Do you Only Love or Are You Truly in Love With God and Your Mate?

Good afternoon, friends. I agree with the comments earlier. It's always wonderful when both of our congregations get together in one location. All the people makes it very special. Someone once wrote a famous quote about love, which says, if you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was and always will be yours.

If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with. It's a powerful concept about love, and it's one I've actually experienced many times through my life and learned from. A seldom heard add-on I recently heard is if it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff, eats your food, uses your telephone, takes your money, and never behaves as if it was that you actually set it free. In the first place, you either married it or gave birth to it.

All right, let's hope that's not the case for anybody here.

Today, I'm going to share some very personal and candid and vulnerable learnings from my personal journey striving to rediscover love.

There are a lot of experiences of love that we're blessed with during our lifetime.

There's the love we feel for our parents.

There's the love for our relatives and friends.

There's the love we feel for our children.

I know I've heard many people say that we understand God's love most through what we feel for our children.

And no doubt, there is absolutely a lot that we learned about God's unconditional, outgoing concern, his sacrificial nature.

Those all are very present as parents.

But I believe that, well, I guess let's frame that a little bit, because what we naturally do along the way is that we give to our kids willingly, knowing that there will be little appreciation and certainly not the same type of love received back in response.

And so as a result of that, I think anyone who has been a parent in a happy marriage knows that kids don't close the circle of love anywhere near the same as your spouse does.

To me, the most special, the most powerful, the most beautiful and God-like two-way type of love that we're humanly able to experience is for and from our spouse.

And I can very clearly say that there's no love that I have experienced close to that of a spouse. I've lost my only brother. I've lost my wife. I've lost both parents, all my grandparents, all first aunts and uncles, close friends, a young nephew. Losing my spouse has certainly been the most painful. Tomorrow would have been our 27th anniversary.

And so finding that type of love again is my greatest physical longing and quest in this lifetime.

Now, when I asked Renee to marry me, I really didn't fully understand what love meant. And I'm sure many of you who are married can realize the same reality. There was a lot of selfishness involved in that silly, short-sighted concept that dating people have that they can fix. That they can change certain things about their partner to make them just what they've always dreamed about. I see smiles in the room. As all of you married people know, anyone can adapt and change. But the only lasting changes which are maintained for life have to come from within. And we can long for somebody to change, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

It will never work in a relationship if changes are pressured. If it's because of another person's desires or expectations or force or guilt or coercion. Especially if the changes are wanted to last for any extended period of time. Because people naturally resist change. They resist forced change. The things I passionately wanted changed the most in Renee. Never changed in 22-plus years of marriage. Renee and I learned what love really meant through many hard and wonderful times. And I grew to the point of being her champion and her encourager all the way up to her death.

So having known the power of marital love and loss, it makes me yearn so deeply to experience it again. For the last five years, nearly now, I have been striving to become a better man daily for when I get that honor. To be in love with somebody who's also in love with me back. And I know if I find that right person, I will appreciate, I will love, I will treasure, I will sacrifice more gladly. And dedicate my life so much more fully because of what I've learned through loss. It's what we do. And it's made dating the past five years even extra powerful and emotional.

So why is this marriage relationship so special? Please turn to Matthew 19, verses 4-6. Matthew 19, 4-6. I think the thing that we can forget or we can take too lightly is that marriage is God's doing. God not only spoke, not only specifically hand created the woman for Adam. If you think about it, that analogy is very similar to the father of the bride walking his daughter to be married in ceremonies we have today. But God spoke the design of marriage into existence. Matthew 19, starting in verse 4. And he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning, meaning God, made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Now for a key concept about marriage. What God has joined together let not man separate. Marriage is God's doing because he spoke the earliest design of it into existence. When a wedding happens, the key players is not the husband or the man or the bride or the minister. God is. Marriage is God's doing because it's this one flesh union that God himself performs joining a husband and a wife.

The world doesn't recognize this, and that's one of the reasons why marriage is treated so casually today in the world. Christians often enter into marriage for the wrong reasons, and without realizing all it means to be in love with a person enough to marry them. So the key thing to see in the Bible about marriage is that it exists for God's glory. Marriage exists for God's glory.

