What's Love got to do with it? #christianity #marriage #love

My wife and I made a commitment to each other years ago Before God before community and to each other to always stay married

There was a time in our marriage when I didn't want to be married to her. We were in a counseling office and The counselor who was my professor in seminary.

He said across me from me and my wife She was to my left and I told him

I don't want to be married to her anymore. I don't love her anymore I'm given the short version of this.

I said I want to be married. I don't want to love her I don't love her anymore. I want to I don't be married and He said to me

What do you think love has to do with being married and I thought he was an idiot for saying that and then he's then He started to just rip me a new one

Politely, he says does God love you based on what you are? Does God love you based on how good you are?

Does God love you on based on how kind you are how consistent you are? and he went on like this and He just shredded me because he taught me something very truthful

That my obligation to love is to imitate the love of God That he loves because of what's in him because of what's in us or the object to be loved

Whether that object of love is to be worthy of love or not worthy of love That what God does is he loves because of who he is

He says and who are you in that and he had destroyed me right there Destroyed my my argument my self -justification my sin

He did flat -out and I knew right then

I was wrong and I knew right then I needed to choose to love her That's what he said You did choose to love her and now you can display what real love really is

Not just a feeling of pitter -patter and that goes away. You don't be married to her anymore That's not what love is.

Love is a commitment decision It's sacrificial and you decide to do and I would tell her done.

I'd already committed to my mind He is right now he read her the riot act too because she had the same attitude and I'm not gonna talk about her

I'll talk about What my responsibility was and I remember getting out of the I might go somewhere with this

But we're getting out of that counseling session and to this day this minute this second right now I remember forcing myself to open the car door for her to help her get in the car

Even though I did not feel like it did not want to I was choosing Deliberately to show love for her.

I opened the car door. I Remember that that was my decision All right

Next week my wife and I will will have been married 36 years. That's not a short time

It's not long as many 36 years and She has Louise Dietz.

She has one of the rarest connective tissue disorders in the world 25 surgeries open -heart surgery hand surgeries feet surgeries and I can go in and tell you about the pain

She's in the suffering she's in and how she's able to do things in turn a day sometimes But not some days are good.

Some days are bad I've got to open jars for her make make food for her and do stuff for her Sometimes she does it for herself, but you get what

I'm saying. I never once complain

I Never want it. It's okay. I may be tired sometime, you know how I could do this again

That's okay But because I made a commitment to her to my lord That I'm going to always love her and love doesn't just mean the feeling but love means a decision to commit to do what is right before God to your spouse that you promised before God and Over the years my love for her has grown and increased that I can honestly say

I do I just love her It doesn't matter what condition she's in that what she can do for me reciprocity

Or if she can make me sandwiches or dinner or not or whatever it's not it doesn't have any effect

Like the obligation would be to love her is based on what God himself has worked through my heart

Redemptively to send love down through to me because he's in dwelling and then out to others

That's what I'm obligated to do and that's what I tell couples and if you start living like that with each other

Both of you to do that kind of a thing then the other is obligated to forgive and forget because you're obligated to also forgive and forget and the reason is because Jesus forgave you you go to Colossians 3 as the

Lord has forgiven you you're to forgive others and if you're to obey Christ And if forgiveness of your heart and attitude and you don't remember a wrong and that means you don't bring it up It means that you have to go through what you got to go through and sometimes you get upset with your spouse

And you want to remember to bring it up again, but that's not what God does He said I will remember your sins no more doesn't forget

Remembering is active forgetting his passive. He doesn't bring it up again And what do we do?

We say I forgive you and then we bring it up again We are hypocrites and we are liars in this and in this we hope our marriage will be blessed by God when we display the hypocrisy

Before God and before our spouses and we're we're obligated to love We're obligated to forgive and it's hard and it's not easy and it's difficult

And sometimes our spouses are just wrong and intolerable But we're still obligated to do what's right before God Even when we're intolerable before God He does what's right before us to be based on what his character is

And so we don't do based on our character because we're not the standard of righteousness we behave Based on what

God's character is in the person of Jesus Christ We said not my will but your will be done and he came to show his love laid his life down for us

John 15 13 greater love has no man than this way to lay his life down for his friend and we Husbands and our wives are called to lay our life down for each other to learn how to be forgiving to learn how to be sanctified to learn how to be holy before our spouses to do these things and to be walked on if necessary and to be as Patient as possible and necessary and when you make your mistakes because we're human

To confess them and move forward each time and if anybody will do this If people will do this

Marriages are healed and I can tell you That every single time people have done what