Love Is Tenacious and Committed

When the Bible says love bears all things, it's not saying we are to remain silent when there are challenges or problems in our relationship. Here's an Wilson I know that for me there is this fine line when Dave and I were struggling in our 10 years.

I stopped praying things up. I guess some people could've looked at me and thought oh she's bearing all things, but there is something going on in my heart was becoming resentful and bitter and because of that and because I wasn't taking it to Jesus talking to him about it or talking to friends that could help talk to Dave what happened was my heart started to shut down and I had nothing.

This is family life to our hosts are Damon and Wilson on Bobby p.m. What does it look like for a husband and wife to bear all things together and to love one another.

That way of marriage talk more about that today. Stay with us and welcome to family life to the thanks for joining us for years we've talked this program we've talked at weekends. Remember marriage getaways about the D word right below the D word is I'm guessing divorce yeah what we have for years said that that's a word that ought to be out of our vocabulary. When we get married, not because there are circumstances that may arise where we regrettably have to look at that as a possibility, but because a lot of couples in the midst of marital conflict find themselves just saying well you know maybe be better if we just got married they just throw it out there is a threat we said that first year marriage. Very hurtful.

We could both take you to the moment it was said, and afterwards when we you come down and started to talk through it. We said we will never ever say that again and we have in 40 years. What was it about the hurt fullness of that word that caused you to say we gotta take this out of her vocabulary to remember. Yeah, it caused incredible insecurity and maybe really fearful that we weren't going to make it and it started to make me guard my heart and protected what went up a husband or wife says maybe we should just get a divorce. The other person hears there could be conflict that comes along that I will bail on right and until you go back and say it was wrong for me to say that and I won't say that again. And that's not what I want and I'm going to be here no matter what, that's what we said in the bowels right.

We said the promise for better for worse, rich or poor, sickness, health, until death parts us.

We made a covenant that we'd be here for one another in the midst of that and what we been talking this month about love and what it is from your new book from a book that I've written called love like you mean it that looks at first Corinthians 13 the love chapter takes the first seven verses and says let's understand better what love is. And one of the things the Bible says about love is that love doesn't quit.

It hangs in the persevere's memo started this conversation by saying love is long-suffering love is patient and this definition of love in first Corinthians 13 comes back at the end and says love bears all things, or actually in the in the original language. It says love always bears always believes, always hopes, always endures. Love never fails and we look at our love which is disposable. We wake up on the wrong side of the bed. We don't feel it anymore. You have couples who come and say I just lost my feelings for the other person will that's a throwaway view of love. You may have lost your feelings. Let's see if we can find him again because like you're committed is more than a feeling that's right and and bearing all things, and believing all things and hoping all things, and enduring all things.

This is what the Bible calls us to.

As a part of what it means to love another person, but it does sound like me a few minutes, a beautiful statement about love and you're like oh yeah oh yeah but then when you're in a marriage, or you're in a relationship in your supposed to bear all things are always bear in your spouses doing things that are hurting are unbearable. Yeah, the New Zealander, and there's a party you think all to be a good Christian. I'm disposed to lay down and take it as that would sent that's not what Paul saying in them and the four words bears all things, believes hopes endures the two on the outside bear and endure those go together. The two on the inside believe and hope those go together so bearing and enduring really tied together so love bears all things, means that in the midst of pain in the midst of things that seem unbearable to things have to happen first of all we have to go to our source of strength in those moments and draw strength.

We can't bear what's going on but Jesus can bear it in us. The second thing it means is we gotta figure out how to dial back.

What is unbearable. So what when we say this is unbearable. It's typically because somebody is sinning against us in a relationship. Loving to just allow somebody to continue to sin against you. You're not loving them.

If you just enable the dysfunction of their personality.

Write that down for us because I say have someone that her husband is cheating on her for over over that she just bear that will know so if if she's aware that that he is cheating on her. Here's what she says. She says I am bearing the weight of this but I'm not going to continue to enable you in this behavior so bring some accountability.

I'm a go to you and say this is not acceptable behavior. I would get other people involved, I would get some of his friends. I get church leaders and elders to go to him and say this is not how your to live and to continue to live like this to support you living like this is not a loving act toward you. So, because I love you I'm going to bear what you've already done the shame and the scar you already hurt me.

I'm going to bear that now, but I'm not going to enable you to continue that behavior that's where there's a difference between bearing the weight of something and just enabling sinful behavior enduring an hour talking about going the distance was something enduring means that I'm here for the long run, but here for the long run doesn't mean I'm here for the long run just to be trampled on because it's not right for you. It's not good for you to be a traveler, try to help you.

