Character in Marriage: LOVE
Last week, we began a discussion on what Character in a Marriage looks like. We said that while character refers to personality traits that make you who you are, Christian Character is different.
Every time I refer to character from this point onwards, know that I am actually referring to Christian character. To refresh our memory, Christian Character is who we are because of our relationship with Christ. As a result, everything we do as christians mirrors or should mirror our relationship with Him. It means our character is now shaped by Christ. We also said that before we came to Christ, we might have said regarding our character traits that, “it was who we were”. We however saw that those traits are actually works of the flesh. These were simply our carnal desires which we yielded to convinced it could not be changed.
[19] When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, [20] idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, [21] envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God
Galatians 5:19-21 NLT
However after we got born-again, we realized we could do better and began to do so with the help of the Holy Spirit; and as we did our character began to mirror Christ.
Under pressure though, the old you might still try to make an appearance and you may have noticed this in marriage. Something happens that makes you angry and before you know it you are behaving like you used to. So what happened? Character doesn't change just because you became a Christian and unless you work on yourself, you will be no different from who you were before you became a Christian. If you used to swear and shout whenever you got angry, you probably still do unless you consciously use the Word of God to change who you are. That explains why there are Christians who only behave like Christians in church but everywhere else, they are not nice people at all. Nothing about them mirrors Christ; not one thing!
Before I got born-again, I had a temper and I was quite proud of it! My siblings, especially my twin brother, knew to avoid me when I got angry. I injured him a few times and was always quite pleased with myself. (Please don't even ask me why because I don't know either….). When I got born-again, I realized I needed to rein in my temper but it didn't happen automatically. Whenever situations that were prone to making me blow a fuse showed up, I would consciously calm down and would begin to speak to myself reminding myself that I was now a new creation. I couldn't tell whether it was working but apparently others could see the difference.
So we are going to go through the Fruit of the Spirit which are the character traits that a child of God should have.
[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law
Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV
The first trait is LOVE.
We want to be loved, treasured and adored; women want this and men want it too. The need to be loved is so deeply ingrained in us and that even pets respond to love. Once they know they are loved, they will protect and stand by their owner but back to humans. We all want to be loved. We all want to experience that intense and deep affection for another but more than that, we all want another to have an intense and deep affection for us.
That was what you felt for your partner before you became an item and decided to get married. You were madly in love with them. There was an attraction and intense feelings for that person. You could not get enough of them whenever you were in their presence and you always looked forward to seeing them again whenever they were away. Whenever you were together, you would lose track of time because there was no other place you would rather be. However, after you got married and some time passed, you might have noticed that your feelings for them were not as intense and deep as it was in the beginning. Maybe they don't look quite like they did in the beginning and now you are not so attracted to them. Your sex-life might even be non-existent and you are wondering how and if you can stay like this for life.
A mistake many couples make is that they think that once you fall in love and marry the one you love, you will always feel the way you felt in the beginning without any effort. They think the feeling will remain and that nothing can change it. The ladies expect to be courted and cherished while the guys expect their loved one to hang on to their every word forever; then they get married and life begins to happen. Suddenly, work, household chores, money, babies, school, church, extended family, bills, debts and many more begin to chip away at their forever romance and before they know it, they have drifted. Now, they suddenly realize they don't agree with each other on everything and even worse they now argue.
It is at this point that character flaws begin to show up. Things you thought you had dealt with now begin to show up. You find you get irritated easily, you are always impatient, angry and snap at everyone including the children. Now you worry about money, the future and many things now appear uncertain. So, is it possible to still love your spouse even as life happens? The answer is Yes, it is possible but you must introduce another kind of love to the mix.
The love I am talking about is Agape Love. It is the God-kind of love and is the love God has for us. That love was what moved God to give his only begotten son to save humanity! It is a sacrificial and unconditional love that puts others first and believes the best and let me tell you, for your love to deepen, grow and be meaningful; you need to add Agape love to it.
You need to learn to love your spouse unconditionally and sacrificially. You need to learn to put them first, believe the best about them and always have their back. Instead of your relationship being about all you are not getting from your spouse, it now needs to be about all you can give to your spouse. Things like understanding, support, space, care, concern, empathy, kindness and patience. And if you are thinking, “Wait, I'm the one who feels abandoned and unloved. Why should I be giving her or him those things….”, just listen first.
[4] Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud [5] or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. [6] It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. [7] Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT
Does this describe you? Are you patient and kind to your spouse or are you always impatient, arrogant or downright rude? Are you that partner that delights in saying, “I told you didn't I? You never listen”. Are you that spouse who has absolutely no confidence in your spouse and lets them know it?
If you continue this way, you will remain unfulfilled, unhappy and have nothing to look forward to. You might even begin to consider calling it quits. Learning to love your spouse unconditionally is one of the first things you need to learn to do, and if your relationship has broken down to the point where there is no trust; you must build up that trust afresh in love.
We will continue from here next week ❤️.
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