This month we continue looking at Commitment 4: We will commit to building a relationship of love. Many who look forward to marriage think of it as an extended date. Sure, you know your partner isn’t perfect, but you love them. You are ready, willing, and can’t wait to get married. It’s been fun so far, so why should that change just because we get married?
We continue this month looking at Paul Tripp’s book “What Did You Expect?” These are primarily excerpts from his book. I strongly recommend reading his book to get the full benefit of his message. You can click on the book image to the right to purchase the book.
What in the world is love anyway?
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not
love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen”
1 John 7:20
These words call us to face the fact that we must fix our marriages vertically before we ever fix them horizontally. Why? Because our core problem is not that we don’t love our spouse enough. No, our problem is that we don’t love God enough, and because we don’t love God enough, we don’t love our spouse as we should.
When we fail to love God as we should, we insert ourselves into his position, desiring to be sovereign over our little kingdom of one and demanding that those around us do our bidding. If we are not loving God as our king, we will set up our own kingdom and live for ourselves.
You don’t get your best definition of love from an article on the internet. You don’t get it from Webster or Hollywood either. The reality is that love is not best defined by a set of abstract concepts. Love is best defined by an event. The most important event in human history. You get your best definition of love from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ’s sacrifice of love is the ultimate definition of what love is and what loves does.
In 1 John 4:7-21, John is calling us to cruciform love, that is, love that shapes itself to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what does cruciform love look like? Let me give you a definition:
C R U C I F O R M L O V E
“Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require
reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.”
To help you more fully understand what cruciform love looks like in everyday life, here are some concrete examples. As you read these, I invite you to use these words as a mirror to look into and examine the quality of your love for your spouse.
Love is being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of your husband or wife without impatience or anger.
Love is actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward your spouse, while looking for ways to encourage and praise.
Love is the daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.
Love is being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding, and being more committed to unity and love than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.
Love is a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.
Love means being willing, when confronted by your spouse, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.
Love is a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to your spouse is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient.
Love is being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged but to look for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.
Love is being a good student of your spouse, looking for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support them as they carry it, or encourage them along the way.
Love means being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the problems that you face as a couple, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.
Love is being willing to ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.
Love is recognizing the high value of trust in a marriage and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.
Love is speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack your spouse’s character or assault his or her intelligence.
Love is being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to coerce your spouse into giving you what you want or doing something your way.
Love is being unwilling to ask your spouse to be the source of your identity, meaning, and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, and refusing to be the source of theirs.
Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God called you to be and to do as a husband or wife.
Love is a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your marriage.
Love is staying faithful to your commitment to treat your spouse with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when he or she doesn’t seem to deserve it or is unwilling to reciprocate.
Love is the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of your marriage without asking anything in return or using your sacrifices to place your spouse in your debt.
Love is being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm your marriage, hurt your spouse, or weaken the bond of trust between you.
Love is refusing to be self-focused or demanding but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.
Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.
Jesus knew that your struggle to love is so deep that a certain system of wisdom or a certain set of provisions wouldn’t be enough. He knew the only thing that would help you would be if he gave you himself. So that’s exactly what he did. He gave himself so that right here, right now, you would have the resources you need to live a concrete and continuing life of love.
Don’t be overwhelmed by love’s call. Don’t be discouraged by the size or number of things you are facing. Don’t let the failures of the past rob you of hope for the future. Left to your own devices and resources, you don’t have what it takes, but he is with you, in you, and for you. Walk forward in hope and courage, and commit yourself to real, active, and specific cruciform love, knowing that his grace will empower you to fulfill your call to love as God loves you.
Next month we begin looking at Commitment 5: We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.
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Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” This mission leads Paul to weekly speaking engagements around the world. In addition to being a gifted communicator Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas, and has taught at respected institutions worldwide. Paul has written twelve books on Christian Living that are read and distributed internationally, including Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; War of Words; Broken Down House; and Crossway’s Whiter Than Snow. Get more information or purchase the book ”What Did You Expect?” He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.
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