God's Definition of Love, Part 2

Tom Shrader continues his study of God's definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13, focusing on the qualities that love does not seek its own, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs suffered. Using Philippians 2 as a centerpiece, he holds up Christ's self-emptying obedience as the ultimate model of selfless love, tracing His descent from glory to death on a cross entirely for the sake of others. He applies these truths directly to marriage and parenting, urging listeners to love not based on what they receive but on what Christ has already given them.

“Love does not seek its own — it is self-giving, self-sharing, self-sacrificing love, and Jesus models it by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: God's Definition of Love

Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 44 min

Themes: love, selflessness, forgiveness, marriage, parenting, humility, bitterness, Christ's example, struggling with bitterness, husband, wife, parent, navigating conflict, holding onto past hurts, married couple, growing in faith

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Matthew 5:16, Matthew 20:28, Galatians 5, Philippians 2:3-11, Isaiah 6:1-4, John 5:30, John 6:38, John 3:16, Colossians 4:5, Ephesians 4:25-32

Theological Themes: kenosis, self-emptying of christ, sanctification, becoming holy, agape love, christology, fruit of the spirit, biblical love

Full Transcript

Series Context and Getting to 1 Corinthians 13

Please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. The heading in my Bible is "The Greatest Gift." Most of you who have been around for a while, when you hear 1 Corinthians 13, would think of the love chapter. It is 13 verses long, read oftentimes at weddings, and consequently carries that very idea of being the love chapter. We have been focusing on the definition of love, so let me remind you how we got here.

We are in a series titled "God's Plan for Growing in Grace." It is the follow-up to "God's Plan for Salvation." We are saved by God, from God, but we are saved for God — God saved us for a reason. Matthew chapter 5, verse 16 says, "Let your light shine in such a way that men see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." That verse really captured my attention when I was studying this summer for something totally unrelated, and it spawned the idea of doing this series at all.

That verse has two components. First, let people see your good works — so there is something visibly different about how you live, and apparently you are supposed to see it. Second, glorify your Father in heaven — which people will not do as a natural reflex. Instinctively they would praise and honor you. The only way they would glorify your Father in heaven is if you told them to, so you direct them there. We summarize it this way: make the invisible God visible, and speak the truth boldly.

Being Before Doing

When we start talking about good works, we immediately think of a list — do this, do this, do this, do this. But a little further into that very section in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says when you pray, don't pray like the hypocrites; when you give, don't give like the hypocrites; when you fast, don't fast like the hypocrites. So we can be doing all of the right things but doing them for the wrong motive. Why not address the core of our life? When we talk about good works, let's talk about being first rather than doing.

That brought us to Galatians chapter 5, where we looked at the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Paul tells us what the works of the flesh are, and he says they are evident — if you are living like that, you are not being led by the Spirit. But if you are being led by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is, and then he lists nine things. Grammatically we would say it should be "the fruits of the Spirit are," because there are nine of them. But God does not make a mistake in His Word, so He is communicating something to us.

In a general sense, He is saying the fruit of the Spirit is love, and attached to love are all these other things: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. You can look at it in one of two ways, and they amount to the same thing — either the fruit of the Spirit is love and the other qualities define it, or the fruit of the Spirit is this whole package of nine things together. Someone used a helpful illustration this week: it is like an orange you open that has different segments. You have one orange with nine slices in it.

Why 1 Corinthians 13

We decided to break these apart and really focus on love. So the question became: where do we go to do that? That is how we arrived at 1 Corinthians 13. Paul is in the midst of dealing with his church at Corinth on the issue of spiritual gifts. They had those spiritual gifts a little out of proper emphasis — either misunderstanding what the gifts were or how they were to be used. So in chapter 12, verse 31, the last verse, Paul says, "I want to show you a more excellent way," and the more excellent way is the way of love.

Verses 1 through 3 tell us about the supremacy of love, and verses 8 through 13 talk about the permanence of love. We could spend time on each of those sections, but that is not our goal. Our goal is to define love — to define love as God defines it. We want to walk away with a godly, biblical definition of love. So we ask the question: are you a lover? Whatever stereotype or connotation you bring to that, set it aside. Are you a lover? Do you love as God describes love?

The Structure of Love's Definition

Here is God's description. Verse 4: "Love is patient, it is kind, it is not jealous, love does not brag and is not arrogant." That is what we looked at last week. This week we come to: it does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered. Then next time we are together: it does not rejoice in unrighteousness but love rejoices with the truth, love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things.

There are fifteen character traits in all — seven stated positively and eight stated negatively. In looking at each one, since God is love and God is the definition of love, we can pull examples from Scripture showing how God manifests each trait. When the disciples asked to see the Father, Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" — so we see the personification of love in Christ. We can look at every one of these traits and find Jesus demonstrating it, and we will illustrate from His life as we work through them, for the purpose of helping you evaluate yourself.