Marriage is designed by God to display his glory in a way that no other event, no other institution does. Turn next to Revelation 19, verses 7-9. Throughout the New Testament, there is a description of a wedding ceremony that will take place between Jesus Christ and the Church. Jesus Christ always being the groom, the Church being the bride. So we will go ahead and look at one of these.

Revelation 19, starting in verse 7. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. That's speaking of us. And to her it was granted to be a raid and fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, write, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. In Ephesians 5, Paul compares the relationship between a husband and a wife to that of Christ and his bride, the Church. And husbands are told to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.

So what all this means is that if you're a member of the Lord's body, the Church, in the Kingdom, then you will participate in a wedding ceremony, whether you're married or not, in this lifetime. So if you hear somebody preaching and teaching about marriage, realize it applies equally, whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're young or whether you're old. So what are some of the things that I'm learning these days from having been happily married and dating again? It starts with the difference between loving someone and being in love. For those of you who like titles, I title the sermon, Do You Only Love or Are You Truly In Love With God and Your Mate?

Do you only love or are you truly in love with God and your mate? So what's the difference? Well, I'm coming to see that when we come to the point of saying, I love you to somebody, it means that we've grown close enough to them that we trust and care deeply enough to open up our chest and show them our heart. And if we have a special close relationship, we might even say, go ahead, you can touch it. It is a very special thing, and I'm deeply honored to feel that treasured relationship with people here.

But when we're seriously dating or married and say, I am in love with you, with the full meaning intended in those words for the one and only special person that we are selecting for life, it's different. It's very different.

Symbolically, it's as if I open up my chest, I take my heart out, I put it into your hands and close your hands over my heart. I take my hands, step back, and I say, I trust you fully with this. To do whatever you feel is right, it's my gift to you. It's one of the most vulnerable and beautiful things that you can do in life. If you want to fulfill the analogy all the way to the end, marriage is when the other person commits to carry our heart in their chest for life and lets us carry their heart in ours. One of the greatest ways that we can learn about God in this life is to truly fall in love, to surrender our heart to someone else. And please don't forget, everything along the way connects back to the ultimate relationship God wants us to have with Christ when we marry Him. Too many people don't fully get the difference between, I love you and I am in love with you. I'll admit it probably took me 10 or 15 years in marriage to fully start fully appreciating that difference. And I mention all this in hope that it might wake all of us up to consider a vision of marriage that is higher, that is deeper, that is stronger, that is more glorious than we may have ever thought of. Because the greatness and the glory of marriage can't be fully understood without the spiritual perspective. The natural man doesn't have the capacity to see or to feel fully the wonder of what God designed marriage to be, because that's the lens that helps us picture it best. So I pray this message can be used to help God set all of us free from any views of marriage that are small, that are worldly, that are culturally contaminated or self-centered, God neglecting or unbiblical. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to share five lessons that I am learning. The first lesson I'm learning about an I am in love with you relationship is you must come to love the other person without any conditions, qualifications, or wavering. You must come to love the other person without any conditions, qualifications, or wavering. True love isn't conditional. It isn't transactional.

It's selfless. It's outwardly focused. A truly other person-focused love means sacrificing your best interest for theirs and wanting their happiness more than your will and your objectives.

It's never about pushing or coerciveness, manipulating to get what you want. Rather, it's about trying to love fully as Christ loved us first without us earning it.

The goal should never be about what comes back to me because I did something good, but simply to see the other person shine, to elevate them to be their best.

Now, that can be very heavily taken advantage of in marriage and often is.

But when two people are both deeply practicing godly love toward each other and acting in a true I am in love with you way, with each gladly living a selfless life focused on adapting to compliment the other person, it's magical. A couple should never enter a marriage on the fence, knowing that there are things they like about the other person, but other things they know they can't stand, but rationalize a work on and fix the other person over time. Never, ever, marry with the plan to fix someone after they say I do. Yikes! It's one of those things I think everybody has seen and the failure that comes from it.

When you truly are in love with a person, you care for their best interests above your own.

