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When God said, “Let there be light,” something amazing happened.
When I said, “Let there be light,” ummm… well… I felt silly and 0 things, amazing or not, happened.
I guess I’m just not God. Which is surprising?
No, it’s not.
But, the world thinks we get to decide who God is.
Unfortunately, too many Christians feel that way, too.
It’s tragic.
God is not us.
And we don’t get to live by feelings.
We don’t get to say, “Today I feel x, so it must be true.”
A follower of Jesus — surrendered — taking up his/her cross — dying to his/herself — is not led by his/her feelings.
Feelings of right and wrong…
Feelings of attraction or non-attraction (to spouse or many types of others…)
Feelings of desire for sexual intimacy…
Feelings of pleasure in sex…
Does this mean as a follower of Jesus you have to do things you don’t want to do?
…
Ummm…
…
Yes.
Does it mean that you have to do what the Bible says?
…
Ummm…
…
Yes.
Are there things I don’t LIKE that the Bible says?
Yes.
Am I the one who said “Let there be light,” and something happened?
No.
So, I get to humbly submit to the God and author of ALL and say “You’re smarter, You’re wiser, Your ways are better, and I’m going to submit my will/feelings/desires to You”.
My sexuality included.
“No one should say God is tempting me…
but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death…
[God] does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth.”
So, stop asking, “Why am I tempted?” Or, “Why don’t I have desire for my spouse?” Or, “Why don’t I enjoy sex?”
And instead, embrace the cross of Christ. Deny yourself. And decide this IS God’s best for You.
The surrendered Christian’s questions become: “How do I do this Your way?” “How do I have desire for my spouse?” “How do I love MY spouse the way You created them?” “How do I enjoy and find pleasure in the sexual intimacy You designed and ordained and said I should not withhold?”
Yes — sexual intimacy is a spiritual battle. Do you surrender all to Jesus?
Or are you still self-surrendered? Self-guided? Self-centered?
I pray that this would be as convicting to you as it is to me. May you listen and feel God calling you to greater repentance, depth, love, and worship of Him.
Love,
Belah
PS — We’d love to partner with you in this. God doesn’t ask us to do any of this alone. We love helping people into joy in sexual intimacy and marriage at every level in every area. Get on a call with a Clarity Advisor to see if you’d be the right fit for us to help you in this vital part of life. delightyourmarriage.com/cc
Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. Your joining me belah Rose is I dive deep into the beauty, power and truths about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage.
0:22
Hey there welcome. This is Bella. And I want to just say that, I hope that wherever you are, this conversation is going to draw you closer to God and closer to his will for your life. And I just want to say I’m proud of you for clicking on this episode. Because clearly you want to follow God the right way. You’re not interested in following the easy way. But but you want to do it the way that that God is, is kind of rooting you on to do I mean, this is his design and well not following your own path, you know, and creating God in your own image. That’s not right. God did this, God created the earth, he’s the one that has a plan. He has a design, and we align ourselves with him. We are under the Lordship of Jesus. We’re not under the Lordship of our own understanding. Because I’ve got to raise my hand and say, I’m not that smart. I can’t even fathom most of what goes on in the world. And I mean, the the natural world that God designed, I mean, I can’t fathom the amount of knowledge wisdom, understanding insight, creative power, to make a a simple, you know, plant occur and sustain life like that. I can’t even fathom we don’t, you know, we certainly understand quite a bit, we’ve we’re getting there. But we can’t make a plant. We can’t make life. We can’t do that. And so for me to then apply my own understanding to all these other areas of my life and say, I’ve got it right. Like, no, when I look back at my life, I’ve gotten a lot of things wrong. So I can’t trust myself to the degree that I would need to, to edit the Bible. Like, where do I get off that that I have the capability to do such a thing. I am going to consistently learn and consistently grow and be have the humility to say I’m going to pursue God because he’s right. And I’m not. I may be wrong. He’s not. My understanding of him may be wrong, but he’s not wrong. So we’re gonna get into that I want to throw out a word that I’m learning about called hermeneutics. What do you think about that word? So it means how you read the Bible, what perspective you have when you come to the Bible. And essentially, you know, some people come to the Bible with the perspective of what is the word mean to me? And that’s an important question. But it’s