Marriage is a call for two people to love and serve one another as they live together for the rest of their lives. As simple as that sounds, it can often feel extremely hard to simply love and serve. However, when we understand and know that Jesus has loved and served us, we will learn to grow more in loving our spouse.
Colossians 3:18-19 leaves us a very simple format of marriage: "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them."
Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? How hard can submitting and loving be? It sounds simple and easy until we realise that just like us, our spouse is an imperfect and broken person who needs the grace of God.
Many times, loving and serving seem easy to do until challenges start coming. The time money becomes a problem, relationships start becoming a burden, children start rebelling and businesses start failing, marriage all of a sudden feels like something that gets in our way instead of driving us to face challenges.
Loving and serving are easy as long as things are easy and spouses meet each other's ideals.
But that's not what God gives us as a basis to love and serve. Proverbs 17:17a tells us, "A friend loves at all times..."
God's format and definition of love and service have always been to love and serve without condition, premise or expectation. That's what makes marriage difficult.
As a result, many marriages today are failing and falling apart because loving and serving have become a chore. Spouses try to build their marriage with their own strength only to watch it crumble, forcing them to go back to square one.
By our own strength, you will sooner or later realise (or maybe you've already realised) that loving your spouse is something you cannot do on your own. Loving and serving another person is difficult because we are selfish and sinful people that ultimately fall short of the glory of God. That's why it's so important to rely on the grace of God to give us the heart and drive to love one another despite all the challenges that we face internally and externally.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, "And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
Loving and serving seem impossible if they come from our own doing or from the reciprocated love of our partner.
But when we realise just how much Jesus has loved and served us, we will serve and love our partner out of the overflow of our love for Christ.
As we receive more and more of Jesus Christ in our lives and be overwhelmed with His provision, joy, peace, abundance, love and grace, we will be a channel of love and grace to our spouse as well. We love and serve our spouse not because of who we are, but because of who God is in our lives.
