Empowered to Love Your Spouse

December 5, 2009. It may have only been a little over thirteen years ago that my husband and I said our “I do’s,” but that special day sure does feel like a lifetime ago. Time tends to do that to us, doesn’t it?

Perhaps, this feeling isn’t the fact that physical time has gone by and that we have grown another year older. Perhaps, it is because with time comes change – for better and for worse. I know my husband and I have each changed since December 5, 2009, especially after we both became parents! Oh my, did we experience changes in our marriage once that happened! Often, in marriage, the changes may happen slowly or small enough that we don’t notice it right away, but when it comes to the person we have vowed to spend the rest of our life with, it is difficult to ignore when you finally realize that time has shaped you each in unique ways and it is starting to cause a lot of friction between the two of you.

Problems and arguments arise and increase. We may get on each other’s nerves a lot. Instead of talking it out calmly and sharing our hearts with one another, we build walls around our heart to keep the other person out. We may want to spend time with someone who understands us better. Sometimes all of this friction and struggle may cause us to want to throw in the towel. When things get hard in relationships, calling it quits seems like the easy thing to do, right? After all, this isn’t the person you first married. So many people who are wrestling with this, feel stuck, and don’t know what to do or where to turn. The D-word may even have come up a time or two.

But I can say emphatically, divorce is not the answer! You can experience personal changes in your lives individually and still stand the test of time and grow stronger together! This might sound impossible. And honestly, in our own broken and weak human strength, it is. But take heart! There is hope for your marriage because Matthew 19:26 tells us that with God, all things are possible! Even if you were not a Christian when you got married but found Christ later on (or if you stumbled upon this website and are not a Christian at all), know that you cannot love your spouse and stay committed to them without God’s help. Without God’s love shed abroad in our hearts by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are incapable of loving another person unconditionally. We are able to love our spouse because God first loved us.

“We love because He first loved us” ( 1 John 4:19, NIV).

There is no step-by-step guide to have a successful and thriving marriage, but there are things we can implement to help strengthen it. Thankfully, when we make a commitment to put God first within the marriage, He gives us grace and wisdom for the journey together. The Holy Spirit truly does empower us to show the love of God even to the most unlovable.

Intersecting Faith and Life:

One way we can be empowered to love our spouse is to study the Word of God regularly both individually and together. The Bible is full of truths about God, who is Love Himself (1 John 4:8). The more we dive into His Word, our selfish minds are renewed to think like He does and love like He does, extending the same grace and mercy we have received from Him to others. The Word transforms us from the inside out, all for the better, and we begin to see the fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23) develop and mature in our life, which we need to fully love others.  In addition to studying scripture together, you can pray together and pray for each other. God is the only One who can change someone’s heart and life. Don’t just pray for God to change your spouse but pray and ask God to help you love your spouse in the midst of the difficulties and obstacles. Your circumstances may not change right away, but you will be surprised at how God changes you in the middle of those circumstances and you begin to see your spouse how God sees them – with eyes of mercy and grace. Be quick to forgive and quick to apologize to your spouse. Because we have been forgiven through the Cross of Jesus Christ, we must forgive others. We have received such great mercy, therefore, we must extend that same mercy to our spouse, even if they have wronged us or offended us. 

Obviously, there are so many other ways we can ensure our marriage has a solid foundation that not even time can shake it or destroy it. Just like how our individual lives must be founded upon the Rock, Christ Jesus, most importantly, our marriages must have that same foundation. Jesus is our example of how to love one another, selflessly and unconditionally. May the Lord continue to empower us with His grace to do just that. 

Further Reading:

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10

Matthew 19:4–6

Ephesians 5:22–27

Tagged : / / / / / /

What does it mean to “die daily?”

As a mom and wife, I am given countless opportunities to set aside my wants and sacrifice my love, time, and attention to the needs of my husband and children. Pouring yourself out like that on a daily basis can sometimes be physically exhausting; I find myself praying for supernatural strength often! Yet, at the end of the day, even though I am tempted to wonder where my “me time” is, my heart is always full. 

This is when I begin to see more clearly what the Apostle Paul meant when he said: “I die daily”.

The Biblical principle of dying to yourself has always been true, but I didn’t always live it or even understand it. Becoming a stay-at-home mom has challenged me in more ways than I can count in the area of putting others before myself, and I am always learning and finding that it is truly more blessed to give than to receive. 

As Jesus’ disciples, we are called to follow Him. That was Paul’s mission in life – to imitate Christ. And it is what he and the rest of the apostles literally gave their lives to preach to the world through their words and actions. We may not ever get the honor to literally die for Jesus Christ because of our faith in Him, but by God’s grace, we can imitate His selflessness every day.

The apostle Paul emphasizes his great desire to join Christ in His suffering and become like Christ in his daily dying of self:

“…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10, ESV).