It's loving for me to help you get over your trampled problem that I think your definition of bearing and enabling. That's a very clarifying understanding because think of the other side of this. I'm sure some listeners are going right there right now. What if my spouse is abusive physically, emotionally, sexually bearing means what and enabling means what so enabling means that you are not doing things to protect you and others in that situation your enabling your you're putting your spouse in a position where the abuse can continue easily bearing means I'm going to bear with you the pain and the shame and what were going through.

I'm going to bear the weight of this but I'm gonna bring weight to bear so that you can break free from this sin pattern in your life that is crippling you and crippling our marriage sofa now just say it's a man abusing his wife. He could be the other way around. Right. If a woman is listening right now her husband's coming home in three hours. She is going to be probably just like it was last night. He's going to hit her.

What should she do right now. She should get to safety.

Right now she needs to get to a place with her children with her children where she can be safe. Hopefully she's in a church and she can call people in the church and say I need help I need to come to your place.

There are probably places in your town in your city that protect women, sometimes of a husband comes home and he's enraged you. Your friends may not want to house you because he may come in and try to harm them at the same time to especially if if he has firearms or something like that. So yes you need a plan.encourage go to our website. Family life today.com. We've got an article on the website today that will tell you how do you develop a plan to get to safety. If you are experiencing abuse in a relationship and then begin to develop a strategy to try to help your abusive spouse get free from the abuse that their rim and here's what you need to know and then we talked about abuse many times on family life to what you need to know is that abuse is a deep rooted sin in a man or woman's life. This does not come out easily so often times an abuser right after the abuse feels very remorseful for what they've done. So, I'm so sorry. I don't want to do this again. This sin is gotta be rooted out over a long period of time and you need to not just wait until I come with sorrow.

There's a difference between godly sorrow and genuine repentance.

You need spiritual protection in your life to make sure you're getting safety from your husband before you ever trust that you could be back in that relationship again and that spouse would really need help therapy and to really dig deep into that exactly you also give an example and Stephen Christie yeah this is a couple who they been a part of our church and I noticed that they kinda quit coming for a while, you'd see him occasionally, but you could tell they were they they were just kind on the fringes and the and whenever that happens. My antenna goes up, I don't what's really going on there and I remember getting a call from Christie and she said I found text messages, and as it turned out Steve had been having an affair for about a year and had as a part of the affair he'd been taking drugs and had been getting drunk and all of this was something that she had wondered about, but had not had any proof of until now.

So here she is in a crisis point and she said what do I do when I said well the first thing you do is you make sure again that you're safe in this situation.

She said I don't feel threatened. I said but you don't enable this kind of ongoing behavior on Steve's part. He can't continue in an affair and just be married to you, so I contacted Steve said hey we need to get together. He avoided me for a while they freak out well. He knew he was busted, so he was not surprised when I called and at first he sat down and he said I'll do whatever, save my marriage. So I went away hopeful but couple weeks later he was back in the pattern that he'd been in for a year and Christie in the midst of this, her heart was. I want my marriage back. I want my husband back. I want to move to a place of healing. What she was saying is this is hurt me deeply and profoundly. He has violated the marriage vows and a profound way I can bear that if we can get to healing. So when we talk about bearing all things. I think she was saying.

I'm willing to bear the pain, the shame, the indignity the memories the hurt and scars that come with that but I'm not willing to enable the ongoing behavior on his part and so with Stephen Christie we we had hoped for a while and then pretty soon he started ghosting and would respond to text messages and and we had to sit down with Christie and say for your safety for the safety of your children for your financial safety.

You need the protection that divorce will provide you she didn't want to get a divorce. She wanted her marriage to be reconciled.

Even after the divorce was final.

She kept hoping that God might do a work and restore her husband and restore their marriage and and I think what she was modeling for me is what this verse is talking about. She wasn't modeling. I've been hurt and I could never love you again that I can and I want nothing to do with you and you've heard that that's not bearing all things that saying my hurt is bigger than your sin now are in conflict and we can never get there.

The Bible says no, let's pursue righteousness, let's pursue reconciliation, but that reconciliations gotta be anchored in truth and righteousness, and right before it says love bears all things, it says love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. I think this is so good, but I also think for me, there is this fine line when Dave and I were struggling in our 10 years.

