Courageous Love
Reading for Wednesday April 5th
Bible Section: Gospel of Mark chapter 10: 1-10
Don’t divorce your spouse. Hard talk from Jesus. He was a single man after all, what did he know about the difficulties of love. What did he know about living with a contentious wife?
After All Moses had allowed husbands to divorce their wives. Who was Jesus to say anything different to the great Jewish leader of the past? But Moses had allowed divorce because people had hard hearts. In the life shared with Jesus hard hearts become gentle hearts. What about the commandments of Moses? Hadn’t Jesus given a new set of commandments? Yes, not one of them contravened the commandments given through Moses, rather they expanded them.
When we first started to love our spouse the emotion came so effortlessly that we imagined it would always be that way. Under various types of neglect and stress love does not come effortlessly. Anger, injustices, bewilderment kills the emotion.
But of course emotion is only a bi-product of love. Love is first of all an intelligent recognition of the worth of ‘the other’. Love is also a choice we make daily. .
God’s work is redemptive. He reclaims what has been lost. He loves us and suffers when humanity does not reciprocate his love. It is from him that we learn how to not divorce when things get difficult. We learn far more than that, but loving a spouse is the easy way to copy God.
God continues to love those who don’t return his love and he seeks to win them to him by: making his love evident, being faithful, and communicating his love, and patiently offering his love. This is our model for loving our spouses.
This type of love is vulnerable; it can be disregarded, even abused. Knowing that our love can be abused faces us with a decision. Shall we discard the one who does not love us? Shall we force them to suffer in order to relieve our own pain? Love which is not vulnerable is not really love of ‘the other’ just love of self.
Self- love tries to control the object of love. When love is not returned self-love turns punitive. True love grants freedom of choice to the other and waits patiently for love to become reciprocal.
This is the way God loves humanity. Because all who give allegiance to God seek to imitate him, it is also a model for both of the God-respecting partners in a marriage.
As God-respecting persons world wide practice this model of love the question arises about abuse. Bad people can hurt the redemptive lover. That is what happened to God when he sent his Son to bring the message that he loves us. People destroyed the messenger. After he died God brought him to life again and seated him at God’s right hand.
If nations were courageous enough to love other nations like God loves they would become vulnerable. The question nations struggle with is that an individual can choose to be vulnerable. But a community has responsibilities to the whole; would it be right to expose a whole nation to abuse in an attempt to copy God’s style of love? No nation has been strong enough to put this question to the test.
The individual with an unloving spouse is able to make a choice for him/herself. Will they love the way God loves and take the risk? Hundreds of thousands do and are forever thankful that they did. There is of course the fact that God is always watchful and active on behalf of those who trust and obey Him. God helps us love like he does – if we let him. Often with God’s blessing this style of love is reciprocated. Then the wonderful thing is that both spouses have learnt how to truly love each other, and are able to demonstrate the same love to the rest of their families. This kind of love will spread. It is true that it will be opposed by the power of evil but the Bible teaches that by God’s power true love can overcome even the opposition of the devil. Now that is power – the power of the love of God poured into human h
[1] Proverbs 21:9 [2] Romans 5.5
Bible Section: Gospel of Mark chapter 10: 1-10
Don’t divorce your spouse. Hard talk from Jesus. He was a single man after all, what did he know about the difficulties of love. What did he know about living with a contentious wife?
After All Moses had allowed husbands to divorce their wives. Who was Jesus to say anything different to the great Jewish leader of the past? But Moses had allowed divorce because people had hard hearts. In the life shared with Jesus hard hearts become gentle hearts. What about the commandments of Moses? Hadn’t Jesus given a new set of commandments? Yes, not one of them contravened the commandments given through Moses, rather they expanded them.
When we first started to love our spouse the emotion came so effortlessly that we imagined it would always be that way. Under various types of neglect and stress love does not come effortlessly. Anger, injustices, bewilderment kills the emotion.
But of course emotion is only a bi-product of love. Love is first of all an intelligent recognition of the worth of ‘the other’. Love is also a choice we make daily. .
God’s work is redemptive. He reclaims what has been lost. He loves us and suffers when humanity does not reciprocate his love. It is from him that we learn how to not divorce when things get difficult. We learn far more than that, but loving a spouse is the easy way to copy God.
God continues to love those who don’t return his love and he seeks to win them to him by: making his love evident, being faithful, and communicating his love, and patiently offering his love. This is our model for loving our spouses.
This type of love is vulnerable; it can be disregarded, even abused. Knowing that our love can be abused faces us with a decision. Shall we discard the one who does not love us? Shall we force them to suffer in order to relieve our own pain? Love which is not vulnerable is not really love of ‘the other’ just love of self.
Self- love tries to control the object of love. When love is not returned self-love turns punitive. True love grants freedom of choice to the other and waits patiently for love to become reciprocal.
This is the way God loves humanity. Because all who give allegiance to God seek to imitate him, it is also a model for both of the God-respecting partners in a marriage.
As God-respecting persons world wide practice this model of love the question arises about abuse. Bad people can hurt the redemptive lover. That is what happened to God when he sent his Son to bring the message that he loves us. People destroyed the messenger. After he died God brought him to life again and seated him at God’s right hand.
If nations were courageous enough to love other nations like God loves they would become vulnerable. The question nations struggle with is that an individual can choose to be vulnerable. But a community has responsibilities to the whole; would it be right to expose a whole nation to abuse in an attempt to copy God’s style of love? No nation has been strong enough to put this question to the test.
The individual with an unloving spouse is able to make a choice for him/herself. Will they love the way God loves and take the risk? Hundreds of thousands do and are forever thankful that they did. There is of course the fact that God is always watchful and active on behalf of those who trust and obey Him. God helps us love like he does – if we let him. Often with God’s blessing this style of love is reciprocated. Then the wonderful thing is that both spouses have learnt how to truly love each other, and are able to demonstrate the same love to the rest of their families. This kind of love will spread. It is true that it will be opposed by the power of evil but the Bible teaches that by God’s power true love can overcome even the opposition of the devil. Now that is power – the power of the love of God poured into human h
[1] Proverbs 21:9 [2] Romans 5.5
posted by Jessie Coates at 11:37 PM
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