Love

Sacrificial Love

"The husband should fulfull his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband."
- 1 Cornithians 7:3

As a Christian man I am called to fulfill my marital duty to my wife. But how does a husband do this? What does he need to do to complete this marital duty?

"I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." (1 Corinthians 11:3)

What does this mean? So, leading every man should be Jesus, the man should be leading the woman, just as God is leading Jesus. The Husband is the leader of the marriage but is also equal to his wife, just as God is the leader in his relationship with Christ, but they are equal to each other.

So, how as a future husband am I supposed to love my future wife? How am I supposed to show her that I love her?

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word." (Ephesians 5:25)

This passage is flat out amazing. As the husband we are called to love our wife sacrificially, just as Christ loved the church (body of believers) sacrifically. We are to become selfless and sacrifice our pride for our wives to truely love them unconditionally, just as Christ loved the body of believers unconditionally. We are to make her holy by leading her in the word of God, The Bible, and making your relationship with Christ the number one priority in each of your lives and in your marriage, that is how we cleanse her by the washing with water through the word, just as Christ makes us Holy by cleasing us through his sacrifical death and his love for us.

Another thing that makes this even more amazing to me, is that this blog was inspired by a question about 1 Corinthians 11:3 and its meaning. To see this Younglife kid and young and growing Christian to ask this question and to be seeking want God wants for him and his future wife, is mind boggling to me. This just reassures me more and more that God and the Holy Spirit are at work in this world and in our hearts each and everyday, whether we realize it or not.

Thirst for the Living God

The Greatest Commandments Jesus Christ gave us were these:

1) "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

2) Love your neighbor as yourself."

-Mark 12:30-31

There is no commandment greater than these.

In my life this is something I wish I strove for everyday and in every moment. I pray that, "As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." (Psalm 42:1-2)

This is a goal of mine I hope that my soul pants for my Lord and my soul pants to love my Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that my soul pants to love my neighbor as myself and to love them unconditionally as God loves me.

Turning Natural Life into Spiritual Life

This devotional from Oswald Chambers really hit home with me and the fact that Jesus has already conquered our sins for us then next step we take is making our life spiritually based on Christ through moral decisions we make every single day and demolishing our worldly habits and bringing glory to Jesus.

Oswald writes:

Do It Yourself (1)

. . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . .

— 2 Corinthians 10:5

Determinedly Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God’s divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . ." (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).

It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin— Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched— the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).

Proverbs 24:30-34

"I went past the field of the sluggard,
past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;

³¹ thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.

³² I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:

³³ A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-

³⁴ and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man."

-Proverbs 24:30-34

I learned a amazing lesson from this passage: if you become lazy, stop thinking and living for God for even a moment all you have worked hard for could be lost. Learn from the sluggards mistake here. Continue to work hard and strive in all you do in the name of Jesus Christ our savior.