in kind of the wrong order, we have to start out with, what does the Bible mean, in context, in the way it was written in the reason why it was read all sorts of contextual pieces in the culture in the language all of these contextual pieces. And then what does it mean to me? Because if we take something out of context, the same exact phrase can mean completely different things. And that’s where we get a lot of problems. So that is hugely important to this conversation, because how you read the Bible, how you pursue God’s truth, in the Word of God really matters to how you live it out. It really matters. What does this have to do with sex? It actually has a lot to do with it. And I think God willing, you’re gonna leave this conversation with a greater understanding, inspiration, excitement, to embrace God’s design, in intimacy with your spouse, you’re going to have less confusion. You’re going to be able to have some more solidness to the way you are Approach marriage, you’re going to feel a more concreteness of I am doing it God’s way, by the end of this conversation by God’s grace, and I hope that we all get a little more mature. Through this, myself included, oh, man, I have got some maturity that needs to be,
5:24
needs to grow. Yeah, there’s just so many good things that God wants to do in us. And if we can take ourselves a little less seriously, because we’re all having some silliness in the way we think. And we all need some growth in the way we think and the way we do, then we just give God a space to grow us. I just think this could be a such a such a gift for you if you’re willing to embrace God’s way. So that’s my goal for you. And before we dive in, if you need help with your intimacy, help with your marriage, if you if you’re not only, you know, if you’ve been excited by what delight your marriage has given you so far through episodes or your frame of mind, or you’ve shared it with others, or what have you, maybe it’s time to go the next step and actually get tailored advice, tailored training, and community around you. And in order and a system to say this, then this, then this, then this, then this, to get maybe freedom in intimacy, maybe desire and intimacy, maybe a proper understanding of what intimacy is all about, and even practicals, how to enjoy it better. And how to make your marriage a really romantic, loving, fun place that that fuels the life that God wants you to have. And also get God’s perspective on it all. It’s a tall order, but by God’s grace, that’s, that’s what we do in in the program. So if you’d like to find out more and see if you’re the right fit, not everyone is, but you can go to delight your marriage.com/cc get on a clarity call, and and speak to an advisor about your specific situation. We’ll listen empathetically to you. And to just see if we feel we can help you in your specific situation. So you can sign up for that delight your marriage.com/cc. Okay, let’s dive in.
7:47
I have to say it is so easy to see the blind spots in somebody else, and to not see them in ourselves. And I’m the same way. Jesus said, Why are you looking at the splinter the sawdust in your friend’s eye, but ignoring the plank in your own eye? And so we have to really assess ourselves. And I invite you to do that on this conversation, assess yourself assess how you are approaching God’s word. And are you? Are you giving yourself an out? Many times over with how God set this up? Why do I say mature? Well, when I think about an immature child, the child thinks about themselves that that’s the first and foremost thought is what do I want? What do I need? What’s going on with me? But the more mature child starts thinking about context of what’s what’s happening around me what might be happening with them? What is what’s my role supposed to be in this situation? And then I would say even further maturity is Oh, this isn’t actually about me, this situation might have nothing to do with me, I’m simply present here. Maybe I can help the situation maybe it’s not my responsibility to help the situation there’s there becomes a complete ly different shift in roles. Previously, it’s all self centeredness. And slowly it becomes more mature emerge mature, less self centeredness. And I think that’s the role of the Christian. We should not be centered on ourselves. That’s a very godly perspective. Is it not? I mean, that’s the selfish ambition is not what we’re supposed to be about. We should not be self seeking. And, I mean, we are not the center of the universe. That’s not our role. This is God’s story. God from the beginning to end, He is the Alpha Omega, this is his story. We are a speck of importance in it. And yet he loves us. It doesn’t. It’s, it’s hard to fathom. But hopefully, the Wiser we become is actually the more humble we become the humility, that God God would stoop down to the tiniest of tiniest specks, and care and love, and empower our lives. Like if we actually approached that the humility is far greater than I