THE PRINCIPLES OF A LOVING, GODLY RELATIONSHIP – WOMAN TO MAN (PART 5 – ACKNOWLEDGE THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR YOUR PARTNER)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.

Song of Songs 2:5

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Love is central to all things in life, or at least it is supposed to be. It’s to be the tie that binds us to God and the tie that is to bind us together as His children. If you doubt that, look at what our Savior Jesus had to say when asked about the greatest commandment:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:34-40

Note here that the greatest commandment wasn’t to have no other gods before God or to honor one’s parents, or to not murder, steal, commit adultery, covet, or bear false witness (Exodus 20:1-17). No the greatest commandment was to love. To love God with all your being and to love people as you love yourself.

It’s really fundamental. We first love God with all that we are and when we dedicate ourselves to Him, heart, mind, and soul, then He becomes a part of us and His amazing, never ceasing love is part of that package, a love that we can then extend to others.

Yes, when we truly look at God, we can’t help but see love in its most perfect sense. He loved us so much that He did not desire that we all perish because of our sinfulness and so He chose to offer up Jesus instead, a living sacrifice to pay the price we should have paid. He loved us so much that He gave us a Savior who loves as He loves.

I mentioned a marriage Bible study I had the privilege to teach in a prior devotion in this series. Another of the great principles it shared regarded the matter of how to love within a relationship, how one partner should love the other. You see, we make love too hard. This was the assertion. We, in our limited capacity to do all things, try and control and dictate our love, and in turn, we find we’re not that good at it.

But something awesome happens when we stop trying to figure out to love and instead allow God to love others through us. Then, the love we share is His love, perfect in every way as we become instruments of love that the Lord uses to extend His affection to others. This works in all our relationships in life but it particularly works well within the context of a relationship between a woman and a man.

We see this in action through our scripture verse from the 2nd Chapter of Song of Songs as Shulammite, the mate of Solomon, shares words about her love for him. Look again at her words:

Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.

Such was the power of love she acknowledged for her partner that she found her energy sapped and in need of renewal. Shulammite testifies that she is faint from the deep love she had for Solomon, the kind of deep love and affection that could only come from God Himself. It truly is an incredible statement of devotion and adoration.

And so today, we are challenged by this word of the Lord, challenged to examine the love we have in our hearts and minds and souls. Do we truly love God with all that we are so that He then can lead us to love others as He loves? Do we let our partner know how much we love them, extending the love we get from God unto them?

These are questions that only each of us can answer where we are today.

I know one thing. No one can love properly unless they allow God to lead them as they love. For God’s word is clear:

We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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