Celebration of Eros:
A high
and essential Christian Love
Of the four
loves Which love is best?
Many look at
Agape as high love and Eros as low or even harmful. But the Bible teaches that
Eros is GOD’S
INVENTION. He designed it to be a
wonderful and holy form of love. In some
ways it is far more holy and special than Agape can be. You can agape anyone but only in the most
special relationship on earth is Eros permitted.
Now let me clarify up front that Eros is not animal fleshly raw sex. It is Romantic Spiritual Oneness which is consummated and consecrated with passionate sexual intercourse. Even the word intercourse shows union of two people.
Which form of love should a
Bride and groom seek to have?
All are important. Each is Biblical. Each is a form of love that God designed for
a purpose.
But while all are important
it is tragic that today so much emphasis is put on EROS so that for many people
this the most frail form of love is all they ever have.
The media has helped Americans to be people obsessed with Eros,
romance. That is what many Americans is
the motive to get married and also the reason to get divorced. "I just don't love her any
more."
Eros is
not just passion. It is all the unique
relationship a husband is to have with a wife.
That is best understood by the Biblical verse.
EROS is ROMANCE
Romance
is the feeling that we will die without the other person. It is exclusive love that needs to posess and be possessed
by the other person. Eros in full bloom is perfectly content to
spend the next 50 years just looking into His/Her eyes. It is the romance that causes the bride or
groom to think of nothing but his/her beloved.
Writing it in notebooks, carving it on trees. Eros is the feeling that you are incomplete
without the beloved. Even the
Philosopher Plato in his book on marriage wrote that every person is only 1/2
of a person and Romance is seeking the other 1/2 that will make them whole.
Many people would call that
need, that desire, that obsession a sinful or at least improper love. But it is
God who has made the oneness of a man and a woman possible. It is He who made
man to desire woman and woman to desire man.
He created the union of marriage to be physical and spiritual and soul,
(mind – will – emotion).
Romance
is dangerous: Like fire romance is both
wonderful in its right place and deadly in the wrong place or out of control. Fire is wonderful. It keeps my house warm and gets me from place
to place in my internal combustion engine driven car. But if the fire is in the gas tank instead of
the engine or the bedroom instead of the furnace fire can be deadly.
Romance is like superglue. If you have decided where you want an item on
your kitchen counter and you wanted it their permanantly you could super glue
it. But if you had to remove it you
would likely destroy the item and the counter.
Eros
Our society is so focused on
it.
There are sooo many songs
movies books written on this subject,
It is constantly the most
talked about and perhaps thought about area of life for everyone over 12. Unfortunately that age is getting younger and
younger. As an aside it is a loss of
innocence. A shortening of childhood.
But
the point of the sermon today is looking at God’s Word about Romance Eros
I
read a survey about where people learned about sex
They were in this order media friends school home
and last CHURCH
What is wrong with that fact?
Well God invented Sex.
It is like learning about
your Ford Mustang by hearing things said about it in Popular Mechanics Better Home and Gardens 60 minutes Friends
If you wanted to know the
real facts listen to Ford.
Understand that since God
invented it He probably had a purpose in it.
He might have even made some rules concerning it.
The other reason it is
important to deal with this is the fact that it is so impactful in a person’s
life.
One sex act can bring a child
into the earth.
It can also end a
marriage.
Or change a young person’s
life direction.
It is also hugely impactful
on a person’s relationship with God.
I do not want to focus primarily on the dangers of Eros misused
because that misses the point. Eros used
properly is one of the great blessings in life.
God designed romance!
Romance
is that feeling of obsession with the person you love.
That
desire for your beloved.
That
concern about your beloved.
Your
need of them and that desire to become one with them. To be absorbed into them.
That
total Eros which includes both Romance and the physical expression of that is
God designed.
Eros
neither is not just physical or just emotional or just mental nor just will
(commitment), it is spiritual as well.
That being the case a lost
person can never really be romantic because the spiritual is not present in
their lives.
As I mentioned this is the
most written about subject on earth and what I want to do is read a large
number of quotes and sometimes give a comment about those quotes. Sometimes I agree with them and sometimes I
don’t. It is not important whether I
agree with them but rather what Does God and His word say about that.
Genesis 2:18-25 (NAB)
The LORD God said: "It is not good for
the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him." [19] So the
LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the
air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever
the man called each of them would be its name. [20] The man gave names to all
the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved
to be the suitable partner for the man.
