Love One Another

Devotional Meditations for Newly-Weds

Peter J. Blackburn

© Peter J Blackburn 1992, 2013

To

Paul and Keri,

John and Tracy,

Ruth and Tony

Rachel and Travis

A number of years ago a popular song writer told us

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of

More recently a new breed of love-song has emerged asking to be released because love has now gone. People feel drawn into relationships but have difficulty making and keeping life-long commitments.

It’s not how it should be at all. And it is destructive of these people themselves, of their children and of society itself.

A big part of the problem is the neglect or rejection of our relationship with God. One way of describing us is to say that we are body, mind and spirit. So many couples are beginning their relationship with the body – with sexual activity. As a result they develop poorly the relationship of minds – in conversation and shared interests. And they neglect the bonding of spirits – two people living together within the loving care of God.

It should really begin the other way around. The discovery of spiritual affinity and a shared faith in God joined with outings and activities together and opportunities for lots of talk about values, ideas, hopes and dreams – these are the foundations that courtship and engagement are all about. To skip all that and start living together before the public commitment of marriage brings weakness, not strength.

We bring to marriage, not only our love and the commitment we have made, but also our points of weakness, our failures. Together we need the presence and loving help of God – the ability to forgive, the willingness to give (and to give in!). A good marriage needs to include a strong mixture of faith, love – and hard work!

And marriage and home are not meant to be a retreat into ourselves. They become the nurture base for children and family. They are to be a strong unit that can reach out in hospitality and care to others too.

These readings and thoughts and poems have been brought together with a desire to encourage you to make your marriage a partnership with God. From the beginning of your marriage, learn to read the Bible together, to share and talk and pray about your lives, your needs, your problems. To do this on your honeymoon is to begin something that will be of immense value throughout your life.

God loves you! He means your life together to be rich and fulfilling!

Made like God

Reading: Genesis 1.26-31

“So God created human beingsmaking them to be like himself...male and female...“

This world is not the product of freakish chance. It is the Creator’s design. The things we see and hear declare it. The principles that science and technology use to give us motor cars, televisions and computers assume design and consistent law. God made it all!

But God was not satisfied to produce day and night, dry land and water, plants and animals. God wanted people – people made in his image, made capable of appreciating form and beauty. Made like God, they would recognise the mind and character of God in what he had made. Made like God, they would be able to choose to love and worship him.

He made them male and female. God is not a man – nor is he a woman! But he is love! And, in making us, he made a need for love, a need for one another. In a real sense, we express his oneness in our togetherness.

Our loving flows from his Love. Our loving achieves its deepest meaning as we respond together to his Love.

Creative Love,

who flung

each distant galaxy and star,

studding the sky with light,

who shaped the Milky Way,

and formed our Sun,

who sent the planets

orbiting through space –

we worship you!

Creative Love,

who made this special place

of blue and green,

of red and gold,

and every other hue,

the heaving seas

and mountains grand,

the air we breathe,

who formed the grass,

the flower,

the tree,

who sent fish swimming,

birds flying and singing,

animals running and jumping –

we worship you!

Loving Lord,

you made us,

and gave us this world

to be our home.

We worship you!

Complete Together!

Reading: Genesis 2.18-25

“It is not good for the man to live alone...”

God created humankind – “Adam” the man made of “adamah” the soil. There was only one, a complete creature – but alone and lonely, no companion with whom to share the life of the Garden.

Who can be a suitable helper, a true companion? The beasts and the birds were there. The man named them all, but they were not his equal and could not be his companion.

So God took part of the man and created a woman. The man recognised her, not just as a companion from “out there,” but as part of his being – far more than a companion.

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one.”

We seek and find in marriage, not just companionship, but completeness. As man and wife come together in the commitment of marriage, they become one, not just in sexual union, but as a new unit which thinks, responds and acts together.

There was no shame or embarrassment in their nakedness. Today there are some groups that believe they can “get back to Eden”. But that is not possible. Because of the brokenness soon caused by human sin, public exposure is the vehicle of temptation, lust, demand...

