Category Archives: Love

When An Earthly Husband Images Our Heavenly Groom

Posted on by
1

Photo Credit: francois

Valentine’s Day is here. It’s a day when our society encourages couples to take the extra steps to show their love for one another. Give flowers. Give chocolates. Go out to dinner. Celebrate love.

Some of you reading this right now are lonely. Some have been abused or hurt deeply by a spouse. Some may be single without an earthly spouse. But all of us as Christians together have a heavenly husband, and oh how great is our Groom’s love toward us!

Scripture is full of the love of God — the cross being the supreme expression of that unfathomable love.

You can read the rest of my post here.

Making Your Husband’s Dreams Come True, and Other End of the Year Thoughts

Posted on by
2

Photo Credit: firemedic58

A few days ago, my husband woke up telling me he had a dream that he was eating chicken enchiladas with corn tortillas and red sauce. This is a bit strange since he feels about casseroles (or anything resembling casseroles) the way I do. Moreover, in Mexican cuisine, chicken is usually paired with green chili sauce not the typical red chili sauce. So Sunday night I whipped up some red enchilada sauce, shredded a roasted chicken and some cheese, cut up some olives and green onions, and put together chicken enchiladas in corn tortillas with red sauce. At dinner Geoff joked with the kids about how I make all his dreams come true.

Cleaning up in the kitchen afterwards I was thinking about another Husband: the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the everlasting Husband. I was a member of his Bride before I married. After my earthly marriage ends, when death parts us, I will be part of the Bride of Christ into eternity. Are we his to make his dreams come true? Is that the kind of relationship we have?

Isaiah 54:5–8 says:

For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you, like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, ” says the Lord, your Redeemer.

Isaiah 54:5–8

Over and over again the New Testament reminds the Church, corporately, that she is the Bride of Christ. But the Lord deals with us as individuals also. He is a Father to the fatherless, a husband to the husbandless, the friend to the friendless. He is our portion and the fulfiller of our soul’s deepest needs. He is the paraclete and our comforter.

It is the end of a year. How jolting a small man–created holiday can be to a soul. We love and long for fresh starts. When we fall back into a rut again around the first or second week of February, we see the year still stretching so far ahead of us and long for another turn of the calendar for the chance at a “do–over.” How small and forgetful our minds can be at times. We forget our Husband, the Lord. We forget to read our Bibles for a few days and believe ourselves to be failures in His eyes. We forget that with the Lord there are new mercies every morning, every hour, every second, in fact. We do not need to wait.

We do not perform for this Husband, as if anything we can do for Him will fulfill his dreams. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:7). God is the maker of all things new, he is the restorer. As our King he sings over us, “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:16–17).

There is plenty of time to talk of books and plans and all those good spiritual disciplines that we the Bride do out of love (not compulsion) for our Husband. Yes, the planning will come. But before that, in these last hours of the year, let us, as the Bride, silently ponder in our hearts. Let us ask our souls some questions: How is our stewardship of time, talents and money? Are we serving for our Husband’s glory or our (the Bride’s) glory? Are we pointing the world to the Husband or to the Bride? Are we, the Bride, faithful, or are we an adulteress? Do we bring honor to our Husband throughout the nations or blasphemies and cursing because of our misrepresentation? Are we submissive to our Husband when it suits us and rebellious when we think we know better? Do we define “godliness” according to the Words of our Husband or do we like to add a bunch of rules (the ones we like to perform) so we can look like we are a faithful Bride? How fervent is our love toward our Husband? Do we long and yearn for our Husband or are we satisfied with the trinkets of the world? Are we quick to turn to Him and confess when we fall short in all these ways? Let us be quiet, let us put our hands upon our mouths and sit at the feet of our Husband in these long hours and let us just listen. Let us just listen.