You passionately want to do things to make their life special. If they love coffee, you bring them coffee. You give them gifts that remind them of coffee. You help them feel safe and cared for, and like they're enough, even when they get tired and anxiety steps in. You try to anticipate their needs and you make their path smoother and enable them to be their best again not for you, but so that they can pay that forward toward their friends, loved ones, and others they come in contact with.

So let's transition this to the spiritual perspective. Please turn to Mark 10, please turn to Mark 10, verses 17 through 30. Mark 10, 17 through 30.

There are many biblical examples of people who have technically obeyed the letter of what the law asks us to do and avoided a life of cheating on God, but they never loved God unconditionally. Remember, the point we're talking about here is you must come to love the other person without any conditions, qualifications, or wavering.

They loved God in form and not heart, and until it conflicted with other priorities that seem more important in the moment. Mark 10, verse 17. Now, as he was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before him, and asked, Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit internal life?

So Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is God. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud. Honor your father and mother, and he answered and said to them, Teacher, all of these things I have kept from my youth. Now, please notice, Jesus, who understood all things, did not dispute that this man had actually obeyed as he said. On the surface, this man had lived a God I love you and your law lifestyle. But Jesus wanted him to be in love with him.

Verse 21. Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, One thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven, and come, take up the cross and follow me. But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. Friends, what are you and I holding back? What is it that we don't want to give up?

In order to live a fully devoted, I am in love with you, relationship with God.

Are there selfish things we don't want to give up in our physical marriages?

What do you know your spouse yearns for you to do for them that you aren't doing?

Where are you falling short of a fully biblical, I am in love with you, marriage relationship?

Verse 24. And the disciples were astonished at his words, but Jesus answered again and said to them, Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God.

Let me tie that into the message. Who trust in conditions being met to show another person that they love them. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, With men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God all things are possible. And then Peter began to say to him, See, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, There is no one who has left house or brother or sister or father or mother or wife or children or land for my sake in the Gospels, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land with persecution and in the age to come eternal life. Living in love with another person is not about our conditions or our requirements being met. We have to be willing to give up everything for our partner. That's a spiritual example. Christ knew he would have to personally pay the dowry of his own blood for his redeemed bride. And he called this relationship the new covenant in his blood.

Maybe you don't realize and connect that to us marrying him. Paul referenced this when he talked about marriage as this great mystery. Christ obtained the church as his bride by his blood.

And this sacrifice is what formed the unbreakable marriage foundation with her. See, God needs to be the center of our spiritual universe. It's like Peter being asked, do you love me? By Christ and fully understanding the depth of what Jesus really wanted to know from him. Our spouse should be the center of our physical universe. And just like with God in marriage, being in love means the willingness to surrender our will, even if it feels unfair. Or what was it? Verse 30. With persecution. Even if it feels like persecution, because we're giving more than we're getting back. We have to go into marriage feeling the other person is more than enough for me exactly as they are right now. And commit to live my entire life grateful for them, even with their weaknesses. Does that describe your relationships?

That leads to the next lesson that I'm learning about, and I am in love with you, relationship. And it is this. You need to be in love with the person more than anything else. You need to be in love with the other person more than anything else. Turn to John 13 verses 34 through 35.

I think the best way to understand what it really means to be in love more than anything else comes from seeing how Jesus Christ loves us. He set an example that points us to what we need to do for our human partners. And I'll start first, though, by sharing an illustration that hopefully will exemplify the point. When Benjamin Franklin was wanting to interest the people of Philadelphia in street lighting, he didn't try to persuade them by talking about it. What he did is he hung this beautiful lantern on a long bracket out inside that front door of his house. He polished it up, got the brass so it was shiny, and a dusk he put it outside. People walking the dark street saw Franklin's light a long way off because it was the only light around. And they gratefully came under the influence of it. It was as if the light was telling them, come along, my friends, here is a safe place to walk. See that cobblestone stepping up? Don't trip on that. And don't worry, when you come back tomorrow, I will be here to help make it safe again. It wasn't long before Franklin's neighbors began placing lights and brackets in front of their home, and soon the entire city had street lighting. And they did it with interest and passion. Because example is always the strongest motivation for doing the right thing in life. And Jesus set the best example regarding being in love. John 13 and verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Now Jesus clearly set the example for us of what an outwardly focused, outgoing love, fully willing to sacrifice for others, is like.

