Love is not what you think
Rekindle • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 7 viewsNotes
Transcript
Love is the greatest of all things.
13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Love is that which holds our marriages together. It cannot be overestimated. For marriage to work there must be love.
But what actually is love?
For most people love is a feeling, an emotion.
And thats fine, when most of us “fell” in love it was a strong feeling and powerful emotion and that good.
But the love that exists in marriage is so much more that that.
Love, as the bible describes it, is not grounded on an emotion or feeling - biblical love is grounded on a decision.
How do i know that? Because God said:
8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
The simple fact that Giod commands love proves that loveing each other is a deliberate act of the will and not a feeling of the heart.
You have to make the purposful, wilful and deliberate DECISION each and every day to love your spouse.
I always hear “We fell out of love” or “I just dont have feelings for them anymore”.
Im sorry but what a load of dung!
I love my wife more today than i did when i married her, even though my emotional feelings of love are much different than they were.
When me and Kim first met we would spend hours on BBM messenger each other into the early hours of the morning.
Do you think we still do that? Of course not.
But does that mean that our love has grown cold?
Again of course not!
Our love has grown greater!
Look at it like this:
Emotional love is sufficient to get married, but not to stay married.
Our feelings take us down the isle, but from then the marriage is kept on the wilful decisions we promised in our vows.
This is what makes marriage so great! I have told my wife on our wedding day and she told me and all of your told each other:
“I will love you in sickness and health, ritcher or poorer and in better or worse.”
That is our promise to each other. That is the promise between all couples.
This means that we can fight, we can aurgue, we can disagree, we can get mad at each other and yet not even for a second fear that we will seperate.
Why? Because no matter how i may feel, i made a decision and promise to you and God to love you and i will NOT become a liar like Satan.
44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
Decision love casts out fear and doubt.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
While i think its a very good idea to make a proper effort to look after your physical apperence as much as possible, my wife is not worried, afraid, jelopus or intimidated when i speak and councle other woman because she knows im not emotional led.
Yes i see other woman, i notice them, i acknowledge that they may be beautiful and as far as “standards” of beauty are concerned they may be more “beaufitfiul” that Kim.
But i dont care and nor does she because my love for her is not an emotional responce to physical beauty - its a decision to her on the basis of our promises.
We can watch a movie or series together and i can say about an acctress “Wow she is very pretty!” and she can say “He is very handsome”
And we both feel zero insecurity.
Me and Kim often talk about you. She is my wife and she is blessed with wisdom so i would be a fool not to ask her opinion.
Because she is not “in front” and involved she does not always know your names so i have to describe you to her.
I was chatting to her, Ashley, about you can Kerry when you first got tother.
“who is Kerry again?” The beautiful blond girl.
Which one is Emali? The very pretty girl with the amazing slim figure.
Oh yes, now i know,...
No worry, no jealousy, no fear.
Almost 20 years of marriage and by God’s grace we can only recall 4 proper marriage fights.
Is that because Kim is such an amazing wife or because i am a perfect husband? maybe....
But its becasue we both know that niether of us are going anywhere! we are stuck together so if something comes up we have to settle it in a way inwhich we BOTH win.
If I win i end up stuck to a defeated bitter person for the next 50 years. and the same if she wins.
No, we BOTH must win. And that is not possible with emotions.
When we both win, sometimes i am unhappy about it and sometimes she is unhappy about it.
But so what?
We made a decision to love no matter what our feelings say.