Love and God

From Stanley on Bible...

Eve was not created from Adam's skull bone or foot bone but from his rib. The implication is that they must walk side by side as friends. The wife is called the husband's "companion" (Mal 2:14).

Love demands time. Partners should spend quality time together. It is during such times they can develop emotional intimacy. A great amount of misunderstanding will disappear. Partners who fail to spend time together are sure to make a shipwreck of their marriage. Friends love each other not because they are perfect but in spite of imperfections. Love is blind! "Love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Pet 4:8; Prov 10:12). A husband and wife who constantly find fault with each other have forgotten the definition of love.

Love should not be taken for granted. It must be expressed in words and deeds. God so loved the world that He "gave" His Son (Jn 3:16). "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and GAVE Himself for it" (Eph 5:25). Show your love to your spouse by word and deed. There is no one in the world who does not like gifts. Remember the Birthdays and Wedding Anniversary. The primary purpose of the Book of the Songs of Solomon is to teach about pure love between husband and wife. If husband and wife will read this book individually and together periodically their love will remain fresh and alive. This book concludes with these words: "Love is strong as death" (SS 8:6). Partners exchange love letters before marriage. What happens to such expressions of love after marriage as years pass by?

Job or ministry should never come in between husband and wife. The Biblical order is: God first, family second, ministry or job third (1 Tim 3:5). Parents of partners also should not come in between. Even before there was a mother in the world God said, "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife" (Gen 2:24). In the same way for a wife her husband should be more important than her father's home. "O daughter... forget your father's house, so the King will greatly desire your beauty" (Psa 45:10,11). Also husbands and wives should not love their children more than they love each other. A classic example is Elkanah who asked his sorrowing wife, "You have me-isn't that better than having ten sons?" (1 Sam 1:8).

The voice that breathed o'er Eden
That earliest wedding day,
The primal marriage blessings,
It hath not passed away!
(John Keble, 1792-1866, a Professor of Poetry at Oxford)