Category: Love

Marriage and the Learning of Grace

Could it be that your marriage will actually help you to learn to have more grace? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I wrote recently on Margaret Sanger and her view of sexuality after a friend shared with me a book that had been put out advancing the Eugenics view recently. In communicating with my friend late at night, I started discussing the topic of marriage and what a difference it makes.

If you ever want to learn about grace, one of the best lessons in experience that you can ever have is to get married.

When you live with someone else, like a college roommate, you can learn a lot about how you relate to other people and traits you need to work on. The difference with a college roommate is that you can by and large up and walk out if you need to and there is no lifelong commitment. Besides that, chances are that if you’re a Christian, that relationship with a roommate won’t involve sharing a bed and having sex.

Marriage is different. You marry someone for life as a start. There is no backing out once you seal the deal. Second, you marry someone of the opposite sex which means you need to learn to relate to someone who has a totally different way of thinking than you do. Third off, your relationship is far more intimate than any roommate relationship could be.

It is in this that grace is learned.

How so? In the dating period, we all put our best foot forward, but when we marry, we soon come to learn that there are a lot of negative traits that person has. Oh sure, we saw them some when we were dating, but now, they can be written large and they are before us constantly.

My wife can point it out to me when I am showing pride at times, for instance, and in the marriage relationship, I am far more aware of when I am being prideful than I was before. I find I have to constantly monitor myself even when she’s not around and ask “Am I participating in a thought pattern or activity that will make me be less the man that my wife needs and less of an example to her?”

Grace especially works when we find the other person’s faults however. It’s quite amazing that for most of us, our problems are small and simple and we can take care of them, but that other person! They have to get things right! We can put their mistakes under a magnifying glass and say that ours are not really such a big deal after all.

This can become a reality in prayer and makes me think of the passage in 1 Peter 3 about your prayers not being hindered. If my wife does something that I think is wrong, I can come to God and ask what am I supposed to do in this situation and how can my wife do whatever it is that was done?

Now I do not believe in God speaking to me, but I can often picture it as if He would say in response “And how is that different from all the times that you’ve done if not an identical a similar action to me? Are you saying that I should just overlook all you did to me and you don’t do the same for your wife?”

Ouch. That hits home. That makes grace a reality. Men. Here is the challenge to us. We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church. I really don’t understand it these days when women complain about how hard the Bible is on women when we are told as men that we have to follow a command like that for our women.

Let’s face it men. A lot of times, love is work. It really is. It’s easy to be loving when your wife is in a romantic mood and she wants you to be with her. It’s not so easy to be loving when you’re in the middle of a disagreement and you’ve got that zinger on the tip of your tongue and you know you sure as heck better not say that since that will leave some serious scars.

Now to get back to both of us, women can also complain about their husbands. Mrs. Peters has her own concerns about me that she shares sometimes. I know sometimes I get so caught up in my own world that I’m not giving her the attention that I should. That is something I need to work on. A lot of men do that also with such things as the TV remote.

In all these cases, we sit back and wonder what it will take to change our spouse. We can pray for that change to happen. Now in a sense, I don’t have a problem with this. I think we should pray for the good of our spouse and even give God our input. The message that needs to be conveyed at this point is that of Gary Thomas’s in Sacred Marriage. In that book, he tells us that a lot of spouses say that a partner needs to change in the marriage. They’re absolutely right! They just have the wrong one in mind!

You can only change your spouse indirectly, but there is one spouse you can change directly, and that is yourself. If I want Mrs. Peters to do something or to have a certain kind of attitude, I try to ask myself “Am I doing this or am I manifesting this attitude?”

And thus, marriage makes it so that I have to see my own failures highlighted before my eyes. I can look at myself constantly and say “Wow. That is the way that I really am! I need to work on that!” When I see those failures in myself, on what basis can I sit in judgment on my spouse? To do such is even to treat myself as a superior, when I try to make it a constant point to say that we are life partners and she and I are on the same level.