But, within the intimacy of marriage, there is to be no shame about nakedness. Husband and wife belong together. Yet even here there is to be no obsessive demand, but consideration, care and love for one another.

Never Another!

Never another

in all the earth

but you, my love!

Sharing the load

walking the road

with you, my love!

The world is full of people,

but to you I come,

to you alone!

With you

I am alone no more!

Together, we are one!

Thank you, Lord!

Don’t Turn Away!

Reading: Genesis 3.1-13

What have they done? Why did they hide?

The fruit was pleasing to look at and nice enough to eat. It was forbidden fruit. It did not and could not make them wise – only guilty. This first human folly took away their innocence and doomed them to death.

Already they were like God – God had made them in his image. Turning from his protective love and care to autonomy would not make them like God at all. In him they already knew good. Knowing evil, they would die.

For the first time ever, they knew guilt and shame. They tried to cover themselves, to hide from their Maker. It had been most natural to walk with the Lord God in the cool of the evening. Now they wanted to avoid him.

But when the Lord God confronts them with what they have done, they are full of defences. “It was this woman you gave me...” “The snake tricked me...”

Already we notice the effects of human independence from God on the marriage relationship. This one-flesh pair are pulling against one another, asserting their own independence, even accusing one another.

The Garden of Eden had to be closed to them. They couldn’t go back to innocence. For both of them life would now involve sweat and toil and pain that it hadn’t before.

At the end of the chapter, we note that the Lord God made them garments of skin and clothed them. This was the first sacrifice for human sin. God still loved them and longed for a relationship with them. But human sin would cost a life. Finally, it would cost the life of Jesus the Son of God.

And in the relationship of marriage, they would need the redemptive grace of God to purify what he had intended for them together.

God is your source of life.

To know and choose him

is your joy.

He has allowed you

much creative choice.

Yet still

you need his voice!

O foolish pair!

The garden now is gone,

your life is sweat and toil!

Yet God in mercy comes

to cover sin –

please let him in!

O foolish world!

to think you’re wise

with science and its kin!

God is the source of life –

you need him still!

He comes today –

don’t turn away!

Love the Lord

Reading: Deuteronomy 6.1-9

The Ten Commandments, given in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5, express in summary form our duty to God and to other people.

In the present reading, the Israelites are being told that these rules are to be the principles of their national and family life.

Verses 4-9, called the Shema (from the Hebrew word “Hear!”), are recited daily by Jewish families to this day.

These rules are to be “on your hearts”. They are not a dreary drudgery to be tacked onto your lives. Rather they are to be inner convictions and part of your relationship to God.

Each generation is to pass them on to the next. Again and again we notice that their religion was to be a family affair. The rules have to do with everyday life.

“Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads...” Some very strict Jews do, in fact, wear little leather pouches called “phylacteries”. They contain these rules in very fine print.

What was this meant to indicate? Surely that these were the principles to guide both thinking and acting. They were to be on the door-posts and gates as well – the principles of family life, and of all their coming and going.

And that is of continuing importance for us too. No less do we need to love the Lord our God – and for our homes and our lives to express this in all we are and do.

Loving Lord,

from our selfish centre

we resent your rules!

We will be clever

without you –

and blame you

for our mess!

Even our loving

circles round

the selfish Me!

Turn us around

to centre on you

and on your will,

that in your Love

we may learn true love,

and in your service

perfect freedom.

Truly Happy!

Reading: Matthew 5.3-10

Here we have Jesus’ recipe for true happiness. These “beatitudes” (as we call them) have always stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing ideas.

Put in today’s terms, the key to happiness is to be sought in high self-esteem, assertiveness, self-fulfilment, looking after the most important person in the world – “me”. It would appear that the key to happiness is very self-centred.

I am not suggesting that these modern affirmations have no validity at all. Some people, for example, have become quite unable to function because of low self-esteem.