I stopped praying things up. I guess some people could've looked at me and thought oh she's bearing all things, but there is something going on in my heart was becoming resentful and bitter and because of that and because I wasn't taking it to Jesus talking to him about it or talking to friends that can help and talk to Dave what happened with my heart started to set down and I had nothing and I think that that's that fine line of bearing all things, but also taking continually to the father of asking for father to not let your heart grow hard or bitter. Having friends that are praying and lifting you up DAC that how that can shift into like I've got nothing don't care anymore. All of a sudden it's in and understand the weakness of saying I've got nothing to give anymore and that's really when this passage concludes. It concludes by saying love never ends. Never fails. It never quits and in those moments when your reservoir of grace gets empty. Yeah than what you have to do is you have to say Lord fill me with fresh grace because I'm dry because I'm empty effect use illustration of the book. I've never had a house that had a cistern.

Did you ever grow up in a house with a sister now so I'm on farm properties. You know they have gutters in the rain spouts and you fill up the door.

The rain tank with a cistern and as long as there's been plenty of rain and the gutters are clean then your tank is full. And anytime you need water you can turn it on there because the tank is full. But if it's been a long dry spell. Then there is no water in the in the cistern and there's no water in the faucet when there's no water in the cistern and I think our spiritual lives are pretty similar.

Yeah when we are not drawing grace from the father. Our tank is not getting filled up with God's grace. Then we go to turn on the faucet and there's nothing there. Our heart does get dry and hard but as long as our tank is filled up and were aware that were recipients of God's grace that in spite of how we sin, he still loves us. The more I think about that.

The more I think about no matter how much I sin God doesn't never quits loving me. Yeah, the more I recognize that now I go well okay if God can love me then God through me can love somebody that I got no love left for I tell a story in the book. You probably heard the story Corrie 10 boom hoop. Some of our listers and probably never heard of before, but Corey and her sister Betsy grew up in Holland during World War II. They were in their 50s and their family hid Jews who were hiding from the Nazis in occupied Holland if you haven't read this book you should take it out the book the hiding Place. It's remarkable and they were found to be hiding Jews. They were arrested and they were taken to the same prison camps as the Jews and Betsy and Corey were in the ravens broke prison camp and in fact it was a clerical error. A fluke that that Corey got released from the prison camp and a week later.

All of the women her age who were still alive were sent to the gas chamber. Her sister Betsy had already passed away at that point, when the war was over. Imagine now the horror of having been in that camp and Corey went around and talked about how we need to forgive others. Those who have oppressed us. Those who wronged us and she said one night she was speaking at a church in Munich, Germany, and as she was speaking, she looked up and there was a man in the audience and she recognized him.

He had been one of the prison guards at the camp and Raymond, and she said when I saw him, she said. I froze back after the meeting was over he came toward her to speak to her and looked at her and he said all for Lund I thank God for your message to imagine as you said, he has forgiven my sins and she said when I saw him she said I had no love for him. She said I froze. He stuck out his hand to shake mine. I could not shake his.

And she said I prayed in that moment of silent prayer she said, Lord, I cannot forgive him.

I need your forgiveness is an act of obedience. She lifted her hand and stuck it out to embrace the hand of this guard who had been you sit abusive you know I'm looking at this is the last couple pages of your book."

Her when I read this earlier. I thought wow so so vivid how she describes it.

She said I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me and as I did an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder race down my arm sprang into our joint hands and then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive your brother I cried with all my heart for a long moment, we caressed each other's hands the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then that's remarkable.

That's supernatural it is. It's exactly supernatural and that's the kind of supernatural love that we are being called to in marriage so even when your spouse is your enemy, or appears to be your enemy because we said we can remember many times your spouse is not your enemy. There is an enemy who wants to destroy your marriage. It's not your spouse when you look at your spouse and so you've wounded me offended me. You've wronged me in so many ways. Love says I can bear that I can still have hope in the midst of this, because God is bigger than this. I can still believe that there's a future for us. I can endure the indignity and I'm not going to quit because my tank is full of grace because God is poured into my life and I can extend it to you because of what God's done for me. That's what real love looks like I had a woman come up to me at church and she had tears in her eyes and she said in it has finally happened. I did not see him as I said what he means is listening to healing day for 20 some years I've been trying to apply this to our marriage and honestly it was never working. My husband was not doing anything.

I was angry. I was upset I had no feelings that we are raising our kids and so I'm like okay God. I'm sticking here I'm in a try to do this and she said we struggled with coming up and down.