What am I to do in all of this? Seek to be more holy. My own pastor could tell you that on the day of my wedding, a Saturday, he took me to a little room in the church about ten minutes before I walked down the aisle and said “How can I pray for you today?” I told him my honest request straight from the heart. “I need to be holy.” I understand that he even commented on that in the sermon. (OF course, I wasn’t there. We were too busy heading out on our honeymoon.)

Dying to self takes on a whole new reality when you realize there is someone else in your life who depends on you. It’s not one-way of course. Anyone who knows us would say that I depend on Mrs. Peters as well. She is my encouragement and support when the rest of the world doesn’t make sense and the one who has done the most to increase my confidence. Anyone who has known us can tell the remarkable impact that this woman has had on my life for the good.

It means also not just your sanctification but the others. Do we men have relationships with our women that she could think that she’s married to Christ? Christ was not only holy himself, but He is making His bride holy and His work is to present us to the Father blameless and without blemish.

As Christ loved the church. Remember that men?

If you’re married now and not intimidated by that, you’re not taking it serious enough.

For we men, a definite way to do that is to watch our relationships with other women. I make it a point to try to avoid even looking. Now some might say that’s paranoid. Well I would rather be that way rather than even risk anything happening in my marriage, since it all begins with what goes on in the mind.

Every action done in love also inclines one further that way. The more you act in love, the easier it is to love. The more you go against your own selfish desires, the more you are disciplining yourself to think selflessly and the more you do that, the better and better you are at being a spouse and not only at being a spouse, but being a Christian.

When those wrongs happen however, you learn to forgive. You are to forgive as you have been forgiven. This forgiveness does make one learn all the more about grace. Not only do you learn to show it, but you learn all the more about the grace that has been shown to you by God.

It’s all work, but it’s also a blessing. Marriage is a great adventure, something I want my single friends who seek to get married one day to recognize, but it’s also a lesson in holiness. The best advice I can give to you is to do all you can to work on that now.

And really, shouldn’t you be doing that anyway?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Greatest Of These Is Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, we’re going to finish up our series of looking at 1 Corinthians 13. I hope that it has been helpful to you.

Paul tells us in the last verse that three remain. Those are faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. Why is love the greatest?

Faith, contrary to what some think, is not blind faith. It is trust given to that which has been shown to be reliable, and being shown to be reliable means that it is based on evidence of some sort. Not all evidence is the same and some evidence is better than other evidence, but it is still evidence. Christians are not called to believe in Jesus blindly. It is fortunately landing in the right place, but it is not a virtue to be paraded about as some Christians do.

However, even with that faith, there is still trust. It can be easy to sign a doctrinal statement at a church, but it is a whole lot harder to live it. We all believe that God is the supreme judge when we sign those statements, but when it comes to making that a reality in our lives, our struggle with sin shows that it has not fully become a reality to us.

That is where we need more trust in what has been said and the ability to act on it. James is of course right when he says that faith without works is dead. What good is it to say that you trust that God is the supreme judge, but then you don’t live accordingly? Even the demons know that He is, and they tremble. Should not we?

Of course, when we stand before God, we will not need that faith anymore. We will know as we are known.

What about hope? There are two things specifically that Christians hope for and these are connected. The first is the vision of God which I also believe is part of the return of Christ for when Christ returns, we shall see God. The second is the resurrection. Even if we are alive when Christ returns, we will get new bodies.

None of these are hopes in the sense that we wish they would happen, like one might hope to meet their future spouse or one might hope to win the lottery. These hopes are treated as realities coming that we eagerly anticipate. Of course, once they happen at the end, there will be no hope as there will be no faith, for we will have what we have hoped for.

What about love? Well love is that which will remain throughout all eternity as love is of the nature of God. God invites us to enter into that love for all eternity. However, as we close this series, I ask that you keep in mind that Paul introduced this chapter talking about the most excellent way. Love is not just an object of thought, but a way of life. So the question is, are we treating it not just as a lofty idea, but a way of life? Are we living love?

Only you can answer for yourself.