But what is the source of our self-esteem? One recent speaker put it this way, “I had this problem with an inferiority complex. Then one day I discovered that I really was inferior!”

Separation from God leads to a whole range of problems that are real, not imaginary. The key to happiness is in a restored relationship with God. Jesus is speaking about the qualities that bring us back to God. Then our self-esteem will be based on forgiveness and the knowledge that God values us, that he has welcomed us back into his family. It will be based on what he has done to deal with our real inferiority! Our lives will have the right basis for positive action. In God’s will we will begin to fulfil the purpose for which we were created. And, knowing that God is “the most important Person in the world”, we are secure in the knowledge that he cares for us.

It has been said that marriage is strongest when it is like a triangle – two people relating to one another under God. When couples leave God out of the picture, it can too easily become a struggle between two human wills.

Happy! So happy!

Happy beyond words!

Loved from all eternity

by our Father God!

In our brokenness

and rebellion,

he came in his Son

so that, believing in him,

we might have eternal life!

Centred on him,

our life is whole.

We reach in love

to one another,

each for the other.

Ah! This is love!

Happy! So happy!

Happy beyond words!

Communicating

Reading: Matthew 6.5-15

There can be no true loving without communication. It may be a touch, a book, a gift, but especially it will be a word.

Our relationship with God too will be communicated in many ways. From his side, he had communicated to us through the world about us – in majesty and beauty – in deed in the coming of his Son Jesus and in his Word recorded through his spokesmen in the Bible.

Our response to him will be evident in the attitudes and actions of every day living. But it will be expressed in verbal communication too – in praying.

In the time of Jesus, there were people who used the language of prayer a great deal. Jesus called them “hypocrites” (the Greek word means “play-actors”). They prayed to catch people’s attention – they weren’t really relating to God.

In contrast, the pagans repeated their ritual gibberish. They weren’t relating to God either.

These two attitudes have their parallels in human loving too. On the one hand, “I love you” ought to be a reaching out beyond myself to the beloved one. It is not a manipulation. It is not grandstanding. Otherwise, it is not love. On the other, to say, “I love you! I love you! I love you!” a thousand times is no guarantee of true love either. Perhaps the beloved longs for some real conversation. Perhaps the beloved needs the washing up done, the floors vacuumed or baby’s nappy changed!

The prayer that Jesus gave us as a model reaches out in real relationship with our loving Father. We are committed to his Kingdom and to doing his will. We bring our practical needs to him. We ask his forgiveness and seek his protection.

Jesus gave this prayer as a model. Think about these words of Jesus and learn to bring your own prayers to the Father.

Darling,

I love you!

I truly care for you!

I desire for you

all that is best!

I will serve your needs!

I appreciate you!

I like your company!

I am committed to you!

I will stay with you

in good times and bad!

Father God,

you love us!

You truly care for us!

You desire for us

all that is best!

You serve our needs!

You appreciate us!

You like to be with us!

You are committed to us!

You will stay with us

in good times and bad!

Father God,

our loving is so small!

Grant us to love

with even a fraction

of your love for us.

Don’t Worry!

Reading: Matthew 6.25-34

Life consists of many parts, many activities. The loving plan of God is that our relationship with him be in the centre. He is the most important, and to give him a lesser (or no) place in our lives is to make our lives “off balance”. One of the symptoms of the “off-balance” life is worry.

The people Jesus was addressing lived much closer to the subsistence level than any of us. Their worries were about food and drink and clothing. These were real needs, and Jesus wasn’t denying their importance.

He was calling them to put God and his will in the centre of their lives. Then, he said, we will find that these other needs will be supplied after all.

Worrying is non-productive. It uses up a lot of mental energy. It can affect our ability to function and may impair our health.

There is, of course, a healthy concern that will lead us to prayer and action. And Jesus isn’t suggesting that we passively sit around doing nothing! For all of us there is the necessity to plan, to prepare, to work... But worry, far from being a spur to action, goes round and round in circles doing and achieving nothing.