Now you might look at that verse and you might say, wait, Dan, that mentions disciples. Aren't you talking about a husband and wife relationship? Friends, please realize, if we're not Christ's disciples, we'll never be in the kingdom. We will never marry Jesus, and the reason will be because our love for him isn't the right type. A disciple isn't a copy. I mean, he isn't just a good student who crams and makes an A for a test. A disciple literally means an imitator of the teacher. They try to become a copy of the teacher, and we have to learn to be a disciple of what Jesus Christ taught us about how to love, so that we love him that way and we love our partners that way. Turn now to Luke 14 verses 25 through 27. Luke 14, 25 through 27.

We are taught that we're supposed to learn to love in the same way that is God's nature, and we will never marry Jesus Christ if we're anything less than 100 percent in love with him. We're to copy loving as deeply as God does toward us. Luke 14 verse 25. Now great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate, or literally love less, his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

If you want to change the words, cannot marry me.

Do we love God more than anything?

God isn't describing this classroom where we take notes and try to pass a test on this love concept thingy. The author and the ultimate example of love says we're to be in love with him more than anything else, or we won't be his disciples, and we won't marry him, and we won't be in the kingdom.

We're to love God more than everything, do we?

If we're going to reign with Christ, if we're going to be part of his wedding supper, then we need to be able to confidently answer that question. And that forms the best reference point to me for for our physical marriage relationships and what we need to feel for our partner.

Our level of love has to be above all other options out there. We're making the most critical, the most vital selection when we choose our one partner for life.

We have to have so deep a passion, a commitment, and a respect for, and a selfless care for them, that nothing else can rival them for number one. Not only when we're dating, not only when we say I do, but the rest of our lives. To go back to my analogy, our trust and our conviction about our relationship has to be something such that we joyfully hand them our heart to take and to hold unconditionally for life. We must have no greater priority than to care for their heart. And our physical life becomes consumed with serving and protecting and guarding and providing and caring for their heart as the greatest physical gift we have in life. The way I think we see this most clearly is if we connect Genesis 2.24 with Ephesians 5.31 through 32. I would like you to turn to Ephesians 5.31. You may not have caught that. I actually have already read Genesis 2, and actually Paul is going to quote it. Genesis 2.24 was quoted by Jesus when he said, therefore, a man to leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can there be love triangles and bouncing between person to person? Of course not. That's the I love you or I will fix you or else type relationship that is a foundation of so many broken relationships. Successful marriage relationships can't have a foundation that's built on romance or sexual desire or the need for companionship or even to pay back a debt of gratitude to another person. Those marriages will all fall apart over time because they realized they settled. We discussed then the last point. So what's supposed to hold a marriage relationship together? The word hold fast to his wife or become one flesh. It points to something deeper. It points to something more permanent than serial marriage and occasional adultery. What these words point to is marriage as a sacred covenant that's rooted in commitment, that stands against every storm as long as we both shall live because both partners treat the other selflessly, careingly, and treasured as the most important person to them on the planet.

Marriage can't be about settling. Remember, the point is loving more than anything else physically, and that's what being in love with one partner means. And I think this becomes even more explicit when this mystery of marriage is revealed that we see in Ephesians 5 verse 31.

You'll notice that Paul first quotes Genesis 2.24. He says, starting in Ephesians 5.31, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And then Paul gives this all-important interpretation in verse 32.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

In other words, marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant commitment to his church.

When Christ came to earth, he already saw himself as a bridegroom coming for his bride, those committed to God or who would be committed to him. Christ was in love with us, as we heard in the message before, before we were even created. He committed to give his life for us from the start.

Are we that selfless to our partners? Do we treasure them that much?

Now I'm going to go from preaching to Meddlin.

What's the thing you do grudgingly or you avoid doing for your spouse?

Maybe it's cleaning the dishes. Maybe it's putting away your laundry.

Maybe you watch TV when you get home because you're tired and spending instead of spending time to talk to your partner, to comfort them, to encourage them.

Friends, I do get it. I remember many times where I struggled with selfishness, where I was tired, where I put my desires to do something for me in the moment above loving her, above anything else.