Through The Looking Glass

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at 1 Corinthians 13 where we will be further looking at the view of love from the apostle Paul. We’re almost through this chapter and already I have two more series in mind at least at this point.

Paul talks about looking through a mirror at this point and this is something the Corinthians would have known about as their city was famous for their mirrors. Paul tells us that we look through a mirror dimly at this point. We are not really seeing what is there to the best of our ability. While the mirrors were good back then after all, they were not as good as they could be and it would be rare to find a Christian who could afford one of a good quality.

The idea is that we will always have partial knowledge here and so it is with love. We will not know what love is fully in this lifetime. As beautifully as Paul has described it, he has only scratched the surface. We rightfully find it incredibly awesome when we read what he said, but we must remember that even the biblically inspired author in holy writ cannot fully do justice to his topic.

Well if we will not know it here, when and where will we know it? Paul tells us that we shall know as we are known and that is when we are face to face. Paul does not have to spell out what he means by this. The wonder of prophets like Moses were that they supposedly spoke to God face to face. For Paul, all Christians will have what Moses had and in fact will have even better. This means that when we read about what happened to Moses and others with fantastic experiences, we should realize that we will have the most fantastic experience one day of seeing God.

And this is in fact the highest good of man. Man was designed to know God. The highest knowledge one can think about is the knowledge of God. This is not just knowing about what God does and has done and will do. This is about knowing Him as He is. Unfortunately, for many of us today we only look at God in the capacity of what He does or more importantly to us, how He makes us feel. Too many of our worship services are about how we feel about God rather than about God himself. In this way, worship can be more self-directed at times than God-directed. Now there is a time to talk about our response to God, but this is after we have talked about who He is.

But as was said in an earlier blog, if this is the way that we will end, with the knowledge of God, we might as well start preparing for that now. Too many churches are filled with too many people, including the pastor, who have never taken the God question seriously. I frankly wish more Christians would be tempted with atheism because at least I can see that they’re taking the question seriously and trying to determine what difference it would mean to their worldview if God was removed.

We’re nearly through. What remains in the end? Well next time Paul will tell us and I will then wrap up our look at 1 Corinthians 13.

Childish Ways

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. For those who are interested, the Mrs. and I had a very nice anniversary. We stayed at the Hampton Inn we stayed at on our wedding night and we had excellent treatment from them we greatly appreciate. Now that I’m back here, I’ll be continuing our look at 1 Corinthians 13 with talking about childish thinking.

It has been said that men never really grow up. Their toys just changed. If you look at professional sports, that’s certainly an example. A little boy who develops a talent with hitting a ball with a stick can eventually become a sports icon playing major league baseball. Is that what Paul is speaking against?

If you walk into arcades, though few are around, you will often find grown men in there playing games still. Indeed, many owners of video game consoles are adults. We happen to own quite a few around here. Why? We like to play games. Is this what Paul is speaking about?

When we are younger, we often have highly active imaginations. We feel out many situations and like to dream big and think about doing something great for the world. We are often told later on that we will grow up and get out of that phase and come to realize that we just need to accept our place in life. Is this what Paul is talking about?

No. Paul is talking about a mode of thinking more than anything else. He is not talking about something that is emotional. He is talking about something that is entirely rational. He is not telling us to abandon childlikeness as we should all be like little children in our wonder and trust of God. He is telling us instead to abandon childishness, and we all recognize the attitudes of childishness, and especially can usually recognize them in ourselves. We often still have this idea that reality ought always to go our way.

Paul gives a similar warning in 1 Corinthians 14:20. The Corinthians were acting like children in many ways with their attitudes and their constant one-upmanship and chasing after something grand for them rather than seeking that which is for the good of the body, a lesson we all need to learn. The question is not what good can the church do for you, although the church should support its own, but what good you can do for the church.

We should all have the wonder of children, but we should all seek to constantly be improving our thinking. When we think about God for instance, are we thinking just about what He does for us, or are we thinking about what we can do for Him and who He is? Much of our worship today seems to be about us rather than about God. We can often define a good worship service as one where we leave feeling good, when in reality, it could be some of the best worship services are the ones where we leave feeling miserable because we’ve been convicted of our sin and know we need to do better.