Jesus is telling us – trust your heavenly Father (he loves you and knows your needs), centre your life on knowing him and doing his will, then live each day as it comes.

Don’t get the worry habit. There is always plenty to worry about! Trust God and live positively. You will find there is always plenty for which to thank him!

I will not worry

about what was.

I cannot change what was,

and yet, forgiven

and living in God’s love,

it has no more power

over me

and its hurts

can be healed.

I will not worry

about what is.

Inadequate

and faltering,

I am not alone –

my Lord has promised

to walk this way

with me.

I will not worry

about what will be.

My past,

my present

and my future

are in his hands.

Loving your Perfect Spouse

Reading: Matthew 7.1-5

So you’ve married the perfect wife or husband? Those are the strong affirming sentiments of romantic love. But sooner or later in a marriage we are apt to discover that we have married a human being with points of weakness. (If we admit it, we have them too!)

Added to this is the fact that the two families from which you have come have been very different – in conversation, in humour, in atmosphere, in manners, in customs...

We very much love one another, but those very weaknesses and differences can well up in a critical spirit and a stream of angry words – what is known as nagging.

The words of Jesus are helpful for us here. He calls us to recognise that it is not our place to criticise or pass judgment. It will always rebound. Instead of focussing attention on the other person’s faults so that they can be corrected, his or her attention will be directed on our own weaknesses and faults. This is sometimes called a “no win” situation.

It is always easier to see someone else’s faults, isn’t it? But we need especially to work on our own!

I believe that in marriage we need frankness and openness. This also means that we are very sensitive and vulnerable. If something about our partner’s behaviour really irritates us, there does need to be a point where we can say so – but lovingly and with the humility that recognises that we ourselves may also be causing irritation!

And try to keep the attention on resolving the difference or correcting the situation. Don’t attack the other person’s motives, intentions, commitment, love...

I am not God.

Together

let us live

under the one

who knows all things.

I am committed to you

and know

you are committed to me.

I have chosen you

and accepted you.

Only God

can make us both

what we were meant to be.

Together

let us trust in him

and come to him.

I love you

and want to be

the best that I can ever be

for God –

and for you.

Ask! Seek! Knock!

Reading: Matthew 7.7-12

If God really cares for us, if we don’t need to worry about our practical needs, does that mean it is wrong to think about them?

No, that isn’t what Jesus has been saying. In the model prayer, he taught us to pray, “Give us today the food we need.” We are to trust God about our needs and bring them simply and directly to him in prayer.

In this reading, Jesus uses three important words – “ask”, “seek” and “knock”. It is helpful to understand the different degrees of urgency and action implied in these three words.

Asking is making a request and expecting an answer. Many times we will “ask” God and he will give what we request.

Seeking goes further than asking. Often God involves us in bringing about the answer to our prayers. After all, he has given us this world to live in and has placed many clues and answers for us to find. Sometimes when a request involves some other person, there may be matters to be resolved on both sides before an answer can be discovered.

Knocking suggests persistence in both our asking and our seeking. Sometimes God seems not to answer our prayer straight away. Often we don’t understand at the time, though later we may see his wisdom. In our knocking, our reasons for asking (and what we are asking for!) may change – for the better.

But always remember – God loves you and desires to give you what is best!

I do not know

and cannot see

what future days will bring.

I simply know

my Father’s love –

and he is King!

And as I ask

I need to know

that he knows what is best.

I’ll learn to love

and trust him more

for all the rest.

Sometimes I need

to seek his will

or knock upon the door.

Yet at the times

when I must wait

he loves me more!

Committed for Life

Reading: Matthew 19.1-9

In Genesis 2.24, we noticed a very strong affirmation about marriage – “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one.” This expresses God’s purpose for marriage. A new unit is established which “thinks, responds and acts together.”

The question is whether that unit can ever be broken and – does that matter anyway?