But do you know what will give you perspective?

Lose your partner and realize how hard finding a new partner is who you can deeply respect and admire and be attracted to and long to serve and to commit to and face the rest of life with.

Once you face that, you will beg to do dishes and laundry and give daily massages and do whatever could make them happy.

Now, I share this. Please realize none of this is shared to garner sympathy or to make you feel uncomfortable. It's for perspective. Life is about perspective. Let's now move to the third and to the most painful lesson that I'm learning about, and I am in love with you, relationship. It is this. Even if you are deeply in love with someone this much, there is nothing guaranteeing they will ever be in love with you back. Even if you are deeply in love with someone this much, there is nothing guaranteeing they will ever be in love with you back. A key to having a successful marriage is that both people are being in love with each other. And anyone who's dated gets this. Anyone who's dated knows when they have more interest in someone than the other person has back, right? That's just part of dating. And that's 100% their prerogative and fair.

Our being in love should never make the other person feel shame or guilt if they don't feel the same toward us.

Remember, an I am in love with you relationship is without any conditions, qualifications, or wavering. It is when both people love each other more than anything else.

Friends, Jesus Christ expects nothing less from us.

If you foolishly think, if I could only love my partner perfectly, then they will find a way to be in love with me and treat me that way back. How did that work for Jesus Christ?

Right? He has always loved us perfectly. Most of the world do not love him back in the same way.

Turn to Matthew 13, verses 45 through 46. Matthew 13, verses 45 through 46.

Many of you know Howard Hughes. Younger people here probably don't.

Howard Hughes was one of the wealthiest men on earth in the 1970s.

And he had multiple marriages, but he was quoted to have said that he would gladly give up billions to have had one happy marriage. Matthew 13, verses 45.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

What this is talking about is how deeply we should long to be married to Christ in his kingdom.

God doesn't want us only kind of interested in him.

We should treasure him and our spouse to the point of being willing to give up anything.

I would gladly give a million dollars away for the woman I love to be in love with me back, but it doesn't work that way. That is not the way it works, nor should it.

The whole point of true love is it can't be bought, it can't be compelled, it can't be taken, it can't be manipulated, it can't be coerced. Truly being in love with another person can only be freely given, and that's what makes it so beautiful. No one in a relationship should ever feel forced to go to that I am in love with you space outside of their own free will. It requires both people to equally fall in love. Let's go to the fourth lesson about an I am in love with you relationship, and then I'm going to link both of these with the spiritual or to the spiritual analogy. The fourth lesson is this. We must be willing to step away from being in love if it can't be 100% mutual. We must be willing to step away from being in love if it can't be 100% mutual. Now let me quickly clarify. With this discussion, I'm talking about a dating relationship. I am not talking about being in an established marriage and wanting to leave it simply because it feels like the other person isn't in love with you anymore. But I will say, to go with the concept that I'm teaching, there are clear biblical grounds where God says divorce and remarriage are justified, and they represent situations and actions that defile, that belittle all the truly being in love with somebody should be in practice. If you put that same lens into it of what's being taught, that's the reason God says it's justified. The point is that dating and finding a partner for life takes two. Every ounce of our being can want to sacrifice for another person, focus our life on meeting their needs, and be there for them in every way conceivable. But if their interests are in another direction and they are not able or willing to give love back 100% in return, then the relationship isn't right for marriage. Agape love will still be there between the people, but not the, I commit to love you as my one and only partner who I put above everything else for life approach. Let's bring this back to the spiritual. Turn to John 5 and verse 22. John 5, 22.

Some have this wrong idea that because Jesus loves us so much, His perfect love will overcome our inability to love and commit fully to Him back.

They feel Jesus would never judge us as unworthy to marry Him even if we don't fully love Him.

John 5, verse 22. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.

Okay, let's play this one forward a little bit. Of course, God has 100% perfect, I am in love with you, love for us. But like I just said, a marriage relationship takes two.

So view our spiritual relationship vows from His perspective.