Christians should be about good thinking. It’s a shame that in our world today, the church has often been seen as abandoning rationality and indeed, many churches pride themselves on that. The more you can live by blind faith rather than actually believing something for a reason, the better you are.

I actually am of the opinion that if it seems many people today even outside the church have crazy ideas and are abandoning reason, it’s because the church did it first. Much like we led the way with many universities, we are also leading the way with many ignorances because we allowed childish thinking to come in.

Let’s follow Paul’s words and be adult in our thinking. It’s the loving thing to do for future generations.

Partial And Complete

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I can assure everyone that I will not be on tomorrow night. If you remember where we were a year ago, I had announced that actually I was to be married and tomorrow, the Mrs. and I celebrate our first anniversary. We think everyone who’s helped us both prayerfully and financially and we hope you will continue to do so. For now, let’s return to 1 Corinthians 13 and see what Paul has to say about love.

Paul tells us about the partial in verses 9-10. What we do in part, and we know about this. The more you think you know about something, the more you will come to realize that you do not know. The more knowledge we have of a topic, the more that we are amazed at that topic.

This includes our knowledge of God and if there is anything we do not understand to the maximum, it is definitely God. This is a topic we need to wrestle with. For instance, with the Trinity, we can show the Trinity from the Bible, but have we really took the time to think out what those texts mean if they’re true? If the Trinity is true, what does that tell us about God? If the Trinity is a topic that doesn’t leave you with questions, then you can be sure that you do not understand the Trinity at all.

Paul tells us that we speak in part, probably because that is all the knowledge of God that we can have, partial. When we get to the complete however, we will not know in part. We will know completely.

What is completeness? There are many debates on this topic, but I am inclined to think based on the later words of the passage that it refers to when we get to the point where we see God. When that happens, we will know completely. Of course, this will be commented on more as we get further into the text.

What does this mean for love? It does mean that our love is incomplete at this point. We can never fully love someone here as we ought. This could be seen as saddening for some of us, but I would prefer to think of it as exciting. But how can it be exciting to know that our love is incomplete?

If what we have now is complete love, we are quite lacking in many ways. Instead, think of how it will be when you reach eterinity. You will love your friends, family, and your spouse and children in ways you never could before because your sinful nature is gone. Look at those relationships that you have now and think of how different they will be when you get that perfect love.

For now, that means that we are to grow in the love that we have more and more, as to grow in love is to grow to be more Christlike. What are we going to do today to be more loving?

Love Never Fails

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re currently going through 1 Corinthians 13 and seeing what the apostle Paul has to say about love. Tonight, we are going to discuss the topic of “Love Never Fails.”

Love is permanent. Whatever else is going on in the world, love will always be there. Why? Love is of the nature of God and the nature of God will never change or pass away. The apostle points to this side of love in distinction to other things that will pass away, things that the Corinthians were priding themselves on.

Prophecies. Prophecy was one thing Paul was proud of as well. Paul told the Corinthians to seek prophecy and that it was the greatest of gifts, but yet, prophecy will pass away. When humanity stands before God and sees Him as He is, there will be no more need of prophets to act as conduits between God and man. Man will have direct experience of God. In that day, prophecy will cease.

Tongues? The same principle applies. If tongues are a prayer language meant to allow the person to pray to God in an unknown tongue, there will be no need of that as the person will communicate with God on a whole new level. If tongues are a known language meant for the spreading of the gospel, there will also be no need of that as there will be no spreading of the gospel message in Heaven. All will know about the goodness and grace of God immediately.

What about knowledge? Well obviously in a way, knowledge will not cease since God is omniscient and we will know God, but knowledge of things that are temporary and changing will have a problem. We will know things not by knowing the objects, but rather by knowing God. Imagine how it will be when the day comes and you see your neighbor through God. No wonder there will be such immense love between people in Heaven.

