We love because he first loved us.  1 John 4:19

If you’re married, are you getting what you want and need from your relationship?  Single and want to be married?  People couple-up for many reasons, including companionship, someone to share long nights and difficult seasons with.  But there’s one thing that marriage or a love-relationship won’t ever do for you and that’s complete or fulfill you.

The Bible says that without love in the first place, we simply aren’t equipped to start in on loving others.  “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).  A sense of God’s intimate love and awareness of who He says I am, is the foundation for the relationships God created us to have.

“No marriage,” writes Tim Keller, “can ultimately give us what we most desire and truly need…even Christians married to Christians will do a terrible job of conducting their marriage if they lack a love relationship with Christ… If we don’t have that, married people will put too much pressure on their marriage to fulfill them and that will always create pathology in their life.”[1] Keller calls this an idolatry that singles can fall prey too as well.

Are you feeling lonely or discontented with your marriage today?  If so, spend some time with the one who says to you, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

 

Resource Reading:  1 John 4:7-12

[1] Keller, T., & Keller, K. (2016). In The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (pp. 227–227). essay, Penguin Books.