She said she still hasn't changed and I can honestly say I love him and she's crying she got this. I've been married to him over 30 years. But I love him and my love for him. Finally has my endurance even has almost opened his eyes in this. One day he said how if you been able to love me all these years and she said it's Jesus right thinking it's taken 30 some years and she said yes but what we have now is sweet and she said now make it a talk to me. 1015 years ago I said it's never going to work. It's never going to happen and I know it doesn't always happen like that. This is an amazing story that she said if you would see our family what God has done and she said it's because I have clung to Jesus. He has been my hope he's in my life. I was so inspiring and that's what would say to everybody in a hard situation, draw your strength in life from Jesus. He will give you the courage and the power and the resilience to stand even in hard situations. Again, if you're facing abuse get safety and protection don't enable ongoing sinful patterns in your spouse's life and you're probably not the right person to try to correct that. So get somebody else who can help you help your spouse with whatever the sin patterns in his or her life are what persevere. Don't give up hope. Keep believing. Keep bearing, keep enduring and then not keep praying and see what God can do and and here's what I'd say it may be, as I like and I tried that in 40 years.

Finally, my wife died and nothing ever changed. I would say you know what changed the people around you who saw you loving well they changed because they saw a picture of what selfless agape love looks like, and it had an impact on them and yes you may have had to endure hard things Jesus had to endure hard things to write Jesus when he was reviled did not revile in return but entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously. So I think that's what we have to do in the midst of hard things is keep and trusting ourselves to the one who judges justly that's first Peter chapter 2 and draw our life and strength from him and say Lord I'm here is your servant and not wrap up with this keep coming back to these verses from second Corinthians chapter 4 that says that the things were going through in this life. They are like and momentary afflictions, and I don't mean to minimize the pain. People are going through. I'm not trying to diminish some people are in real pain and agony. The apostle Paul who wrote these things had been beaten, thrown overboard. He had experienced a lot of oblong against him. He said these are light and momentary afflictions. They are producing in me, and eternal weight of glory persevering in love is a part of God's design for us to grow us more into the image of Christ. And so that we can be a reflection of the love of God to the world around us and don't forget Jesus sees you he hears you he loves you. He always wants to speak to you and comfort you and fill you. It's not just drudgery every single day and in the midst of the hard stuff. He's always bringing hope.

I think if couples could get together with other couples and do a book study on this book. I think as they share with each other their challenges and their frustrations. I think they'd be encouraged to find out first of all, you're not alone in the the issues you're facing the challenges you're facing.

And then secondly, there's hope, the Bible offers a way that we can love one another better. That's what the book love like you mean it is all about looking at first Corinthians 13 and applying it to the marriage relationship and I hope listeners who find help and hope you're on family life to a will get a copy of this book because I think you'll find it helpful and hopeful as well. Family like today.com to order your copy of the book love like you mean it or call one 800 FL today. Again, the title of the book is love like you mean it, and I know we got close by that name. You don't get the cruise along with the book, but you do get a serious look at first Corinthians 13 and how that applies to marriage. Order your copy of love like you mean it online@familylifeto.com or call one 800 FL today it's one 803 586-329-1800 F as in family L as in life and in the word today. David Robbins, who is the president of family life is here with us again today, and again we just got to acknowledge this passage. First Corinthians 13 is a challenging convicting passage for many of us, but this is the roadmap. This is what God is calling us to as we are called to love each other in marriage. Bob, I just want to say thank you listening these past few days have been like pouring a bottomless jar of gospel truth over our marriages and because of the gospel in our marriages where their sin. There can be forgiveness where there's weakness, there can be strength where this foolishness we can find wisdom and wethers bondage we can hope for deliverance such as the way of the grace and truth of Jesus, and you have given us this biblical practical help and hope we aim to deliver every day of family life. So thank you again and I wanted think our legacy partners who give monthly to ensure were able to continue to help you love the relationships that matter most in your life. Absolutely we are so grateful for the monthly legacy partners who make this radio program possible the resources we create the website are events all that we do hurt family life happens because folks like you help make it happen.

So thank you for your ongoing support of the ministry of family life to day and we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together one way or another with your local church this weekend and I hope you can join us on Monday when you talk about all of the data.

All of the research that shows young people. People in their 20s and 30s walking away from Christianity, from religion. David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock say there is a silver lining to that cloud and will explore that silver lining. When we join them on Monday. Hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today.

Keith Lynch along with our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our hosts Dave and Ann Wilson and Bob Lapine see you back next time for another edition of family life today. Family life to day is a production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas.

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