Valentine’s Day shows up on our calendars in the middle of February. If you are married, and even if you aren’t, there are usually some mixed emotions surrounding the holiday. These emotions can vary from anticipation to dread and bring anxiety or joy. I find some irony in the timing of this day—here in central Pennsylvania, February is generally a cold dreary month. During this cold dreariness, a celebration of love stands in contrast to the grayness of winter.
My wife and I love being married. There are some days when that statement is easier to make than others, but it is true. It wasn’t always that way. We have come to see that in years past, our relationship resembled winter in many ways. Through the grace of God, He has redeemed and brought life to something cold and bleak. Through His redeeming work, God has given us a desire to see marriages in the church not just survive, but experience more. We are deeply saddened when we see Christian marriages struggle to live in the fullness of what God desires. Marriage can be a visible picture of God’s redeeming love. This puts Christian couples directly in the crosshairs of Satan’s efforts to undermine the gospel.
Loving my spouse requires a heart of humility modeled after Christ.
Jesus didn’t preach many sermons on marriage. To the best of my knowledge, He never hosted a marriage weekend. Yet, He calls us to follow His example in all our relationships, not just marriages. Looking at His example, we can easily see how he lived in a relationship with every person He met. His words and actions contrasted the issues that are often at the forefront of tensions within marriage.
There are many hurdles to thriving marriages, but if we are brutally honest, a few of the most common are pride, unforgiveness, and lack of investment. Jesus, in humility, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6b-7a ESV). Thriving marriages begin with humility. How many times in my relationships is my determination to avoid being wrong only surpassed by my desire to be right? How can I serve my spouse daily? This is a question that is easier to ask than to live out. Loving my spouse requires a heart of humility modeled after Christ.
The apostle Paul continues Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness in 1 Corinthians 13:5, where he writes that love keeps no record of wrongs. What a tremendous and costly Valentine’s Day gift for my spouse, to keep no record of wrong—intentionally discarding the balance sheet, which is so easy to keep in our minds. This not only demonstrates true forgiveness but also reflects how God views and relates to us.
Jesus invested deeply in His close relationships; think of His communication with the Father, His intentional investment in His disciples. Our marriages deserve and require more investment than a day amid winter. Last month, Brian wrote about redeeming our time and encouraged this investment in our marriages. It is never too late to redeem our marriages and to begin to live in the fullness of God’s heart for marriage.
Gospel-centered marriages thrive by understanding God’s purpose for marriage and living out the fruit of the Spirit, day by day. What an incredible witness to a broken world we have by living in authentic thriving relationships. For too long, the church has been a cover for unhealthy and stagnant marriages. We hesitate to share when we struggle in marriages because we fear what others may think.
Jesus calls us to walk and live in the light, which certainly applies to marriages. When we bring things into the light, Satan begins to lose his power to disrupt and destroy our relationships. May we all reflect the light of Christ in all of our relationships—especially in our marriages—and not just on a “day” that reminds us to love as Jesus loved, but every day, while it is called today.
Photo credit: Valentin Antonucci: “Two Person Holding Pinkies”