think any of us realize, like we, we need to embrace a humility that I definitely can’t even touch at this point, like, I want that level of humility, I need that I need to really get the author and creator of the universe and how tiny my speck is. And so that’s why I have to continue to remember, my understanding is so limited. My ability to get to reason out to logically determined to to understand is so limited. And I’m, I’m really loving I watched a debate yesterday from gentleman named William Lane, Craig, CRA, AIG, from reasonable faith.org. And it was a debate about Does God exist, and it was fantastic. And it was a debate with an atheist and, and I just, I wrote down the arguments of why God exists. And it was so was so helpful, you know, because what was happening was the the Christian, William Lane, Craig was logically reasoning out why God exists. And the atheist was actually attacking arguments that weren’t, that weren’t. That weren’t logical, they were about morality. And what William Lane Craig was saying, is actually
12:46
the reason you even get morality, like, where does that come from? That, and there was just there were so much so I would love for you to continue to pursue the way God set this up is different than us. But when we really have a strong basis of that, then we have to see, okay, where does Where does Jesus come in that and that was part of his argument of Jesus resurrection him living, there’s so much evidence around him living, and then him dying, and then him being resurrected. This is Christian evidence, as well as non Christian evidence, way back when, and it’s just fascinating. It’s just fascinating. But I hope that gives us more humility of like, I need help understanding how he set this up understanding what the Bible reads, and how it reads and how I should approach it, and how it should inform my life. But one thing is soup. There are there are some things that are super, super clear. And you know, I’m not a pastor or a theologian and I intentionally give the spirit of the Word of God rather than the specific. The very specific, hey, this and this, and this, because I don’t know the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic that it was written in, and I’m learning just like anyone else. And you know, so there’s just, you know, I don’t pretend that I know more than I do. But there are some things that historically, the since the apostles early, early, early Christians agreed upon, and, and put in Scripture, and then it was based that those scriptures were understood as God inspired and authoritative and here we have down the generations that those are the scriptures that we base our faith and belief on. And so if we look at the Bible that way, to any degree that’s what we’re basing our faith on. So, if you are deciding, okay, I’m going to, you know, put my faith in Jesus and believe that there’s Hellfire if I don’t. Because of the Bible, why would you ignore First Corinthians seven, when it says, Do not deprive each other? Because the enemy can tempt you? Why are you obeying one verse and ignoring the other? Why are you ignoring Romans one when it talks about because you would not give up everything, including your desires that gave you over to your desires, and you could pursue what what you thought was, was was right, I allowed you to pursue the unnatural. And you can look these things up if you want. But that’s not God’s design or intention. And we think about what is God’s design or intention of marriage of sexual desire. We look at Matthew 19. And we see that Jesus assumed if you’ve got a penis, it’s being used in marriage. And if this is not being used in marriage, then you’re not married. And you’ve decided to live as a eunuch, or you were made a unit by birth with for whatever reason unit means that you don’t have male genitalia, for whatever reason. And and if you were deciding to live as a unit, you did it out of for the glory of God. So if you’re not living by a unit, the natural way of not burning with passion is to get married to someone of the opposite sex. And, you know, one thing that I think is really huge in our world today is that we think our desires are the most important thing. Our feelings are the most important thing.
17:06
Which is so crazy, because I’m just like, my feelings change in an afternoon. I mean, gosh, by by a half an hour, I’m feeling something about some topic or some person. And then, you know, I reasoned it through in my head, or I talked to someone, and then I’m like, Oh, actually, I feel completely different now. I mean, feelings change, they change, but the Lordship of Jesus surrendering yourself to who God has, has said we are to be, that’s where we have something to stand on. But if we say, Oh, I just feel this way, or I don’t feel this way, then it doesn’t matter. So it’s the same with your sexuality. If you are deciding, I’m not attracted to my spouse. I’m not attracted to who God said I shouldn’t be attracted to, or it doesn’t.