[21] So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on
the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its
place with flesh. [22] The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he
had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, [23] the man said:
"This one, at last, is bone of my
bones
And flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called 'woman,'
for out of 'her man' this one has been
taken."
[24] That is why a man leaves his
father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
[25] The man and his wife were both naked,
yet they felt no shame.
Understand that God created
man and put him in the garden alone and then gave him the animals. It is a humorous scene.
God creates a worm and hands
it to Adam and Adam tries to play with the worm and says to God, no this does not
help in my loneliness.
Then
God gives him a frog; a squirrel; a dog, (which at least can chase a stick),
but none of that fills that empty spot.
Then
God creates woman and the man says
“whoa, man, what a creature you
have made God” He built man with a natural need for woman and a natural
emptiness without her.
Notice the emptiness was there before God took the rib. Don’t think that man was ok till God took his
rib and now the emptiness is a need to get the rib back. No the need proceeded the deribbing that Adam
had.
Notice
God designed the sexes.
He
made them different.
God
did make woman out of man which means that they were essentially one before the
separation.
Their
yearning is to be one again.
They
are made on in marriage.
They
leave their old lives to become one. (Nothing is more important than the
marriage except God}!
In
marriage there is intimacy, nakedness and openness is essential in marriage and
shameful outside of marriage.
Other
places show that Noah’s sons seeing him naked was shameful.
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such
a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them
by what is deepest in them.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(1881–1955)
1 Cor
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself
with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will
become one flesh."
17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is
one with him in spirit.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a
man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own
body.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not
your own;
20
you were bought
at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
God took Eve from the rib
of the man and said that the man would leave his family and she would leave her
family and the two would become one flesh.
Ge.2:23 ¶ The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called
'woman,' for she was taken out of man."Ge.2:24 For this reason a man will
leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one
flesh.
This exclusive love, this
two becoming one is EROS, ROMANCE.
The Bible is full of
romance. Just a few examples include:
Ge.29:20 So Jacob served
seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because
of his love for her.
Pr.5:18 May your fountain be
blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. Pr.5:19 A loving doe, a
graceful deer-- may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated
by her love.
Song.8:7 Many waters cannot
quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
c. The primary
purpose of sex, three competing world views.
Mk.10:7 For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
1 Cor
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself
with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will
become one flesh."
17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is
one with him in spirit.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a
man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own
body.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not
your own;
you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your body.
Sex unites two people and that is one of the reasons
sex outside or marriage.
Both
premarital and extramarital sex is so evil
1 Cor. 6:15-7:5 (NAB)
Do you not know that your bodies are
members of Christ? Shall I then take Christ's members and make them the members
of a prostitute? Of course not! [16] (Or) do you not know that anyone who joins
himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For "the two," it
says, "will become one flesh."
Notice
that it says that even sex with a hooker makes you one with her. Just burn these words in your soul, “THE
EFFECTS OF SEX LAST FOREVER!”
If you are tempted in any way to
act immorally just remember that it lasts forever!
So many people think of sex as
simply recreational and inconsequential. God teaches that it is Holy and Hugely
Important.
[17] But whoever is joined to the
Lord becomes one spirit with him.
Remember
one other sentence “Sex is not just physical it is SPIRITUAL”
[18] Avoid immorality. Every
other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins
against his own body. [19] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the
holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
[20] For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body.
Notice unholy
sex is against your body and will harm you physically as well as spiritually!
[7:1] Now in regard to the matters about
which you wrote: "It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman,"
[2] but because of cases of immorality every man should have his own wife, and
every woman her own husband.
Possessiveness
is positive.
Jealousy
is good!
It
shows protection and value.
Both
the husband and the wife should be protective of the marriage.
[3] The husband should fulfill
his duty toward his wife, and likewise the wife toward her husband. [4] A wife
does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and
similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his
wife. [5] Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a
time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may
not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
Lack
of intimacy is sinful and ruins many marriages.
You should have intimate relationships when you feel like it because it
would be horrible to destroy that positive emotion. You should have intimate relationships when
you don’t feel like it because it is more important to glue the marriage
together in those times; and it is an opportunity to show love by meeting the
other persons needs focusing completely on the desires of your beloved.
In a wedding the groom and the bride have asked
the other to shut off every other male / female in the world and have pledged
to be the one to meet the other person’s needs.
Completely, absolutely. That
promise, vow, was made to the beloved in a sacred ceremony in the presence of
God.