The sacredness of marriage is declared in the commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” The Australian Marriage Act, in setting out the minimum requirements for a service conducted by a civil celebrant, affirms, “Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”

The Law of Moses made provisions for marriage breakdown – in fact, largely for the protection of the woman. Australian law likewise provides for the termination of marriages.

But Jesus emphasises that the relationship of marriage is intended to be permanent – “Man must not separate, then, what God has joined together.” That, incidentally, is why the relationship is not intended to begin before the marriage commitment.

Various people with a show of knowledge have in recent times suggested that we should expect to have several marriage partners in the course of our lifetime.

They are quite wrong. That is a recipe for failure. With faithfulness, commitment and a willingness to “work at it”, our relationship will grow and deepen and mature across the years.

There is forgiveness for past failures. But a lifetime is not long enough to live out our commitment to one another in marriage.

You are the one I married –

and in that look

that meeting of the eyes,

there is love!

I am in love with you!

Sometimes that love

is like a peaceful pool

with reeds and water lilies,

its surface stirred

by the skimming

of an occasional dragon fly!

Sometimes that love

is like a raging torrent,

deep and strong

reaching out

to hold and carry along

in its stream!

You are the one I married –

I am committed

to be with you

in loving care

and practical help

throughout our life.

The Greatest Love

Reading: John 15.11-17

The best-known and best-loved verse in the Bible is John 3.16 – “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.”

Even though human sin must have its consequences, the God of love still reached out to this rebel creature in a rescue bid. Jesus, the Son of God, came and took our consequences, died our death – so that, turning to him in faith, we can still know the eternal life that God always intended for us! What incredible love!

In this reading, we hear Jesus saying, “Love one another, just as I love you.” What sort of love is he talking about? He makes sure they understand what he means – “The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them.”

Certainly, Jesus gave the perfect example of that sort of committed loving – he died on the cross for us. We may well ask ourselves – am I committed to my beloved one to the point where I would be prepared to die to rescue him/her?

It is important to consider that commitment, even though we plan our life to avoid that kind of danger situation!

However, what is even more important is that we be prepared to give our life to our beloved in living – not just in dying! Some people would find a grand heroic act easier than the living commitment.

We hear Jesus telling them, “Do what I command you... Go and bear much fruit...” We hear his promise, “And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name.” Then he repeats his command, “Love one another.”

Only Jesus, the one who has loved us with an extravagant, self-sacrificing love, can make this demand on us. We didn’t think love could be commanded! But it is what he expects of us – Love one another!

Jesus said,

“Love one another,

just as I love you.”

What, Lord?

You mean the cross?

You want me ready

to lay down my life

for the beloved one?

You mean my life?

You want me ready

to give and live

for the beloved one?

Lord Jesus,

your overflowing love

gathers me

in its stream!

Fill me, Jesus,

with your love!

What is Love?

Reading:1 Corinthians 13

God, who is Love, has made us with a very deep need for love. That’s why it is a universal quest.

But – what do we mean by “love”? The word is used for everything from sex to the appreciation of art. Someone says, “I love ice-cream.” Next minute they are talking about the music they love. And then, “I love Mary.” Are they talking about the same quality? Sometimes “love” simply means the sense of pleasure “I” receive. My “love” for that food, that music, that person, may simply be a measure of the satisfaction they give to “me”.

The Greeks (the New Testament was written in Greek) had a number of words for love. Philia refers to friendship or delight in another person or thing. Eros is the word for sexual, erotic love. But when Paul wrote about “love” he used the word agape (pronounced “a-gar-pay”). What is this agape-love?

This kind of love is directed to the other person. Sometimes people say they are “not getting much out of a relationship.” But love has to do with giving, not getting. It is commitment to the highest well-being of the beloved. We receive as a byproduct of our giving. And loving doesn’t stop when, because of an accident or a medical condition, the beloved is less able to respond to our loving.