In contrast to all of these, love itself will not fade. It will last forever. The community of Heaven will be one of love. People there will have a great love for one another. It has been said that the six activities that are done in Heaven are knowing and loving God, knowing and loving ourselves, and knowing and loving our neighbor. If these sound boring to you, then the problem is with you as not realizing how vastly interesting God is, you are, or your neighbor is.

The challenge to the Corinthian church would apply to us today. If this is how we are to be in the end as a community of love, then why are we not living it out now? Do our churches really come across as places of love or places of condemnation? The Corinthians had the error of being too condoning, such as allowing people to be drunk at the Communion services, suing one another, and a man marrying his father’s wife. Our problem would be that we are too strict at times. The people of the world often don’t want to come to church because they’re a bunch of judgmental hypocrites and frankly, we’ve deserved that a number of times.

Our command is to love one another, the way Jesus’s disciples were to be recognized even. Are we doing that? Do we need to practice what Paul says?

Love Always Perseveres

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Right now, we’ve been going through the chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 and seeing what we can learn about the subject of love. Tonight, we’re going to be looking at the topic of perseverance.

As I sat down to write this, I thought about the Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Now I’m not an expert on Calvinism I admit, but from what I gather, it is the idea that those who are saints will indeed persevere in their faith. Despite what circumstances come their way, if they are saved, they will endure to the end.

Whether that is true or not is irrelevant at this point. When we think about the doctrine, we think about it in the sense of salvation, but do we think about it in the sense of practical living. We know if we persevere to the end, then that shows that we are of the elect. However, perhaps we should take persevering to the end to also mean that we will be loving to the end.

Ever been angry at God? I mean really upset with Him? Now I fear we might have some types who see themselves as super holy and will say “Nope! Not me! I’ve always loved God intensely!” Well if that’s you, good for you. The rest of this then is written for myself and the rest of us mere ordinary Christians who have had anger with God.

What do you do? If you’re in ministry like myself, do you say “Forget you! I’m done with this!” and go off on your own way? Note I did not ask if you’re not tempted to do that. The temptation to walk away in ministry can be very tempting at times. The question is what do you do?

If you’re like me, chances are you find somehow, there is something within you that makes you want to serve Him anyway. It’s not because you really feel like it at the time, but because you know that you have a devotion to do so anyway and you’re going to whether you feel like it or not.

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias in a talk of his tells about being in a classroom once in a Christian school, probably a Seminary, and hearing the professor say “Marriage is hard work.” He told his classmate sitting next to him that he didn’t like that and the classmate said “Yeah. I know what you mean. Why don’t you say something?”

So Ravi raised his hand and stood up and the professor said “Yes Zacharias?”

“I heard you say that marriage is hard work. I don’t appreciate that.”

“Are you married Zacharias?”

“No.”

“Shut up. Sit down. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

When Ravi got married, he realized his professor was right. Marriage is hard work.

Marriage is hard because it’s two people and let’s face it, we each tend to look out for #1, and your #1 gets in the way of my #1. The two people don’t always see eye to eye and yet have a commitment. Sometimes, they won’t feel like it. Sometimes, it’ll be hard. Sometimes, the other person will be someone you don’t want to be with at that moment, but you are to love anyway. I hear of guys who say their wives are driving them crazy.

For me personally, I try to look at myself first every time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I am at fault every time, but why not start there? What can I do to better love my wife. It also means however that now or in the future, no matter what I am feeling, I am to love my wife. That is not a feeling. That is an action. It may or may not result in feelings, but it is to be done nonetheless.

And that love will persevere. If you are not persevering, perhaps you need to ask yourself if you are really loving. This does not mean that the love in marriage and the love of God will not get difficult. Do you persevere through something you enjoy? I do not sit down and say “I’ll have to persevere through watching all of these Smallville episodes.” You don’t endure through good books. You endure through bad ones. If we’re off to do something we enjoy we jokingly say “Well I guess I have to put myself through this suffering.” No. Perseverance comes through hard things.