18:04
It is
18:07
immaturity, it’s pride. It’s selfishness and selfish ambition. It’s looking at yourself and saying, I know better than God. But that’s, that’s just the way it is. God set this up. You didn’t. If he said something, it’s important. He’s bigger than than me. His thoughts are higher than mine. Higher than the heavens are above the earth are his thoughts and his ways higher than mine. That’s scriptural. If I’m basing my life on my feelings, that is a very shaky, shaky way of thinking, you know, it’s interesting, because when we are cherry picking the Bible, when we’re cherry picking the Word of God, see the thing that’s so sad is cherry picking the Bible. Really, it undermines morality it it undermines what you think you’re standing on. So for example, love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies, pray for those who harm you, that sort of thing. Turn the other cheek. We take those verses, but then we completely ignore when Jesus talks about hell. And he does talk about it. So if how is it that we’re going to take part of Jesus words and say, Oh, his commitment to holiness. We’re going to undermine these other words, we’re going to say, you know these words we lie ache those words we don’t like. And so I’m just going to take the ones that, you know, seem to be good to me. And again, that’s such pride. So if we can narrow this whole thing down to if you are a Jesus follower, which I assume you are, because you’re listening to this, you’ve got to take it, you’ve got to take the Bible, at its word. I mean, Jesus says, You, you pick up your cross and follow Me, you must hate everything else, to the degree that you follow me, like, you love me so much. That everything else, brother, mother, sister, married party, you know, spouse, husband, wife, children, you must hate them compared to how much you love me. You must follow me to that degree. But so often, what I see is, is people, whether they’re writing me an email, you know, these special special souls that the Lord loves that were the write an email into us in my wonderful office manager, Darcy responds, and, you know, whatever. What often is this like, very secular mindset about their sexuality. Like, I’m not attracted to my spouse, I don’t want to have sex, I have like, all of these things that are just so based in not picking up your cross and following Jesus. The Scripture is clear. intimacy in marriage is vital. So if you’re a wife that’s having a struggle, or even if a husband struggle, being attracted to your own spouse, that sin it’s not it’s not a question of anything other than you’re allowing your brain to go in spaces, and you’re allowing yourself to believe things that are not biblical. You chose the spouse, you will have an you are designed, created, assigned to this individual. And so how this individual receives love is how you love them. And so if you’re a wife, and your husband desires, sexual intimacy with you, frequently, that is your opportunity to serve the Lord, by loving your spouse. Well. Scripture says you’re not supposed to deprive each other. He is scripture doesn’t say, you know, five times a week in these positions with this kind of No, no, it’s you know, your own spouse, and you don’t deprive them of that.
23:14
But what about husbands? How do you serve and love your own wife? Well talks about protection, protecting your wife as the weaker vessel. Yeah, I’m, I’m a 21st Century woman who loves that I get the chance to vote and every other right, I get to enjoy because of my four mothers who did such things, who did all the suffrage work that I don’t have to do I, I get to do this because of it. But I am grateful that my husband stands up and takes the takes the punch for me. He’s the one that listens to my episodes and decides, you know, is this something that’s not going to be good for Bella to post because we might get whatever, whatever he he’s the one that takes that, you know, for a while before I had some others on my team. If ever I thought an email was going to be negative towards me, I would just forward it to my husband and say, Should I open this or not? Cuz I’m just too sensitive to get a bunch of negative stuff but God is good. He’s protected us we don’t we really don’t get negative stuff. Which is so cool. Um, but we could I mean, whatever. I mean, that’s, we want to follow Jesus, whether we get negative stuff or not like that doesn’t I just think that the point of protection, right, and I love that he listens to me and is gentle with me, and that is approaching me as the weaker vessel. The Bible talks about the husband sacrificing everything, for the wife, just as Christ sacrificed everything for his church. Not demanding submission because the Bible talks about submission. No That’s not, that’s not our role. Our role is to say, hey, where is the plank in my eye? What can I do to love my spouse? Well, when wives are to respect their husbands, like, how do I do that? Not Oh, I don’t feel like it, or oh, he’s not doing this and this, and that for me. Like, that’s just not God’s way. So you are cherry picking. You’re cherry picking the Bible. So instead of saying, Lord, I surrender to you, you are God, and I am not. You’re saying, Oh, I like this part. And I like this part, I’m gonna ignore that part, I’m gonna ignore that part. This part is one that I like. And that’s not following Jesus. It’s not Christianity, it’s something completely