That goes back to the Core principle “ITS
NOT JUST PHYSICAL” If you look at it as
just a physical act just recreation then it is optional; but if it is as
Scripture teaches essential for the oneness of marriage then lack of all expressions of intimacy are
sinful.
So it can be a sin not to hold hands not
to hug etc.
Sex is a very holy subject. Geddes MacGregor (1909-
Love is …the gift of oneself. Jean
Anouilh 1910-
Understand this …
Embrace this …
See yourself giving yourself to your spouse!
You almost have to have one of those days when you
just feel like being alone in order to know the joy of giving yourself
altruistically for your beloved’s good.
Malachi 2: 14 . . . the
LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because
you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your
marriage covenant.
15Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit
they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring.£ so guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break
faith with the wife of your youth.
16“I
hate divorce,” says the LORD God of
There is a tendency to think of sex as something degrading; it is not,
it is magnificent, an enormous privilege, but because of that the rules are
tremendously strict and severe. Francis
Devas}
Mark 10:9 (NAB) Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate."
Genesis
That
is your duty men . . . clinging!
Notice you are to cling to your wife thus
there is no room for clinging anywhere else.
Clinging implies consistency and holding tightly.
Proverbs
5:15-22 (NAB)
Drink water from your own cistern, running
water from your own well. [16] How may your water sources be dispersed abroad,
streams of water in the streets? [17]
Let your fountain be yours alone, not one shared with strangers; [18] and have
joy of the wife of your youth, [19] your lovely hind, your graceful doe. Her
love will invigorate you always, through her love you will flourish
continually, [
[20] Why then, my son, should you go astray
for another's wife and accept the embraces of an adulteress?
[21] For each man's ways are plain to the
LORD'S sight; all their paths he surveys;
[22] By his own iniquities the wicked man
will be caught, in the meshes of his own sin he will be held fast;
There is no getting away from
it: the old Christian rule is "Either marriage, with complete faithfulness
to your partner, or else total abstinence." C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)}
What then is the place and purpose of sex? God intends, as the story of
Eve's creation from Adam shows, that the "one flesh" experience
should be an expression and a heightening of the partner's sense that, being
given to each other, they now belong together, each needing the other for
completion and wholeness.
Children are born from their relationship,
but this is secondary: what is basic is the enriching of their relationship
itself through their repeated "knowing" of each other as persons who
belong to each other exclusively and without reserve. J. I. Packer (1926- )
Eccles. 9:9
(NAB) Enjoy life with the wife whom
you love, all the days of the fleeting life that is granted you under the sun.
This is your lot in life, for the toil of your labors under the sun.
You are morally obligated to
enjoy life. Not endure.
Immature
love says: “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says: “I need you because I love you.” Erich Fromm (1900–1980) THE ART OF LOVING
This statement is mostly Wrong. “Lust calls need love but it is not really love at all.”
Love does need the person because you have become one and the other
half of you is your beloved.
Love is
like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often
hot and fierce but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our
hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. Bruce Lee
This is wrong. It implies that the flame of romance should
be expected to dwindle when time goes on. It should not. Cars wear out marriages deepen. God teaches clearly that marriage is a
lifelong commitment. And a lifetime gift
to us from God.
Ephes.
Ephes.
5:33 (NAB) In any case, each one of
you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.
Proverbs
31:11 (NAB) Her husband, entrusting
his heart to her, has an
unfailing prize.
Candy Bar
Analogy {Why sex outside of marriage is
so damaging}
Two candy Bars girls are white chocolate and guys are
brown.
Sex unites the two people.
If you melt the two together
to make a wonderful two layer candybar and then decide to separate them, you
take a sharp knife and cut between them and carefully get two separate candy
bars again. Problem is that you leave
some of the white on the brown and some of the brown on the white. In other words you carry with you not only
the sexual history of diseases of every person that person ever slept with but
also you carry with you a soul memory of the other person.
It is common for people to
feel a loss of self after a number of affairs.
And they carry the memory of each of the other people into their
eventual marriage.
Since no person is perfect if
you both have had a number of sexual relationships before marriage odds are the
person who is the complete package best choice will not be the best at every
area of life. People often chose a
spouse for stability and a date for excitement. So do you want your spouse to
be haunted {presuming they don’t want to be thinking of past dates when making
love to spouse} by memories of how good a kisser George was or the size of (never mind)
"you'll blush and they will laugh at this point but it will make
them really think."