Love goes through hard things. That’s love. The question is, “Do the benefits outweigh the costs?”

And in the case of ministry and marriage, I will say “Yes. Absolutely.”

Love Always Hopes

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Right now, we’re going through 1 Corinthians 13 and looking at what Paul has to say about love. Tonight, we discuss how love always hopes.

No one likes to fail. There was a time in my past when I was working hard on getting my Master’s in the New Testament. When the time came, I was told by one of the professors that my thesis had not been accepted and I was stunned. I was told it was because of my writing style. I was surprised since I had taken writing tests that had placed me on the top. My reply was that I might have reached my maximum academic potential and just wasn’t capable of that kind of writing.

For one who loves to write, that was like being hit with a ton of bricks.

As it stands, I am now at Seminary and have written a number of successful research papers and when I look back on that point, I realize that really, that’s just one person’s opinion and there’s no reason to give up on a dream. I am quite pleased where I am and believe the future holds great things.

That’s the beauty of hope, and that’s what love does. Love hopes. It refuses to see the failure as final. This doesn’t mean that love refuses to look at reality. In fact, we Christians should be the people emphasizing reality the most, for all of reality is God’s reality. He is Lord of all that is.

Keep in mind other writings of Paul. Paul was the one who told the church in Thessalonica that they were to grieve, but when they grieve, not to grieve like those who have no hope. Not even death is final. He wrote to the church in Rome that all things are working together for the good of those who love the Lord. If that is the case, then indeed no failure is ultimately final.

Now he tells us to hope. This would be a comfort to a church that was stricken with numerous divisions. It might be difficult for them, but God isn’t done with them yet. This division does not have to define them. That’s our great danger. Failing in one thing, as we will all do at times, does not make us failures. If that is the case, everyone in the human race pretty much is a failure because we’ve all failed. We cannot define ourselves by one-time events that happen to us.

When we consider the aspect of seeking the good of the other, love becomes even more important. Love seeks the good of the other. When we say love always hopes, it means that love always hopes in the good of the other. Love always believes that the other is capable of doing good and is wiling to stand beside them. It is by love that the two stand together and face all odds.

Love always hopes.

Love Always Trusts

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. A good friend did make a donation last night to us and for that we are very much appreciative. What is able to be done here is because of the support of such good friends prayerfully and financially. To get to the blog, we’re continuing our look at 1 Corinthians 13 and seeing how love always trusts.

What does it mean to trust? It does not mean blind belief. It does not mean that love just accepts everything that is said entirely. It means that love prefers to give the benefit of the doubt.

Before my marriage, a friend of mine I was dialoguing with who happened to be the one who did the ceremony told me that he always saw my devotion to my wife because I was always ready to give the benefit of the doubt. If I thought there was something she needed to work on, I could say it but then say, “But I also have to keep this factor in mind.”

Let’s face it. There are all times that we do not really act in the way we generally behave. Something could be wrong. Maybe we didn’t get enough sleep or maybe we’re hungry or maybe we’re in a stressful time. Whatever it is, there are times that we reply to situations as we ought not to. Most often, we know that we are doing so. The reality is also that most of us don’t want to be judged by those times entirely. We realize we have made a mistake and that we should not act in that way and that we will work on that.

This means that if someone seems to be doing something to wrong you, then please throw out the idea of a nefarious plot to hurt you. It could be that for a time, they do desire to hurt you, but when the push comes to shove, if you needed them at that moment for something special, do you think that they would be right there for you? Absolutely.

This is also something we are more prone to do the less we’re focusing on ourselves. Many of our issues comes with the way we perceive other people will see us, as if they have nothing better to do with their days than spend all their time watching us. The truth of the matter is that most people throughout the day don’t care a bit about you. They don’t care, and that’s a very good thing. Why should you be under pressure to be perfect for people who aren’t all about you? (And frankly, no one should be all about you.)

It is usually our tendency to assume the worst in one another and not only in one another, but also in ourselves. In fact, I would say several of us do it with God as well. We often picture God as looking down on us just seeing how He can make our lives miserable.

