Be My Valentine God

I heard a minister recently say when we are dating not to look for a person that we can live with, but look for a person that we can’t live without. 

I’ve had a few people say, “Mary, how can you serve a God that allows such pain and suffering in this world.”  My answer is why my husband and I were married, is that we couldn’t picture ourselves living without each other, and I can’t picture myself living without Jesus. 

Jesus did not make anyone sick, he did not break anyone’s bones and he did not kill anyone.  He was the expressed person of God.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Colossians 1:15

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Hebrews 1:3

I would hope since I’m on year 42 with Jesus that we are more like friends.  It’s like my children that have grown up where now I don’t have to be as much a parent anymore, but I can give them more advice as a friend. Or it’s like a good long-term marriage, where you appreciate that person’s friendship, and when they pass away, it’s more than sex we miss, but it’s the companionship and fellowship that we had with a person. 

Abraham was a friend of God and Jesus called his disciples friends. Friendship --affection or brotherly type love is “Storge”

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. James 2:23

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. "You are My friends if you do what I command you. "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.…John 15:13-14

It also says that if we are a “friend” to the world than we are enemy of God.  I run into many worldly views when it comes to dating.   It’s Christian men that want a physical relationship first, and then get to know them.  We are not to separate ourselves from unbelievers, but from worldly thinking and worldly views.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4

There have been several times in my life where my walk with the Lord it’s like when Satan said about Job, “Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Job 1:9.  Can I serve God just for himself not because of the benefits of knowing him?  It’s those times where hell has broken on my life, and it’s usually been when I made a decision to share my faith.   In the book of Acts, whenever they were persecuted, they asked God for more boldness to speak his word. 

One scripture that has really helped me with these times of persecution in sharing my faith is that we actually overcome Satan by the “word of our testimony.”

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Rev. 12:11

What helps me in the wilderness journey whether it’s been the wilderness of loss and loneliness has been to remember my Red Sea experience which was my salvation.

Maybe the persecution is all a “coincidence” but it’s happened at those opportune times where I made a decision to get closer to God and be a bolder witness.  When I joined a Christian ministry as a young adult in full-time street evangelism one bad thing after another happened, including I lost my grandfather at the exact time I joined that ministry.  I told the elders when I was going through so many trials that like Jesus told his disciples that God would bring me to the other side of the lake---the other side of the trial.  

It’s very similar to marriage is during the ups and downs of step parenting problems (the worse), it was like renewing our wedding vows, is to remember how Jesus put my spouse and I together and it to “flame the fire” of our marriage.  My spouse would say, “God has put us together and we can weather this storm.”  I find the same thing with Jesus is I flame the fire of my salvation.

This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. 2 Timothy 1:6

I’m thinking about my wedding vows to Jesus Christ.  When I first became a believer, I had made a wedding dress for my fiancé and since we broke up, I decided to wear it when I got water baptized as a young woman, because I recognized that I was married to Jesus Christ when I said, “I do.”  “I accept you as my Lord and Savior.”

Maybe this is what Paul was talking about how some younger widows had married for sensual desires, forgetting their first pledge to Christ and even went after Satan (apparently not marrying in the will of God).  

The younger widows should not be on the list, because their physical desires will overpower their devotion to Christ and they will want to remarry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.  1 Timothy 5:11-12

Can I be Jacob where I’m serving Jesus or people because of the joy of love with nothing in return?  When Jesus asked Peter twice if he Agape him---Peter said, “Lord I Phileo you, finally Jesus came down to Peter’s level and said, “Peter do you Phileo me---feed my sheep.” 

The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love (Phileo) me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love (Phileo) you.”Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.  John 21:17

At times, I only Phileo love God.  I want to see the benefits.  Our own human (Phileo) love fails, but God’s Agape love inside our hearts that we have been given never fails, never gives up hope, it endures all things. 1 Cor. 13. 

Agape love is a decision.  It's a fully committed heart.  I've known several people who refuse to get married because in the back of their mind, they want an escape clause.  They want an easy out if the relationship doesn't work. But I've experienced this even in marriage where a person started saying, "God did not put us together or we would not argue so much."

We are told to "give no place to the devil."  Marriage is a covenant before God, it's not a contract with an escape clause, but that is how we treat it.

I got married primarily for Phileo and Storge love (family love) and same with my spouse which is we wanted to be a part of a whole unit especially with having children split apart from divorce, and because of physical attraction Eros (Romantic/Sexual) love. 

Agape came later in life (by choice) in going through the ups and downs with step children as far as accepting a person unconditionally and learning to trust a person.  Both of us were damaged from previous marriages so our heart was not so quickly to trust. 

God’s love has been shed abroad in our hearts and it tells us that He will “freely” give us all things.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Romans 5:5

I find in a relationship it’s really the grace of God in a marriage and in life to “put us over” or sustain us in our marriage. Peter said we are partners together of the grace of life. 

And you husbands, give thought to your way of life with your wives, giving honour to the woman who is the feebler vessel, but who has an equal part in the heritage of the grace of life; so that you may not be kept from prayer. 1 Peter 3:7

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Psalm 172:1