In other words since marriage
is so hard anyway in todays world and 50% end in divorce and since divorce is so hard on parents and
kids a like, and since a good
marriage carries a benefit for 40 years is it too much to decide to wait until
marriage, You pay too high a price
otherwise.
There are like 200 sexually
transmitted diseases and 1/2 of them are incurable. And it only takes one time to get one. And they might not know they have it.
God’s Commands to the Husband
God’s Commands to Husband and Wife
If you ask the average woman
what 3 words she would most want to hear from her husband it is almost
universally “I love you”, but if you ask a man the same question he really
prefers, “Wow your great”. Interestingly
God never tells the wife to love her husband! But the Bible is consistant it
tells the husband to love his wife and the wife to honor her husband. That does
not mean that women are inferior to men.
Nor does it mean that men are weak with insecurities. It is that God has built within a need to be
their wives hero and a need for the wife to have someone she can look up to.
3
Views of Sex
Traditional Catholic
sex is for procreation
World’s
view sex is for recreation
Bibles
view sex is for unification
The Bible describes sex as two people
becoming one flesh.
“And so and so knew so and so
The Bible condemns the act of joining
yourself to a prostitute. Thus even “casual
sex” in God’s eyes joins you to the other person.
Now if sex is procreation it is wrong
any time except for that purpose. And I guess
if you use protection, sex outside of marriage is not real sex.
If it is recreation there is no real
intrinsic reason to avoid sex with a stranger.
If it is going to be fun, recreational and it will not cause more pain,
perhaps relationally, then adultery, fornication, would be OK.
If however it unifies people. If I were to be unfaithful to keyna I would
loose some of myself and bring someone else into our relationship,
The Bible teaches that is a permanant
change, not something that can be ignored or forgotten in a short time.
This concept transforms the sexual act
into communion rather than just a pleasurable exercise. Intimacy.
A man's home is his castle. A wife is a queen. The home should be a place of total
acceptance. A place where you are built
up and not torn down.
How many of the homes do you know that
have real acceptance and building up of the other person?
In marriage you are turning away from
every other person of the opposite sex who could have met your needs and
entrusting your wellbeing to your spouse.
That means you then have your loves heart in your hand. If they need to talk you have promised to do
that. If they need comfort you have
promised to do that. If they need sex
you have promised to give them that gift.
If they need encouragement, correction,
a place to cry, a person to celebrate with, you are making that
commitment. You are making the
committment to be their other half.
For Christians you take on the role as
the chief minister to that other person.
Closer than children. Closer than parents. Leave your home and cleave to spouse. Those are prerequsites. Inlaws, parents are a distant third.
God's design for priorities.
1.
Your relationship with GOD.
2.
Your relationship with your spouse.
3.
Your relationship with your children.
4.
Your relationship with your parents.
The Tragedy of Premaritial Sex
Marriage is
Col. 3:18-19 (NAB)
Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as
is proper in the Lord. [19] Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness
toward them.
An
honoring of a commitment.
Ephes.
Notice it does not say feel love. Love is a choice and an action.
Genesis 2:18-24 The LORD God said: "It is not good for
the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him." 21So the LORD God cast a deep
sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh. 22The LORD God then built up into a
woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, 23the
man said: "This one, at last, is
bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been
taken." 24That is why a
man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them
become one body.
From this we learn that the main reason woman was given to
man was to keep us from being alone. To
bind us to another. For in that binding
we are helped picked up when we fall, taught great lessons, and do our prime
living.
Song.8:7 Many waters cannot
quench love; rivers cannot wash it
away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it [d] would be utterly scorned.
UNITY ONENESS
It is
found in talking sharing dreams raising
children together facing problems together
hugging crying laughing toether
vacations together work
together
It is sharing
from the heart in ways you do not share with anyone else.
That
sharing is jealous, posessive, belonging to one another.
It
includes enjoying love together.
Proverbs 5:18-19 And have joy
of the wife of your youth, 19your lovely hind, your graceful doe.
Her love will invigorate you always, through her love you will flourish
continually, [
Eccles. 9:9 Enjoy life with
the wife whom you love, all the days of the fleeting life that is granted you
under the sun. This is your lot in life, for the toil of your labors under the
sun.
There will be challenges
And
they lived happily ever after is one of the most tragic sentences in
literature. It is tragic because it tells a falsehood about life and has led
countless generations of people to expect something from human existence that
is not possible on this fragile, failing, imperfect earth. Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948)
Be to her virtues very kind; Be to her faults a little blind. Matthew Prior (1664-1721)
Too many people think
marriage should be fun, or fulfilling, or entertaining. Then they get married and find out it's not
always like that. So they keep searching
and find even more frustration with another marriage partner.