different. It’s a social, maybe a social rights club, I don’t know. It’s people being friends and nice, but that’s not taking up your cross and following Jesus. And so if you are deciding, there are areas of Scripture that you’re going to have the secular mindset about the non non biblical mindset about, that’s cherry picking the Bible. Remember, we need to understand the Bible, we need to pursue the biblical perspective. And sometimes I understand passages incorrectly and that that needs to be addressed. We need to go into these spaces and understand them better and better and better. And we need to get the contextual pieces in place to understand it better. But if you’re just like, just gonna say, I’m, I’m just not going to do those scriptures. But it’s, there are themes that you cannot deny that are super clear, like picking up your cross and following Jesus. baring your cross, we all have to do that. It’s not it’s not we can’t have it both ways. That’s not repentance from our sins, that saying, Hey, I’m going to keep my sins, and I’m going to follow Jesus. And I’m going to get all the benefits of what Jesus but why would Jesus come and die for our sins if we didn’t have any, if we just didn’t have any. And, and so there’s, there’s a lot of messes with secular mindsets that unfortunately, Christians are so inundated with their movies, and television, and social media, and all politics and all of these things, they don’t have enough space in their life to even consider the gap and the differences and the ways they should be pursuing Jesus that are different than what the world is pursuing. Because when you think your feelings determine truth, you are messed up.
28:09
It it’s just,
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it’s just ridiculous. You can’t decide that way. Because our feelings change, we get distracted, the enemy wants to distract us. We want to He wants us to go into all sorts of different ideas and thoughts and all sorts of things. Things to get upset about things to, you know, like, very shallow ways of thinking. Because we don’t give ourselves self space enough to reason through something. Cherry Picking the Bible is dangerous. You’re not following Jesus, when you do such a thing. And God’s reality around sexual intimacy is very clear. It is to be happening in marriage. And so it’s not a Oh, am I attracted to my spouse? Hmm. It’s how do I become more attracted to my spouse? And it’s not on you fixing your spouse, it’s on you fixing yourself. It’s on you disciplining your mind to not go down the rabbit hole of what’s my quote type? What do I really get turned on by know this unless it’s about your spouse? Your holy sexual passion is contextually with your spouse. So when you ask questions of yourself around sex, it’s about your spouse, it’s in a certain direction. They are not open ended questions. I hate when somebody tells me about their type. I’m just like, what, what in the world your type is your spouse whatever they look look like or are alike or whatever. That’s your that’s your type. That’s a decision that’s already been made. And so now it’s how do I become more attracted to that person? How do I look at them with excitement and attraction? And so this is a discipline of your heart. If you were on a desert island, and the only thing to eat were pickles, but right now you hate pickles. I gotta tell you, you would eat those pickles. You would be grateful for those pickles. Oh, my gosh, thank the Lord, you have pickles? What does that mean for you? You might have to starve your eyes. Maybe maybe you don’t maybe you’re not in the camp that that others are in where it’s, you know, you’re as sensitive to certain media, et cetera, et cetera. I am very sensitive. Maybe because I do this work? I am. I am careful. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not maybe maybe it’s more broad reaching. I just try not to judge others. But if it’s just me, it is just me. And for just me, I cannot be on watching. Scandalous shows that that have some kind of sexual either undertones or sex scenes or these kinds of things. I cannot do that. And stay in the zone of deep attraction and desire and romantic arrows love for my spouse. Maybe you can’t maybe you can’t. And that’s okay. That’s your cross, you have to pick up and carry to follow Jesus. Okay, fine. So you have a cross like that? Great. We all have crosses, yours is different than somebody else’s. Maybe one of your crosses is same sex attraction. That doesn’t mean anything except you have a cross just like everybody else does. God made bodies attractive. God made bodies attractive. That’s reality. That’s God’s design. Yes, naked bodies around would be attractive. That’s a normal attraction. You’re not anything other than sinful, like everyone else. If that is an attraction. I’m sinful, too. And guess what I have to be careful about what I look at, about what I think about, about what I wear, I allow my thoughts to go. And sometimes, you know, some gentleman is running by without a shirt on. And I glance at him, but my mind does not go anywhere other than like, Oh, that’s interesting. He has freckles, or, Oh, that looks like a friend of mine. So you have to decide where your thoughts go. Maybe your thoughts are not going in a negative spiral or sexual direction, when you see something or someone or whatever. And that’s okay. But look for and identify and assess the plank in your own eye.