He will indeed bless us with renewed mercies tomorrow. As a matter of fact, He may this day lift the melancholy that has plagued some over the holidays. He may this night restore marriages. He may this night bring back a prodigal. He may this night restore your dry soul with such fervency that you feel as if you have been lifted up to heaven. He may also this night take a cherished idol away. He may this night bring suffering. He may this night bring you to weeping and lamentation. Whatever the Husband does it is for the good of the Bride. Why? Because He is the perfect Husband. He makes no wrong or untimely decisions. He is an utterly trustworthy Husband. His love may at times be a chastening love, but Oh what a love it is! It is all glorious.

Is God’s Love For Me Dependent Upon My Obedience? My Amateur Answer to Pastor Tullian Tchividjian and His Critics

Posted on by
18

Photo Credit: Matt Turner

My short answer to those wrestling with that question is: Please read Gospel Amnesia. Not because I want to sell my book, but because one of my hopes and prayers for Gospel Amnesia (to be released Jan.15th) is that it would further this discussion along. The theology is by no means exhaustive, it is only the beginning of the discussions I hope we can all have.

I lived for many years believing that God will love me more if I did X, Y, and Z. I was theologically convinced that God’s love for me depended upon my obedience. When I obeyed him I expected he would be pleased with me and bless me and when I disobeyed I expected him to be angry, displeased and in judgment of me. But you can’t fight reality, and theology will always break down when it can’t be supported by reality.

I am a fallen woman. A sinner. And so invariably I would sin, sometimes it was little sins and sometimes it was big sins, but I didn’t stop sinning after I became a Christian. What happens logically if you live under the paradigm I held, but continued to sin and thus be displeasing to God? You live under a constant battle between finding things you can do so that you can please God, so that he will love you while constantly fighting despair because you know you are consistently falling short. It is a losing battle. Even given all my outward conformity and good works, I was hopeless because I could never do enough to earn constant love from him. It is hell.

There is an important distinction here. I am not talking about classic works–righteousness. I never believed that I could actually earn my salvation. As a Calvinist I firmly believed that God’s salvation was a gracious and unmerited gift by faith alone through the finished work of Christ alone. I’ve had many theological errors but one of them was believing that I can earn more love from God by being obedient to his commands.

We all have errors in our thinking. I understand that those in teaching positions have a greater burden. What I believe Pastor Tchividjian is trying to do is remedial help for Christians like me who have spent years raking our souls over coals. My husband and I have never walked away from listening to Tchividjian thinking: “Oh good, now I can just let it all go, I don’t need to love and obey God.” It’s more like: “Wow! Lord, you really love me?” with many tears flowing.

My heart is very burdened over this. Maybe Pastor Tchividjian needs more clarity and distinction. I hear what Dr. Murray is saying as well, and I’m thinking about it. I’m grateful for open debate, done with humility and the recognition that none of us are as precise as we think we are. One thing I see in this theological debate is a head collision between the heirs of Luther and the heirs of Calvin (more on this another time). I was greatly benefited just last night from Justin Taylor’s post on the distinction between our union in Christ and communion with Christ. Finally, one of the most eye-opening and balancing sermons on the relationship between loving God and obeying him is John Piper’s If Anyone Loves Me He Will Obey My Word on John 14:15–24. I discuss some of these issues in Gospel Amnesia.

The picture I have chosen for this post is one of the Reformers in Geneva. My sincere prayer is that we can talk about these very important issues that affect our every day Christian life, but without mockery, spiritual pride or a critical spirit—holding all things with grace and humility.

 

God’s Goodness and Love, Our Doubts

Posted on by
6

Photo credit: inoc

From time to time in my spiritual journey I am afflicted with doubt concerning God’s love for me. I don’t think I’m the only one and so I decided to write a little exhortation to others who may also have similar struggles.

Every once in a while, especially when I get sick of my sinful self, I wonder. I wonder how a perfect, pure, beautiful, holy, untouchable God can stand to even be in the same room as me; a woman unworthy of his attention, his grace, and mercy. I figure if I’m sick of myself surely God must be sick of me and my parochial musings.

It’s times like these when I can tell I have forgotten to preach Jesus to myself. I see it in my pity-party, I see it in my discouragement, I see it in my turning inward upon myself—the evidences of not enough private time with Jesus.

