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Weekly Devotional
SACRED ROMANCE
Text: Matthew 5:27-32
RADICAL DISCIPLES commit to love God with all our hearts, and to love one another. All of our relationships are important to God. He commands us, “Love one another!” Go to each other and resolve conflict. Do not allow bitterness, anger or hatred to pollute your hearts. To help us achieve this kind of love, God gives us everything we need to work through every conflict and every misunderstanding through His Word, His grace, and His power.
It’s not easy…It’s actually very hard work. Sometimes it gets so hard, we are tempted to give up. We break off relationships with our friends, we leave our churches, or we walk out of our marriages.
The tragedy of walking away from marriage is that God intends the relationship between a husband and a wife to be the most intimate of all human relationships, to exhibit the oneness of body, mind, and spirit that is at the center of the sacred romance that God desires with his Church.
God chose the metaphors of Bride and Bridegroom to describe how deeply he loves us. Like a bridegroom, God woos us, loves us, and commits himself to us. God takes us into his bridal chamber where he opens his hearts to us. A bride is more than an occasional date, more than a girlfriend. A bride is chosen, cherished, and cared for ‘til death do us part. God wants his bride to be at his side, to know him intimately, and to be his partner in mission.
The marriage relationship not only has the potential of reflecting God’s love for his Bride, but also provides a safe haven for the partners to get healed, to be set free, and to become all that God intends them to be. All this would be impossible, of course if we don’t commit ourselves to the marriage covenant, or if God didn’t commit himself to the covenant as well.
Christian marriages that demonstrate faithfulness, fidelity, enduring love are radical. They show the world what a relationship with God looks like. Radical disciples commit to make the sacrifices necessary to persevere when the going gets tough and relationships start to fray.
There are those of you who are married and you are experiencing hell on earth. Obviously God did not intend marriage to cover up physical abuse or excuse chronic infidelity. But when our marriages fail, and so many do, God’s heart breaks. God knows the pain, the suffering that results. Thankfully God’s grace covers our failures. Divorce is not an unforgiveable sin. God is a God of second chances.
The awesome reward of faithfulness to our marriage covenant is that God works in it to make our relationships with each other richer and to enable us to experience the love of our heavenly Bridegroom in a deep and profound way.
Now that’s RADICAL!