Jesus needs to know we are fully in love with Him as well. In fact, we're required to be 100% unconditionally in love with Jesus in order to be His bride. And we just read that Jesus will be the one passing judgment on our love's worthiness. Verse 30 shows His judgment is in complete alignment with the Father. I'd like to share an analogy to hopefully help recognize that this concept spreads throughout the whole Bible. It's an association. The next time any of you read a scripture where the word judgment is being brought against a person, recognize it's because that person's love being shown to God fell short of an I am in love with you relationship.

Next time you read salvation, it's being extended to those who consistently live an I am in love with you relationship with God. Definitely look at it. We should not be pursuing the kingdom in order to save our bacon or personally achieve eternity because that's selfish. We're to pursue the kingdom because we're 100% in love with God. We can't be holding back anything. And that's the proper covenant love relationship that Christ wants in marriage from his bride. That's what we're spending this lifetime learning. And that's the commitment we made in baptism. But just like baptism and just like the day we said I do when we get married, there's a lot we don't fully realize when we first make those commitments, right? And that's what time teaches. And that's why we prove our love to God over an entire lifetime. By willingly and gladly obeying, God gave us this life to prove our true prioritization of loving him and putting him first. It's not about living perfectly. But it's like what God said to Abraham where he's able to say, now I know. Even though you mess up from time to time, now I know. And just like picking a spouse, it's about actions and not about words. It doesn't matter what somebody tells you they're going to do. You're like, all right, show me. I'm glad you showed me a little bit. Show me you can really do that. It goes back to the first point. God is looking at what we do toward him and others. We aren't being God's true disciples and loving like he does if we can't talk to each other at church, if we don't serve others, if we don't show honor. Let me finish with the final lesson about an I am in love with you relationship. And it is this. Once you are mutually in love and merry, never, ever take it for granted. Once you are mutually in love and merry, never, ever take it for granted.

A little bit ago, I had lunch with an executive at State Farm who I knew pretty well in Virginia.

Wonderful man. I've always respected his vulnerability, his honesty, how real he is. And we discussed how five years ago, his wife, which I didn't realize had suffered with breast cancer, he commented on how powerfully that makes a spouse treasure everything they have in their life partner.

All of the little things that frustrate suddenly start paling in comparison. But he admitted. One thing I love about him. He admitted that in the years since that she has recovered, which is a blessing, he recognizes that from time to time complacency steps back in. He finds himself slipping back into taking his precious wife for granted.

Of course, by him pointing that out, he's wise enough to recognize and work at it.

But we've all been there. I hope all of you married people treasure your spouse.

Think about if you were widowed and yearning to deeply center your life around being able to be in love with someone who's actually in love with you back. And that's not, again, shared for sympathy, but for perspective. Fill the love bank of your partner to overflowing daily.

Make your relationship focused on what is best for them and not focused on satisfying your selfishness.

Treasure what you've been blessed with. Make yourself the best possible mate for them in God's image.

Become the partner your spouse has always dreamed about, not just a taker waiting for them to change first before you meet their needs. And the lesson really applies spiritually as well.

When we don't have a partner we're in love with or when we have a relationship breakup, it can totally deplete our love banks and make us feel empty. Our reserves can give out and others, and it can be a struggle to give out to others because we have this emptiness inside. But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God wants us to use Him as our source of keeping a constantly full love bank. It's different. I mean, I will grant that there is something that God intended in human relationships, but He intends us to have that constant reservoir being filled because He loved us before we were ever able to love Him. And God also wants this two ways.

Remember, a relationship takes two. God wants us to live a grateful, outflowing, I-am-in-love-with-you relationship toward Him as well, and we fill His love bank. Something we have to keep in mind.

And if we're truly in love with God, then we're giving back constantly in how we put Him first, in how we prioritize His way, and how we serve others and care for others. I do hope that today's message has helped you view marriage differently. The ultimate thing that we can say about marriage is it exists for God's glory. It exists to display God. Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to the church, and therefore the ultimate purpose of marriage is to exemplify that covenant relationship between Christ with the church. If you're married, that's why you're married. If you are single and longing to be married again, that's why it's worth all of the time and the hurt that comes trying to find that pearl of great price. And the ultimate pearl we need to prioritize above every other is to be married to Jesus Christ and to say to Him, I am fully in love with you.