Scripture is filled with evidences of God’s goodness and mercy toward his people, toward us:

Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:16–17

 

If you have times of doubting God’s love for you I’m not going to tell you to “stop it and think about all the things you should be grateful for.” No… I understand. But although I understand, I also want to exhort. We are Christian women, we have a sisterly duty to encourage each other to look up at Jesus; spend time meditating on Scriptures which specifically speak of his loving-kindness, compassion, and steadfastness. Rehearsing the message of the gospel in my mind, sometimes even saying it out loud to myself brings Christ and his cross work into focus. This is what the Holy Spirit uses time and again on my heart. May the Spirit minister to you in the moments you are insecure of Jesus’ love for you.

Strong Love

Posted on by
7

A couple of my kids were acting up the other day. As my frustration level started to inch up, a thought hit me: Those kids need some strong love right now. The next thought was, “what does that mean, anyway? …and besides I don’t feel very strong right now…” My little self talk continued until I looked up with tears and said, “only you can give strong love, Lord. Only you can give it to me and only you can give it to them. I can’t do this, I’m not strong enough.”

Strong love is the kind of love that can take anything you throw at it. It is trustworthy and sincere. Strong love can withstand sins great and small and come back with forgiveness and compassion. Strong love can overcome quarreling children and respond with a firm tone that conveys unconditional love and understanding. Strong love can take disappointment and turn it into an opportunity for praise. Strong love recognizes and stands against rebellion but is entreatable and is quick to forgive.

Strong love doesn’t mistake hard providence for sinful offense. Strong love can comfort a teething baby, hold up the hair of a flu-addled girl ashamed of being sick all over the floor, give full-contact attention to a left-out middle child, and remain calm in handling a rambunctious boy’s hospital-worthy injury. Strong love can handle being misunderstood and decides to cover it with grace.

Strong love is the the love the Father has for us, his sinful children. Strong love does not try to right every wrong by correcting the wrongdoer; it rights every wrong by correcting the universe. Our Father, in his strong love, can take anything we throw at him. He forgives all manner of sins, when we quarrel with each other he tells us firmly in his Word how we are to right that and then he gives us his unconditional love. Jesus doesn’t stop loving us when we let him down. He knows we are but dust, he remembers our frames and has compassion on us (Psalm 103).

Jesus’ love was strong enough to bear the fullness of my sins in his body on the tree, so that I might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds I have been healed (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus’ love was strong enough to bear my children’s sins and my husband’s sins and the sins of all those who cry out, “Lord be merciful to me, I am a sinner.” He bore them so that through his righteousness we can give those around us strong love.

Strong love is the kind of love our heavenly Father gives to us so that we may in turn strongly love our children. Sometimes when I see one of my children withering under the weight of their sin, the strongest love I can give them is to silently just hold them, tell them that no matter what they do they will never stop being my child and that I will always love them strong.

How A Husband Can Spiritually Care For His Wife

Posted on by
1

It was our fifteen year wedding anniversary yesterday (June 7th), which is a beautiful thing except that both of us forgot about it. With five children, each of which seems to be needy in one way or another, all at the same time, NOW. That, along with a heavily scheduled June, my husband’s work deadlines, and my studies and writing projects… well, it just sort of slipped our minds. Of course one of the reasons we forgot is because for months now we have been saying that the trip to Florida for The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference would also be a fifteen year anniversary trip for us, and since the trip isn’t for another couple of weeks we had sort of thought that our anniversary was still a few weeks out. Ha! We did eventually remember, which is why I am writing this while sitting next to my husband at my favorite cafe in downtown Phoenix. Yes, my husband knows he married a nerd who can sit and read and write at a cafe for hours, and he loves to meet that need of mine. More than just bringing home the bacon, a husband can bring a lot of spiritual “goods” for his wife in his role as provider.