33:10
Now, if you’re a wife who doesn’t have sexual desire for your spouse, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, you know, this is a big problem don’t know, it’s a cross you have to bear. How do you become more sexually attracted to your spouse? How do you do that? Well, you think about them different ways. You look at them, and you admire God’s masterpiece in front of you. Okay, so maybe your spouse is a little overweight, maybe a lot overweight? How can you still admire aspects around about them? How can you still see areas of their body that inspire you? How are there ways? It’s not a y question. It’s not a How come question. It’s a how do i xyz. And so just like, you know, if you feel if you’re a wife, and you’re like, I don’t enjoy sex, so I’m not going to have sex because I don’t have desire for sex. That’s just not a biblical thing. That’s that’s a across to bear. And I love this notion. I listen, I don’t know the reference. I couldn’t find it. But basically, if you embrace your cross, it’s easier to bear. If you embrace the cross that you have been given, whatever it may be, it’s easier to bear in fact, I think it gives us an understanding God’s will for us specifically, I have limits. That’s another way of even describing it. I have limits that others don’t have for health reasons for all sorts of reasons. My own personality quirks and peculiar 30 is and it doesn’t mean that I’m saying you have to live like me with the limits I have. But it’s these are my limits, and they show me God’s will for me. Even like, you know, should I be a missionary in Afghanistan? I know I have children. By in the very beginning, my first assignment is that’s a limit, and absolutely not, at least for the season. If another day, there’s there’s a different season and it feels right. And all, you know, feel called and all these things that’s different, right? But that’s that our limits are cross, what cross Are you having to bear? Okay, so maybe sex is easier for someone else, and it’s harder for you. But that doesn’t mean God’s word changes. It doesn’t mean you get to change reality of the way God set this thing up. Because of the cross you have to bear. How can I say this with such passion and conviction? Because I hear you and I know you. And I, myself have had to go on a journey of, of discovery of how do I enjoy sex more? How do I become one who wants to have intimacy with my spouse? How do I become more attracted to my spouse, and when it starts with faith, that God’s way is true and better than my ways. Then I can discover it, then I can walk in it, I can become more like Him in more like how he wants me to be. If I chose to get married, that was a limit I chose. Paul says it’s better to get married than to burn with passion. Meaning that if you got married, your passion, gets to be in that space. And if you’re a wife, and you’re like, I don’t have passion anymore, it’s too late. You got married, your spouse has passion.
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And you don’t get to deprive them.