In Paul’s description of agape-love he is talking about love for another human being, not for some perfect creature. That is why love has to be patient and kind. If I am jealous, conceited, proud, ill-mannered, selfish or irritable, I am thinking of myself, not of the loved one. And my love needs to be forgiving – not for ever bringing up some past mistake. Yet love isn’t blind, and is grieved by evil and delighted in the truth (which always finally includes God’s forgiveness and change within our life).

Love goes on and on. It grows, deepens and matures throughout our lives. It is a quality that lasts through to the next life as well.

The world is full –

the tongues of men and angels,

prophets of doom and hope,

men of science and knowledge,

of ingenuity and cleverness,

materialists

and philanthropists.

This world is starved

for love.

The values of this age

will crumble

and decay.

Only love –

the eternal love of God

abides

forever!

Serving One Another

Reading: Ephesians 5.21-33

The idea of submission is foreign to our modern way of thinking. From our earliest “play dough” the emphasis has been on self-expression, self-fulfilment, developing and living for our own potential... For some this has been a problem later because learning requires discipline. And there is always a measure of submission required in society – on the roads and in the workplace.

Communism arose and replaced submission to your boss to submission to the state. And people in those countries have risen up against communist repression. In human relationships, feminism has objected to male dominance and rejected the traditional understanding of roles within marriage. Paul is accused of promoting male chauvinism.

But Paul has been misunderstood. The Roman Empire was in serious trouble. It would finally crumble because so many people wanted to enjoy the benefits of a stable society without the commitments that this would imply – and because they indulged in sex without responsibility. There are signs that our own society may be heading the same way!

Paul is not talking about domination, and the submission he describes is mutual. He is speaking about responsible leadership and the inability (or refusal) of many fathers to lead in their families. We have talked (quite rightly) about equality and (unwisely) about “parenting” (as if father and mother don’t contribute in different and complementary ways to the development of their children).

Paul insists that a husband’s love has to be modelled on Christ’s love – self-giving and sacrificial. So it is not a matter of roles – both partners are to be submitted to one another, responding to and caring for one another, serving one another in love.

Loving and living,

caring and giving –

making a home,

no longer alone.

Choosing and willing,

ever fulfilling –

finding completeness

each in the other.

Working and serving,

responding and sharing –

lives intertwined,

blending together.

Creating and growing,

building and nurturing –

bearing the load,

trusting in God.

Love One Another

Reading: 1 John 4.7-21

There it is again! “Love one another!” In our earlier reading from John 15, we saw that this is a command of Jesus. John repeats it for us here – “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love... This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another...”

Notice John’s strong emphasis – God is Love and true love comes from him. He doesn’t say that “God is loving”, but that he “is Love”. In other words, his nature, his character is Love.

God made us with a need for love. This need would be fulfilled in knowing him and expressed in our human loving. When we leave him out of the picture and seek love in another person, there is a serious lack in our loving. We place intolerable demands on each other because we expect the other to fulfil the loving that only God can give.

The love that comes from God will be self-giving, just as we see his love in the coming and life of Jesus. But we cannot experience this love and channel it to our beloved until we have received it in our relationship with him. The very purpose of his self-giving was so that we can be forgiven, so that our brokenness can be mended, our hurts healed.

Welcome this eternal Lover into your lives, into your marriage. Consciously welcome him day by day. Seek his guidance and protection. Ask for his forgiveness and his help. Think about his amazing love for you. Allow his Love to bless and enrich your love for one another.

Love One Another

Love one another,

for love comes from God,

living and sharing and walking the road,

caring and giving, true to the end,

making and building, companion and friend.

Love is devotion, a light for our way;

love is a healing, a balm for our day;

love is fulfilling and making us whole,

knitting together in body and soul.

Love overflowing when the Son of God came,

bearing our brokenness, taking our shame,

so that, forgiven, our loving might be

new and renewing, abundant and free.

Lover eternal, come with us to stay;

guard us and guide us each step of the way;

bind us together, held by your love,

growing in loving, your faithfulness prove.

Peter J. Blackburn,1992

Tune “Slane”, AHB 455