How far does the husband’s role go as spiritual provider? There was a time when my husband and I held to a belief that Ephesians 5 meant that he alone as my earthly husband was responsible for my sanctification and my spiritual feeding. As part of this, we also understood and applied 1 Cor.14:35 woodenly in our lives, without regard for context. (“If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”)

D.A. Carson is known for reciting this lesson he learned from his father: a text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text. The way we took to understanding and applying the above verses lead us to believe that a woman could only learn from her husband, so for example, every book and article was supposed to be vetted through him. I say this for background for what I am about to say:

My husband knows now that he is not my “savior” (Jesus is), nor my “sanctifier” (the Holy Spirit is), although the Lord does indeed use our spouses as a means by which we grow in sanctification, they are not the only means, or even the principal means. Even though my husband is commanded to love me sacrificially the way Christ loves the Church, he must know that he is not, nor can he be, the only source of my spiritual growth. He must know that no matter how much he acts in sacrificial love, he can not compare to the finished work of Christ in sanctifying me (or himself). Jesus Christ is the only true source of all of our spiritual maturity. My husband no longer sees it as an undermining of his authority for me to learn from pastors, teachers, women (formally or informally), online sermons, books and so on. He has been amazingly supportive in all the different ways the Lord has been working on my heart and mind. This does not mean that he has backed off or abdicated his responsibility, though, and he sees supporting me and keeping me spiritually fed as one of his central duties in our marriage. This will look different in different marriages, because obviously not all wives or husbands are alike. He still hears and answers the call to “make [me] holy, cleansing [me] by the washing with water through the word” (Eph. 5:26), but he does not get jealous or fearful when I pick up a new book he hasn’t read (or when he sees my latest bills from wtsbooks.com or Amazon…) because he also trusts me.

So as we celebrate fifteen years of marriage, I am so grateful for my husband and all the ways he provides for us. I am looking forward to what the Lord will do in our lives in the next fifteen years, and God willing, even beyond that.

Death, At The Heart Of Service

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday, I wrote that “death was at the heart of service” and I explained a bit about what I meant by that. Today, I want to talk about the death that is at the heart of ALL Christian love and service, and that is the death that is at the heart of the gospel–Jesus’ death on the cross. Of course the cross is a shattering event, and its implications are vast and all encompassing. But here, in this little tiny post, I long for us to be reminded that at the heart of Christian love and service, is the death of Jesus Christ.

We cannot even begin to love our brethren, serve the body of Christ, care for our families or obey the great commission, if not for the cross. It is because Jesus was willing to pick up his cross and obey the Father, to lay down his life of his own accord, and to become a curse for us as they nailed him to that tree, that we have become sons and daughters who are also called to pick up our crosses and lay our lives down, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Gospel centered love and service is just that–gospel centered. What is at the heart of the gospel? The death of Jesus Christ.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Keeping Fervent Love For The Brethren

Posted on by
2

I was at the park, watching my four and half year old’s baseball practice, when I ran into a sister in Christ who used to go to my church. It was great to catch up on what the Lord had been doing in their family. As I drove home I realized that the Lord has been using all sorts of seemingly unconnected things in the last two-three days, to remind me afresh of how crucial it is to keep fervent love for the brethren as we live our lives serving Jesus.

Part of serving Jesus and keeping fervent love for the brethren comes in the form of laying our lives down for our brothers and sisters in Christ. I used to think I knew what that meant, I used to have a check-list in my head for how to serve others. Some of those ways were quite good and thoughtful, even. But at some point, in God’s grace, it dawns on us (me) that our thoughts and ideas of how to serve Jesus may not always jive with his thoughts and his ways and his ideas. This has increasingly become clearer to me over the past couple of years. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” And that is really what is at the heart of service: Death! Death to self. Death to our loves and desires. Death to our idols. Death to our self love and self pity. Death to our fears. Death to our self-focus. Death to our priorities. Death to what we think is best versus what Jesus says is best. “…Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). It’s not easy, but if the glory of Christ is our zeal, if our passion and great love is God himself, then he will give grace for the dying. He will flood the heart with the peace that surpasses understanding. (This doesn’t mean that we don’t stand up to divisive and heretical people, of course.)