To be able to imitate Christ and enjoy this kind of fellowship with Him, we must look to Jesus as our example. Even though Jesus was God in the flesh, He still leaned upon God the Father for everything He said and did while He walked this earth. Jesus would rise early to pray and seek God for His will for the day.

In addition to seeking God in prayer, Jesus obediently submitted Himself to the will of the Father, even unto death. Each day, we are faced with the temptation to satisfy our flesh and go outside the boundaries of God’s perfect will. We discover what that will is when we read the Bible and study it for ourselves to learn God’s ways. We are not perfect, but thankfully Jesus was, and because of His sacrifice on the cross, we have been given the precious gift of the Holy Spirit as born-again believers. 

The characteristics of Jesus’ death should be the characteristics of our lives: humility, sacrifice, and glory to God through disciple-making. Ultimately, Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve others (Mark 10:45). Jesus ministered to thousands upon thousands of people during His time here on earth. John 22 tells us that if all the things Jesus did were all written down, the entire world could not contain the books that would be written! Dying daily definitely isn’t easy, but it is worth it because Jesus promises us that whoever loses his life will find it and find it abundant (Matthew 10:39/ John 10:10)!

But remember, we cannot die daily in our own strength, friends. The Holy Spirit is who empowers us to choose God’s way through the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). With each passing day, by God’s grace, we mature and cultivate a life worth dying for, a life found in Christ alone! Living like Christ’s dying is a continual process of humility and sacrifice. May God empower us to die daily and choose others above ourselves.

Heavenly Father,

My flesh wants nothing to do with denying it of anything. I don’t want to experience suffering. But it is in those moments of dying to self that I become more like Christ. Help me to embrace those trials and sufferings so that I may grow closer to You. I want my life to look like Christ’s dying by learning how to be humble and sacrificial. Instead of resisting those difficult times, help me to find great opportunities of sanctification to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus. Thank You for Your Spirit that empowers me to die daily. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Tagged : / / / / / / /

Imitators of Christ

Change the baby’s diaper, take the dog outside, feed everyone breakfast (including said dog), start a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, fill the dishwasher with more dishes, fold and put away the laundry, clean counters, vacuum, sweep, mop, snack-time, school-time, nap-time, lunch-time, snack-time, dinner-time, snack-time, bed-time. Do it again tomorrow. 

As a mom and wife, I am given countless opportunities to set aside my wants and give my love, time, and attention to the needs of my husband and children. Pouring yourself out like that on a daily basis can sometimes be physically exhausting; I find myself praying for supernatural strength often! Yet, at the end of the day, even though I am tempted to wonder where my “me time is,” my heart is always full. 

This is when I begin to see more clearly what the Apostle Paul meant when he said:

“I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.”

1 Corithians 15:31, NASB

The Biblical principle of dying to yourself has always been true, but I didn’t always live it or even understand it. Becoming a stay-at-home mom has challenged me in more ways than I can count in the area of putting others before myself, and I am always learning and finding that it is truly is more blessed to give than to receive. 

As Jesus’ disciples, we are called to follow Him. That was Paul’s mission in life – to imitate Christ. And it is what he and the rest of the apostles literally gave their lives to preach to the world through their words and actions. We may not ever get the honor to literally die for Jesus Christ because of our faith in Him, but by God’s grace, we can imitate His selflessness every day.

To be able to imitate Christ, we must look to Jesus as our example. Even though Jesus was God in the flesh, He still leaned upon God the Father for everything He said and did while He walked this earth. Jesus would rise early to pray and seek God for His will for the day.

In addition to seeking God in prayer, Jesus obediently submitted Himself to the will of the Father, even unto death. Each day, we are faced with the temptation to satisfy our flesh and go outside the boundaries of God’s perfect will. We discover what that will is when we read the Bible and study it for ourselves to learn God’s ways. We are not perfect, but thankfully Jesus was, and because of His sacrifice on the cross, we have been given the precious gift of the Holy Spirit as born-again believers.

Ultimately, Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve others (Mark 10:45). Jesus ministered to thousands upon thousands of people during His time here on earth. John 22 tells us that if all the things Jesus did were all written down, the entire world could not contain the books that would be written!

Dying daily definitely isn’t easy, but it is worth it because Jesus promises us that whoever loses his life will find it and find it abundance (Matthew 10:39/ John 10:10)!

But remember, we cannot die daily in our own strength, friends. The Holy Spirit is who empowers us to choose God’s way through the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). With each passing day, by God’s grace, we mature and cultivate a life worth dying for, a life found in Christ alone!

Who is God asking you to serve?

What selfish desires do you need to lay aside to put someone else’s life before your own?

Are you too busy or too distracted to serve others?

Take some time and write down those who may come to mind who you can minister to, even if it is just a simple phone call to encourage someone. May God empower us to die daily and choose others above ourselves.

Tagged : / / / / / /