Emotion vs(?) Reason: What is love? What is faith?

How does your faith survive when you don't feel it?  During these times are you no longer a Christian?  Do you have to feel it to really be saved?  How does this parallel marriage, and how marriages seem to end when the love evaporates?

 

There is a huge misconception running rampant in the world today.  It's about love.  Underneath this is the surprising assumption that we deserve to be loved.  Do we really?  And how do we love God?

 

People get divorced because they don't feel the love any more.  But this misses the essential aspect of love that is shared by the Christian faith towards God: "Commitment".  Love for a spouse requires commitment, even when you don't feel the pleasant feelings of love.  Love for God requires a commitment to the mental assertion that God exists and that He is who He says He is.  The feelings may come and go, but they follow the commitment.

 

So do we deserve to be loved?  If you properly understand the nature of sinful, fallen man then the only answer can be, "No way do we deserve this!" But knowing that you don't deserve to love or be loved should make your gratitude for love, and commitment to love, much stronger, so that it survives the lack of supportive emotion.

 

And there is no excuse for your marriage to fail due to a lack of love unless you have failed to love through commitment.  Likewise your faith.

In marriage

If you are married, do you see your marriage as a parallel relationship to that of Christ and his bride (the church)?

 

Husbands, do you work fervently at your own sanctification, knowing how much your wife can frustrate you, and how much you could frustrate Jesus yourself (if he did not have infinite patience)?

 

Or perhaps you should be more patient and steady in leading, knowing how much Christ has done this for you!

 

The Spirit is not in frustration because this is not a path to trusting God for the best outcome.  Be patient, and trust God, in this we can see the Spirit at work.

 

Wives, what is the flip side of your husband exercising patience?

 

Where is the Spirit?

It's not necessarily in the tale of a miraculous healing - there are many false signs in the world.

It's not necessarily in the amount put in the collection bag - rich men go to hell beside poor men.

And it's not necessarily in the amount of theological knowledge attained - look at the Pharisees.

 

When your spouse hurts you and you do what is right, despite the urge to do what is spiteful, there is the Spirit of God.  Doing what is right because you love God, because it hurts more to hurt your spouse back than it does to be hurt by them.

Where the Spirit of God works, there is a willingness to suffer for nothing in return but His glory.