Deepening Your Love for Your Spouse!

 

Unfortunately many married couples are not experiencing a deepening love for each other; they simply endure or put up with one another as they pretend they are not drifting away from each other. It is not that they woke up one morning and decided to grow the distance between themselves and their mate. It just happens…. Amidst holding down a job (often both members work), raising the children (including supporting their extracurricular activities), and involvement in our church and communities a couple can easily grow apart. Regardless of the specific factors couples do grow in different directions; if this inclination is not resisted it could result in a dissolution of the marriage. Why? It is because the couple no longer knows each other, they have less in common, and their independent interests are affording them different opportunities. In the worse cases, a love triangle materializes as the devil manipulates and exploits the existing vacuum. Clearly, this is not the plan of God. 

With the cultivation of a deepening love these woeful scenarios can be avoided. It has been well said that it takes three persons to make a marriage work. This includes you, your spouse, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ brings His companionship, promises, spiritual dynamics, tried and proven wisdom, and real hope to a marriage. Each couple must decide to bring themselves…their entire self to invest into the relationship. A couple must also decide that there is something far more important than either of them or the marriage. What? The glory and honor of God! We should do all for the glory of God; this includes sustaining the right kind of marriage (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17, 23). Yes, building love, respect, and mutual service into a marriage is worth it because such will honor our Savior and Lord.

According to the Apostle Paul the love of Christ can be experience in relationship with other Believers. In fact, we cannot experience it alone. It is through Spirit-guided interactivity that the love of Christ is realized most fully. It simply does not happen in isolation. It is through being loved and receiving love that we learn how to love. Being loved deeply is essential to learning to love in deeper or more comprehensive ways. Consider Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian Church two thousand years ago,

May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:18-19)

In what ways can we know Christ’s love, even though we don’t fully understand it?  It seems like an oxymoron, but the promise of the passage is very real and attainable. One key is to recognize that we learn, experience, explore, discover, and receive more in relationship, interactivity, and correspondence than if we were alone. Paul conveys this simply by saying, “able to comprehend with all saints”…. Spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growths are dwarfed in isolation; they can be accelerated in the right kind of interpersonal expression and community. It is healthy for each spouse to admit their need for the other to know, grow, and show the love of Christ. Express this often to the Lord and your spouse. The humility, selflessness, and service orientation it breeds is extremely healthy for Christian growth and the marriage.

As we look closer, we note how Paul was praying for Believers to have power (inner strength from God), and to be rooted and grounded in godly-love (Eph. 3:16, 17). This creates an atmosphere where Believers are deeply established in love and are being nourished and refreshed in Christ. This all transpires through Christian interaction and holy fellowship. Thus, it is together with all the saints that we are able to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep the love of Christ truly is. These are measurements describing the immensity of Christ’s love—it is actually incomprehensible and inexhaustible! However, we can know experientially the love of Christ, which far supersedes all knowledge (Phil. 4:7). The more we Christians know about Christ Jesus, the more amazed we will become at Christ’s love for us. The benefits of such knowledge are compounded and realized through our interactivity.

Christ’s love is to be realized on the experience level in each of us Believers and in relationship (Eph. 4:13). Such an experience actually influences each participant to love each other. Regarding our position, Believers are already viewed as one in Christ; experientially we are to love each other as one in Him. This truth readily applies to our relationship with our spouse. Legally a couple is one, but they must grow to become one in actual experience. The love of Christ, though it is incomprehensible in many degrees, can be shared, realized, experienced, given, and received in the context of relationships. Why not experience the love of Christ with your husband or wife. The key is to grow in your knowledge of Him—experiencing His love. In doing so, we grow in our capacity to love another God’s way. Those who are loved, can actually share love, express love, experience love, and receive love in relationships. The impact on a marriage is a deepening loving life with your spouse. Certainly this will glorify our Lord. Make the choice, spend some time, and invest the energy to deepen your love for your spouse.