
Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:16-19 NLT
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