I wonder, how it would be if we could really see God as constantly working in the lives of those who love Him to bring about their good? What if we could really believe that? What if there was a place in the Bible such as, oh, I don’t know, maybe Romans 8 where such a thing was promised?

Maybe we should start believing that?

And maybe if we got the love of God right, we’d get all the other loves right as well.

Love Always Protects

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve just recently spoken with a friend of mine interested in helping us out with getting a good 501c3 and with fundraising and other aspects of ministry today that are not directly research oriented. Thus, hopefully we will have a website up soon. For our own topic of discussion tonight however, I am going to be continuing our look at 1 Corinthians 13 and seeing the topic of “Love Always Protects.”

My wife and I recently had dinner with some friends of ours that go to school with me and church with both of us. In that discussion we had that evening, the topic of our relationships came up to which I told them that my wife does have a genuine fear about my devotion for her. Those who see me know that I am not physically built in any way, seeing as I am incredibly thin, I have scoliosis, and I’m underweight. Despite all that, the Mrs. fears, and I can see myself doing this easily, that if anyone tried to hurt her that I would fight to the very end to protect her, even if my own life was forfeit.

None of us like to think about that of course. (Although granted men, we tend to think of us going kung fu or ninja on a bunch of bad guys and wiping the floor with them.) However, there is a strong protective quality to love. The love that Christ has for the church is so strong that he is willing to die for the church.

Kind of makes the whole thing about the Bible suppressing women look different when men are supposed to be willing to die for their wives doesn’t it?

Why does love protect? Love seeks the good of the beloved. It is not looking out for its own good but how the other can be blessed. For the Christian man then, life is a small thing to give up if he has to. The same is true for missionaries who end up dying in foreign lands for the cause of Christ. Death is a small thing to them compared to the love of what it is that they are dying for.

The protection says that the thing which is loved is that which ought not come under that kind of harm. Of course, some harm can sadly be necessary. The mother is not likely to knock out the doctor who is giving her child a shot, as much as that child might beg and plead for that to go away and for his mother to not allow this to happen, for the mother knows that the shot is for the good of the child.

But if you are seeking the good of the good, then you will protect that good. You will want to make sure that no harm comes to it. While some may think that no harm can come to God, to which they are correct, his message can be harmed. Not in the sense that it will lose its power or be untrue, but in the sense that it can be silenced in a land if it is not protected. This is something we have to be aware of when governments are often encroaching in on us with the open message of “tolerance.”

Our love for the gospel should be that we do not want the message to lose its impact. We want its good to be able to go on, and thus, we will readily defend it from all attackers. We will only do this if we have a love for the gospel. Maybe that’s what we should be asking next. Do we love the gospel?

This might seem like an obvious question, but maybe it isn’t. A lot of times we can get so caught up in the intellectual side of the gospel that we miss out the applicational side of it today in our lives. Let us remember that the gospel proclaimed on Pentecost is the same gospel that we are to be proclaiming today. We are to stand in continuity with our Christian predecessors. The reason we argue against the cults today is that they stand against the truth the church has always stood for.

Now granted, there are some objections we have today that they did not have, but there are still similarities. They might not have had the Watchtower to deal with, but they did have Arianism. They might not have had Mormonism, but they had Gnosticism which was also highly polytheistic. Atheism was around to a limited extent back then. We have to deal with beliefs like Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Islam came after Christ of course, but Hinduism and Buddhism were mainly far away so the church did not have much interaction with them, although there was some. Whenever something arises that is contrary however to the truth of the gospel, it is the duty of every Christian to stand up for the truth of Christ that has been taught.

Let us not miss over this in being intellectual at times. The two are not opposed. One should think about the gospel they love. One should love the gospel they think about. We should seek to know more the God we love and we should seek to love more the God that we know.

Love always protects. If we love our Lord and His message, let us defend both. Many of us who are men would willingly die for our wives. Many women would also willingly die for their children. What are we willing to give our Lord?