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That’s that’s taking one scripture and not another. That’s not how we’re supposed to deal with the Bible. It’s not called walking, surrendered to Jesus. And that breaks my heart when I witness women who are sold out for Christ, and they completely miss what sexual union should look like in their marriage. It doesn’t make sense. You cannot cherry pick the Bible. And you may think, but all the other scriptures I don’t cherry pick, but these you are, and you can’t do that. That’s not taking up your cross and following Jesus. Now, am I saying that sex should be this duty, you know, all this this drudgery? No, what I’m saying is what you shouldn’t do is go on a pursuit of how do I enjoy sex? How does sex become something that I go towards? How do I understand my own body? How do I grow in this area of pleasure? Because all those things are available in the gift of sex, but you very well may never pursue them. Because you assume it’s not part of following Jesus. Let me just clarify it one more time. Sex can be pleasurable for you. You can desire your spouse, you can desire sexual intimacy, you can get to a place where there’s pleasure in it for you, where you want to go towards it. You can get there, but it requires you prioritizing it. And you start with hay, this is God’s Well, all right, let me figure this thing out. Let me find out, let me go towards it. Even on the days that I’m not interested, I’m gonna go towards it because that’s God’s will. God is better than than me. He has ideas that are better than mine. His feelings are not my feelings. My feelings are whacked out maybe because of what I ate that day or what happened in my stressful job or what the kids did that day or whatever. But you know what, I’m still a wife. And I still get to shift my heart ahead of approaching my husband, where I’m sexual intimacy, because I know what fills him up. And I can actually desire sex because I shifted my priorities, I became more mature in this moment. I chose maturity, not my selfish, self centered, self seeking self. And again, I can say this with conviction and passion because I need this to I need this to and I know when I put my heart I placed my heart at the feet of Jesus. And I say God helped me do it your way. And it gives me that grace to do it his way. With a heart that’s overjoyed in love. For the one he gave me to love. Well, my highest priority human assignment. Is that man. No husbands again, you have a you have an even harder task. I mean, I think, sacrifice yourself, for your wife. What does that mean? Yes, you would jump in front of the train for her and throw her out of the way if needed. But it also means the little sacrifices. It means deciding to get up with the kids because your wife is tired. It means making her coffee in the morning, because you know, that would make her smile. It means deciding that taking her on a date, as a surprise, matters, it’s not a silly thing. Because it doesn’t matter to you. It means grand gestures to a weekend getaway that you surprise her with that she doesn’t even have to mention. It means a tiny little thing of a note on her table to say that you think she’s beautiful. It means spending 45 minutes in a conversation and not saying how to fix her problem. And giving her eye contact and letting her know you care. Sticking with her when she has emotions and asking her about her emotions. That’s you sacrificing. That’s you caring. That’s Jesus, he sacrifices for His church. Yes, he sacrificed on the cross the giant gestures. But he also cares about the day to day to day to day to day. Even when we’re doing nothing for him, does he lead us and gently guide us and encourage us and love us
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in the ways that we need it. And
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you know what I? There’s, um, I was speaking to an apologetics friend of mine, because I was talking to him about some questions that I wanted to get understood better. And he told me about the argument of divine action of God, which is kind of like, you know, scholars are still kind of arguing like, Does God cause every little thing to happen? And he’s like, in everything it’s happening? Or is it kind of a set it and forget it, he designed it and kind of watches what his hand has made? And, yeah, it’s kind of cool that, that that’s still something that’s being debated by the scholars. But for me, what causes me to have the fruit of loving God even more is that, that he’s sustaining at all that he feeds the birds. And I have that in an episode recently, if we only knew his love, and I actually had, has to reach out to me and so that’s probably your best episode yet. So thank you for that vote of confidence, especially from somebody who studied this stuff far more than me.
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But just, God is good.
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He loves you. He loves you. And if you can, allow God’s love to permeate you, and that is what flows out to your spouse. We all have areas of our life that need to be surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, all of us, all of us, myself included. Yes, it just so happens that I’ve maybe a half a step ahead of you in this. But heck, you’ve got stuff that you could teach me to a lot. I have gaps that I need God’s grace, I need help with.
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I would love for you
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to do something that I started doing recently, Francis Chan, I was listening to him not too long ago. And I feel like God has really placed on my heart the love chapter, First Corinthians 13. And I reorganized it a tad. But I would really challenge you this week to read this chapter and and replace every time it says love or is talking about love with your own name. And it really helps to convict I would say but also challenge us and give us guidance, because as I’m doing this and meditating on it throughout the day, it helps me to actually walk this out. So let me let me let me say it. I reorganize it just a tad so that all the does nots are close together and all that is are too close together. Essentially, so I’m going to read it and every time I say love I want you to replace it with your own name and just repeat after me. Love is patient. Love is kind.
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Love does not boast
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love does not dishonor others love keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. Love is not proud. Love is not self seeking. Love is not easily angered.
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Love does not fail. Love
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always rejoices in the truth. love always protects. Love, always trust love always hopes. Love always perseveres. Amen