As I read Scripture, I don't see teachings on
happiness as a first principle. Joy, yes
- the kind of joy that flows from obedience, from service, from glimpses of the
holy. God wants us to do that which
glorifies him - to be faithful, to keep his commandments, to seek first his
Kingdom.
Selfishness in
Marriage commitment
demands that you be willing to die for your spouse. And then you go about daily living for
them.
An article in National Geographic several
years ago provided a penetrating picture of God's love. After a forest fire in
One ranger found a bird literally petrified in
ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he
knocked over the bird with am stick.
When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried
from under their dead mother's wings.
The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her
offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings,
instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise. She could have flown to
safety but had refused to abandon her babies.
When the blaze arrived and the heat had singed her small body, the
mother had remained steadfast.
She had been willing to die so those under the
cover of her wings would live.
Do you love your family
like that? Realize that God does love
you like that. Be aware of God's loving wings over you.
"He will cover you with his feathers, and
under his wings you will find refuge...." Psalm 91:4
Struggles Sins and Forgivness
The key to a healthy marriage is to keep your
eyes wide open before you wed...and half
closed thereafter." (Love is For a
Lifetime, by James Dobson)
I have done thousands of
hours of marriage counseling, and
yet, I have never seen two unselfish people ever get a divorce. I never have had anyone rush into my office
and say, "I want out of this marriage.
My spouse has been too good and too nice to me." R.E. Phillips
Often the difference
between a successful marriage and a
mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid. Harlan Miller
To keep your marriage brimming, with love in
the loving cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it, whenever you're right, shut
up.
Divorce
Luke
Proverbs
REVERSE REASONING
Many
couples are united in wedlock in a rosy fog of optimism. Blinded to the
shortcomings, each sees only the other's good points. But as the excitement of the new marriage
wears off, they drift to the opposite extreme and view these same traits as
faults. Someone has called this
"reverse reasoning," giving the following examples: "She married
him because he was 'strong and masculine'; she divorced him because he was a
very 'dominating male.' He married her
because she was so 'fragile and petite'; he divorced her because she was so
'weak and helpless.' She chose him
because 'he knew how to provide a good living'; she left him because 'all he
thought about was the business.' He
married her because she was 'steady and sensible'; he divorced her because she
was 'boring and dull.'"
Leadership magazine carried a short item sent
in by Cathern Paxton that illustrates
the importance of letting God be
uppermost in the marital relationship.
She wrote, "A braid appears
to contain only two strands of hair. But
it is impossible to create a braid with
only two strands. If the two could be
put together at all, they would quickly unravel. Herein
lies the mystery: What looks like
two strands requires a third. The third
strand, though not immediately evident, keeps the strand tightly woven." Then Paxton concluded, "In a
Christian marriage, God's presence, like
the third strand in a braid, holds
husband and wife together."
Right now theres another
important application for this message.
Suppose someone proposed
to you and you told them no. Over and
over they proposed and you always said not now, maybe later.
Supose even worse you
began telling people that you were married to them, you began to wear their
last name and make deductions from their bank account as if they were indeed
your husband / wife. That is how many people
have treated God.
He has proposed to
you. He wants us to become his bride,
his beloved. The proposal has been made
but we must decide whether we will accept
that proposal or not.
Proverbs
This forsaking is not just
divorce but the failure to be one. You can forsake the companion of your youth
while occupying the same house. You have to be there for them. The only person who can be there for them. Because only you are their other half. Understand the position it puts you in. If you don’t meet their needs no one else can
possibly do that in God’s design. If
they end up looking to others for the support and affection you neglect they
bring ruin upon themselves and thus upon you for you are “One Flesh”.
The failure of romance is
the home is a breaking of vows to God.
Notice another aspect of
this is companionship.
A marriage that includes
doing things together.
But what
if we don’t like doing the same things?
Both of you need to change to enjoy couple activities.
A successful marriage demands a divorce; a divorce
from your own self-love. Paul Frost
(1938– )
You have to give yourself to
your beloved and reserve nothing separate.
No separate identity no separate money no separate.
How can you separate one. Only by cutting it in half. Remember the two women who brought a baby to
Solomon claiming that the baby was theirs.