Another way of keeping fervent love for the brethren and serving Jesus is to be tuned into the gifts and talents he has given and to be content in that area. Being content with how God made us and how he chooses to use us will guard against much bitterness, strife, envy, competition, hyper-sensitivity, coveting and other relationship destroying sins. Contentment is a protection from many things! James 1:16-17 says, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” We are all beloved by the Father as his children, he does NOT show partiality. When we believe this, we find so much freedom to be the women he meant for us to be. I know for me personally, as I have become more content with the gifting and calling that the Lord is leading me in, the snobbery in my heart and the looking down my nose at how other people did hospitality has been tempered also.

Thoughtfulness and the restraint of the tongue is yet another way of keeping fervent love for the brethren and serving Jesus.  James 1:26 says, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” This is huge for me because of my eager personality. I have come to see that sometimes my eagerness to help and/or serve can crush people. I don’t always understand it, or see it, but as I get older and more practiced at holding my tongue, I have started recognizing where a slip could have really bulldozed over someone. This is where a Biblical understanding of grace is SO crucial. When I grasp Biblical grace I don’t need to help, I don’t need to have my way, I don’t need to demand my “rights” and I certainly don’t need to be thinking about my identity. To paraphrase Tchividjian in Surprised by Grace and Jesus+Nothing=Everything, because Christ is strong, I am free to be weak; because Christ has won for me, I am free to lose. As my husband likes to remind me, “just do the next thing Jesus has set before you.”

Another one of those providential “things,” was a small article that Tim Challies posted on Sunday. Part of which was a quote from D.A. Carson’s The Cross and Christian Ministry. There is no question that serving Christ rightly in the local church and keeping fervent love for the brethren is paramount for unity and peace within the body.

A Theology Of Loving A Husband

Posted on by
Reply

I have been thinking through the metaphor in Ephesians about the wife being like the bride of Christ, the Church. With the exception of Titus 2:4, where we are told that Titus is to teach sound doctrine and part of what accords with sound doctrine is the older women training the younger women to “love their husbands,” wives loving husbands is not part of either the Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, or the 1 Peter 3 passages on the husband-wife relationship. I was thinking the other day that it may prove to be profitable to do with love what so many good teachers out there do with submission and respect. I want to walk through what it may look like for a wife to love her husband as the Church loves Christ. I know it’s difficult to think within that category because we’re conditioned to think of how the Church is to submit to Christ and how to obey Christ, but we don’t usually play around with the love aspect.

I believe that obedience is intrinsic to loving. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (John 14:15, 23 ESV). It’s pretty clear from the Scriptures that submission and respect to our husbands is part and parcel of our love for them. Nonetheless, I think it would be worthwhile to come at loving our husbands from a different angle than just the submission and respect perspective. So, let’s ask the question: How does or should the Church love Jesus Christ? Remember, obedience is an answer that has already been given.

How does or should a wife love her husband as the Church loves Jesus Christ? (Let’s stay gospel-centered when doing this exercise: husbands are not Christ, they don’t save us nor do they sanctify us (although they are a means of sanctification that the Lord uses), they are fallen men just like we are fallen women. We are heirs together of the grace of life, 1 Peter 3:7.) Here are some of my thoughts:

  • Love and serve our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
  • Be women of the Word
  • Speak the Word to our husbands
  • Be faithful
  • Be trustworthy
  • Let the teaching of kindness be on our tongues
  • Have conversations
  • Listen to him when he wants to talk
  • Cultivate a soft and tender heart
  • Cultivate a humble spirit
  • Feed the family
  • Be faithful in our duties to the home and/or work
  • Be hospitable without grumbling
  • Care for the children (if there are children)
  • Care for our bodies
  • Be modest in word and in deed
  • Cultivate a spiritual and an outward beauty in line with a God-fearing woman
  • Seek to do him good and not evil all the days of our life
  • Be strong and courageous
  • Cultivate contentment
  • Cultivate a teachable spirit
  • Be merciful when he falls short
  • Remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive
  • Be peaceable
  • Be entreat-able

We will all fall short in our love for our husbands, but praise be to God that there is One who loves perfectly, because he is a perfect husband to us all.