INDEX

•  Do not marry for Love
•  The Love Prayer

How many times do we hear the words:

"I do not love him / her anymore"

"Love me tonight"

Love means different things to different people. To some it means sex, to others it means goose bumps and to others it means having a good feeling.

Two people are working at a job. The one loves it, the other cannot stand it.

Two people are attending the same church. The one cannot stand the preacher and the other cannot receive enough.

You want to divorce your husband / wife, but there is somebody else that cannot wait to snatch up your spouse.

It is love that changes everything. Love for your work, love for your church, love for your spouse.

Rate yourself: (yes or no)

•  I give to the poor

•  I help others even to my own detriment

•  I have enough faith to heal the sick and God uses me for miracles

•  I speak in tongues

•  The Spirit uses me to prophesy

If you scored YES in all of them, give yourself a zero. This does not count. What does count?

•  I think that all people are always trying their best - even my spouse

•  I do not discuss other people behind their backs (especially my employer / employee) and I stop others from doing it

•  I am not easily angered - not even by my rebellious kids, especially because everybody is always trying their best

•  I do not envy anybody nor their possessions, cars, money, status etc.

•  I am well known for my patience

This is called LOVE. Love is not goose bumps and it is not sex. Love is an act of your will, a choice that you have to make. It is not something you pray for, it something you decide for.

The most difficult part is to crucify your flesh - the rest is easy.

Do not Marry for Love

GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

JOH 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

Christians do not marry for Love

We all have been taught by Hollywood that we do not marry for money, but for love. We are fascinated when Indians are given out in marriage to people they have never met and the marriage works.

We are fascinated by the idea of Hollywood that we get Goosebumps when we see somebody. When we meet somebody new at the office and they are interested in all our stories, suddenly they are seen as our soul mates who understand us and our husbands / wives don't. We like getting attention, especially if the other one is good looking, humorous, full of fun etc.

Let us put things in Biblical perspective rather than the Hollywood idea which leads to homosexuality, multiple bed mates, depression and suicide.

Christians should love everybody

We do not love one another like we love ourselves - this commandment has been replaced when Jesus said that we needed to love one another like He loved us - giving His life for us even before we loved Him.

Jesus also said:

JOH 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Love means (1 Cor 13):

•  We are not selfish
•  We are kind
•  We think no evil of anybody
•  We are not easily provoked
•  We tolerate everything
•  We believe the best of everybody
•  We do not seek our own interest

Have you seen anything of Goosebumps in there? Have you seen anything of stars, magical feelings etc. in there? No, that is only the Hollywood version of love.

"Love me tonight" is therefore meaningless and actually means "let us have sex tonight". In most of the songs and stories you hear, you can replace "love" with "kissing, foreplay and sex".

Why should people marry?

People should marry because of Relationship. Love is there whether relationship is there or not. Let us have a look at this relationship:

Relationship of Friends.

We support our friends, we are there when they are hurting, we are there when they have victory, we share the same interests, we love to be with them, we understand their faults but we are friends anyway

Relationship of Husband / Wife.

The Lord said that it is not good for us to be alone and that He would make somebody that will be our intellectual, moral and physical partner - 2 Gen 18.

When we find somebody like that, we will see the following:

•  When you are apart, it feels as if you are not a complete person. When I travel overseas, I put a lot of extra effort into my work so that it can partially fill the gap where Ina normally is. It can never take the place completely, but it feels as if I cannot live when that part of me is missing. When I get back home, I have to relax so that my heart can allow her to come back into the place where she belongs. Many of us do it in our daily lives, working hard so that you do not feel the miss so badly. But when we get home, we need to relax once more and allow our partners their full space again.
•  I do not go to men-only camps and Ina does not go to week-end camps for women. If we cannot go together, we rather not go. There is nothing wrong with men-only camps and if in doubt, rather go. When it does become a problem is when one partner comes back from such a camp all fired up and then the other partner (who did not have the advantage of participating in the spiritual - enrichment exercise) if then left behind to fend for themselves, feeling completely left out of this deal.
•  Work functions that are arranged after hours and does not include my wife, naturally does not include me either. A director once invited me to watch a game over a week-end. Only businessmen and businesswoman were invited. I said that I could not go if Ina could not go. He then realized that there was not enough space for all the partners. Because he is such a gentleman and wonderful person, he saw my side of the story and after that divided the people he invited into two groups. One week the one group with their partners were invited and the next time the others.
•  You protect your partner with all your might.   I do not allow anybody to speak against my wife. I will not make jokes about her and I will not allow anybody else to do that either. We will rather make jokes about our friends, compete with them in games etc., but we never compete with one another. We protect our relationship as we protect our relationship with God. It is holy and has to be protected with all our might. When children are small, they sometimes get angry and lash out at the wives. This I never allowed. You touch my wife, you touch me. When children are small, they sometimes lash out at the mother in anger. As a husband, I never allowed this. Although Ina is their mother, she is my wife. I do not allow my wife to be mistreated in any way - not by our closest friends, parents, children or anybody else.
•  We were in a car travelling with friends of ours from a church conference when we got into a discussion about Genesis 1. During the discussion it turned out that our friends did not really understand Genesis 1 and I realized that it would take more time than we had available to clear this thing, so I stopped halfway through the discussion that nearly turned into an argument. Instead of leaving the issue, my friend said "Now I have got you!". Before I could say anything, Ina turned around in her seat and in a no-nonsense tone of voice explained the whole Genesis 1 to him in 5 minutes flat. He was so stunned he never answered back, so we still don't know whether he actually grasped all the concepts. She was like a tiger protecting her children - I loved it! That is what a marriage relationship is all about!
•  We never allow anybody into our space.  We have many friends and our children are our greatest friends. We can always allow more friends into our lives, but we are jealous about the space that Ina and I share. Nobody is allowed in there.

Before we were born again our relationship was so strong that we would never even think of getting a divorce. (But we might have thought about murder once or twice).

It is sad when friends leave our lives, but it is deadly when a partner leaves a relationship. You can see it in their eyes, their faces and their reactions - even if they think that they are now better off with this new person.

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The Love Prayer

We have seen that Christians do not marry for love - they love with God's love in any case, unconditional, without asking for anything in return, always expecting the best from anybody (even after disappointments).

Christians marry because of relationship, because God has made you a help meet that fits you perfectly. You cannot live without the other, you always see to it that the other gets the best. If you buy a new car, the other one will be the first to drive it. If you are in a meeting and cannot be disturbed, only God and your spouse is allowed to break into the meeting.

When I still had a secretary and before cellular telephones, I used to give this instruction to my secretary: "If God or Ina calls, open the door and call me out. Everybody else waits until the meeting is finished".

Now that we have cellular telephones, Ina's name is on the VIP list. This means that she can always get through to me whenever and wherever she feels the desire to.

Ina taught me the next prayer that I would like you to pray it now. Pray to God for your spouse.

EPH 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 Father, grant Ina according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with might by Your Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in her heart by faith; that Ina, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of Your love;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that she might be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now unto You that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
21 Unto You be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Remove Ina's name and put your spouse's name in there. Pray this every day until you believe that your spouse received this. When you start to believe it, it will be much more difficult for you to find fault with someone that is so blessed by God, in who the Spirit of God is dwelling in His fullness.

My prayer for you is that you will have the patience and integrity to pray this prayer every day until God has answered your prayer. Do not expect anything in return - this is your opportunity to be the spouse God has called you to be.

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Last modified: 08/25/08