Read this book (or anything by John Piper really) to learn about loving God more. Click the image to read it free online
In my previous post (Most men date women like they are strippers) I talked about love and how love is not for selfish gain but for giving ourselves to the other. I wanted to clarify a few things. It IS okay to love in order to receive things. I’ll talk about when that is appropriate and when it is not.
The Apostle Paul calls men to love their wives like Jesus:
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph. 5:25)
And a few verses later it says:
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Eph. 5:28)
This is how I strive to love my wife – of course imperfectly and only by God’s grace. But I can say I LOVE my wife, in both heart and action NO MATTER WHAT (that is the kicker right there). Even when things are not going the greatest – like if we argue or if I sin against her or if things are just hard in life at the moment – I still love her and pursue her, because Jesus loved me and died for me even when I was living in complete rejection of God. My love for my wife now actually shames me for how I acted in my previous relationships. I did not live up to the standard the Bible calls love.
What we CAN get from human relationships
In Genesis 2, God says:
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him (Gen. 2:18)
God created relationships so address a real issue: aloneness. Companionship is a good thing. We are designed for it. Most people who are “in love” (as it is called) are mutually receiving companionship. That is a good thing. The problem is when we take that good thing and make it a God thing. Most of us try to GET from the other what the relationship was not designed to do. We try to get our joy, our satisfaction, our identity, our life from that other person. But they can’t give us that! And we become bitter or angry or resentful with each other when our unmet expectations that we’ve consciously or unconsciously applied to our partner are not fulfilled. This is the source of almost all failure in relationships. It may play out in many different ways, but it first gets off track from people trying to get from their partner (as Trike says: two fleas and no dog).
What we CAN get from God
God designed us for pleasure and satisfaction. This is the major tenant behind Christian Hedonism (read full article from John Piper’s ministry here). Pleasure is not a bad thing, but a good thing. The problem is that we were designed to take pleasure from God instead of created things. What we set our pleasure, satisfaction, identity, emotions, life in, that is what we worship. Worshiping anything other than God is idolatry and is ultimately unfulfilling and unsatisfying. So with God we CAN love God in order to receive. We can love Him to be fulfilled by Him. We can love Him to be satisfied in Him. We can love Him to get our identity from Him. We can love Him to get life from Him. The scripture tells us:
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)
This makes everything else better!
When I am seeking the right things from God, I am freed to love my wife as I ought. No longer do my selfish desires get in the way of laying down my life for her. When I am basking in the presence of God (who is always with me! see Jer. 23:24), eating with my wife, serving my wife, talking to my wife, supporting my wife, and leading my wife are all BETTER, in every way possible. God truly gives me the desires of my heart through my wife by enjoying God first and foremost. I can finally enjoy her more FULLY for who she is because God has taken care of all the rest of my needs. Because I love God as I ought, I can properly love my wife as she ought to be loved (and when things are not going well between us, it is usually because I am not loving, seeking, and enjoying God!). So I will exhort all of you:
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)