He ordered the baby cut in half and the parts given to the two
mothers. The true mother was the one who
gave the baby up. The true mother was
willing to sacrifice for the good of the baby.
And you can’t divide one baby without killing it.
According to the Bible a
couple is two people becoming one new person the separate people are gone (thus
the blown out candles) and there is one new person. To divide it in two is to kill them.
Anyone who has seen a divorce
even from a distance can testify that divorce is a kind of death and the people
affected it is cut apart.
A
successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day. André Maurois (1885–1967)
Love is
a gift from God. Love is a great
beautifier.
Love is
an action, an activity. It is not a feeling.
M. Scott Peck (1936– )
Love is
not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained. C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
Success in marriage is more than
finding the right person: it is being the right person. Robert Browning (1812–1889)
Successful
marriage is always a triangle: a man, a woman, and God. Cecil Myers
My
wife and I have a saying on the inside of our wedding ring that says
3+2=1. Which stands for the Trinity plus
the couple makes one new identity. God
has to be a part of the new marriage for it to really succeed.
The
Christian is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest
neighbor, she should be his deepest love.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
To marry a woman for her
beauty is like buying a house for its paint.
Try
praising your wife even if it does frighten her at first. Billy Sunday (1862–1935)
In real love you want the other
person's good. In romantic love you want the other person. Margaret Anderson (1893-1973)}
That is very true in what
was said but it is wrong in what I think was her unsaid propositions.
She is correct that in
romance you want the other person. You
possess each other.
She is wrong in that she
seems to be implying that possessing your beloved is a bad thing. She is also wrong in that she is probably
implying that real love is good and romance is bad. Wrong.
Agape is great in general
but should that be all you have with your spouse? Would you wife/husband like it if you loved
them just as much as you loved everyone else.
There is no specialness on
oneness in Agape.
Romance is different from
Agape for it can only be found in marriage but it is a holy special set apart
kind of love. You can only have Eros
with one person and it is to bind you closer to that one person than you can
ever be to anyone else on earth.
Eros was God’s design and
is not in any way a lower kind of love.
It is precious holy sacred powerful and absolutely essential for a
marriage a family a nation and a world.
Never downplay romance and
never take it for granted.
A wise lover values not so
much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver. Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471)
Alas, oh, love is dead! How
could it perish thus? No one has cared
for it: It simply died of frost. Angelus
Silesius (1624–1677)
Many
people say, “We just don’t love each other any more.” As if love just happens to you. Love is a choice. If you say you don’t love each other any more
it is because you are sinning against God.
For you made a commitment to love each other, “until death do us part.”
Love does not consist in
gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. Antoine
de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944)
Again there is truth to
Antoines statement but also an error. While marriage does make you stronger
together so that you can reach out and accomplish more than you could do
singularly it also takes that time gazing at one another keeping the union
strong.
God Hates Divorce
Sacred Vow Divorce never happens if Both people are
yielding to God's Will
Malachi 2:14 And you say,
"Why is it?"--Because the LORD is witness between you and the wife of
your youth, With whom you have broken
faith though she is your companion, your betrothed wife.
Mark 10:9 Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must
separate."
Romans 7:2 Thus a married
woman is bound by law to her living husband; but if her husband dies, she is
released from the law in respect to her husband.
1 Cor. 7:10-13 To the
married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): a wife should
not separate from her husband 11--and if she does separate she must
either remain single or become reconciled to her husband--and a husband should
not divorce his wife. 12To
the rest I say (not the Lord): if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever,
and she is willing to go on living with him, he should not divorce her; 13and
if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he is willing to go on
living with her, she should not divorce her husband.
God’s Role
Ephes. 5:22-33 (NAB)
Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. [23] For the
husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself
the savior of the body. [24] As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives
should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. [25] Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her [26] to
sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, [27] that he
might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [28] So (also) husbands
should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves
himself. [29] For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes
it, even as Christ does the church, [30] because we are members of his body.
[31] "For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and
be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
[32] This is a great
mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. [33] In any case,
each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect
her husband.
1 Peter 3:7 (NAB)
Likewise,
you husbands should live with your wives in understanding, showing honor to the
weaker female sex, since we are joint heirs of the gift of life, so that your
prayers may not be hindered.
I love you, not because you're perfect, but because you're so perfect for
me.
Such nonsense Dangerous WHY?
Because if later you determine that you were not the same not compatible
then you have reason for divorce.
Same as the soul mate garbage.