Reviewing Love Is Patient

Love is patient. We said God demonstrates patience — long-suffering, long-tempered. All of us deserve to be destroyed, but God in His patience has not destroyed us. If you are here today and perhaps did not take communion a moment ago because you would say, "I am not His, I am not a follower of Christ, I do not believe what you believe," then what the Bible tells us is —

Review of Last Week

All of us — not just you — have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wage of sin is death, and God is perfectly justified in destroying you at this moment. But He doesn't. He is patient. It is not just infinite patience — there is a moment of destruction, or a moment in which one is ushered into the presence of God — but God is patient.

God is kind. That means to be useful, serving, gracious. It means, in a sense, to become patience or love in action — courteous. The best test of this is at home. How do I treat the people closest to me? Is there patience being extended to those who are nearest to me? Do I extend those acts of kindness and graciousness to them?

Then Paul moves into a series of what love is not. Love is not jealous. That means to have a strong desire, and it means one of two things: either I want what you have, or I don't want you to have what you have. We all tend to cop a guilty plea to the first — we see things others have and we want them. But there is a darker side: we see what people have and it is not that we want it, we are simply sick that they got it.

Love does not brag. It is the only time that word is used in the New Testament. It is perhaps the other side of jealousy — my attempt to make you jealous of me. I am going to brag, build myself up, puff myself up, and if necessary put you down just a little bit.

Then, and here is where we stopped last week: love is not arrogant. Love is not overbearing or haughty. If I am constantly looking down on people, I will never serve them with the right motive. I may serve them out of duty, but never with the right motive, because I am always looking down on them.

Love Does Not Act Unbecomingly

Love does not act unbecomingly. It speaks simply of acting rudely. William Barclay writes, "Love does not behave gracelessly. Love does not behave unkindly. Love is much more than being gracious and considerate, but it is never less." It is not rude. It is common courtesy, and it stems from all the things that came before.

I am struck by the lack of common courtesy in our culture. I go to bookstores regularly, and I will be standing there looking at a shelf of books, and somebody will just come and walk between me and the books. I cannot fathom how you can do that. I will say to myself, frustrated though patient at the same time, "What am I, invisible?" A month or two ago, apparently it slipped out a little louder. Someone asked, "Did you say something?" I said, "Have a nice day."

If I am walking into an office building downtown with stuff everywhere, a man will look at me, open the door, go through, and close it behind him. I do not get it. When we think of love, we think of these great big things. This is a simple little thing — it does not act rudely. It is caring for others.

Paul writes in Colossians 4:5, "Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person." Barclay goes on in his commentary to note that many of us have forfeited the ability to witness simply by way of our rudeness.

Love Does Not Seek Its Own

Here is the key point, and we are going to spend much of our time here today. Love does not seek its own. I believe this is the key of the fifteen qualities Paul lists, and in a way all the other things flow from it. Love gets past the "what about me?" attitude.

"What about me?" is one of the first phrases my girls ever seemed to learn. If I showed favor to one, the other would say, "What about me? It's not fair, it's not right." Jesus did not have that attitude. He says in Matthew 20:28, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve." It is the idea of thinking of someone other than yourself.

As long as everything is going well, I can be quite a loving person. I have a number of deficiencies — serious deficiencies, physical limitations, and academic ones as well. One of them is that I do not get poetry, and have never been able to get it, and apparently never will. I read it, it is too abstract. I think, why don't you just tell me what you mean? Every summer on vacation, in the bookstores, I have this poetry-deficiency moment where I say I should read some of this — and then it passes.

The exception is the poetry written by Larry Wright. Larry was a wonderful teacher, and probably — no, not probably — the most influential person in my life aside from my family. Larry's poetry has now been compiled into a book, and I love it because I understand it. Here is a poem he wrote:

*How easy it is to be loving, to be kind, tender-hearted each day.*
*I'm so wonderfully easy to live with when everything's going my way.*
*When everything's going my way, I'm as sweet as sweetness can be.*
*I can't understand as hard as I try why others aren't caring like me.*
*Be careful that you don't upset me, don't cross me or cause me dismay,*
*or I won't love you the way that I do when things are going my way.*

That makes sense to me. That is exactly what Paul is talking about. Love hangs in there even when things are not going your way. Everything in us naturally and instinctively says, "What about me?" Love says, "I am more concerned about—"

Love Does Not Seek Its Own

One commentator writes this: "In the last analysis, in this world there are only two kinds of people. Those who are continually thinking about their rights and those who are continually thinking of their duties. Those who always insist upon their privileges. Those who always remember their responsibilities. Those who are always thinking of what life owes them. Those who never forget what they owe life." In 1946, in his diary, John F. Kennedy, a young man at that point in time, wrote this: "Mr. Roosevelt" — speaking of FDR — "has contributed to the end of capitalism in our own country, although he would probably argue the point at length. He has done this not through the laws which he has sponsored or were passed during his presidency, but rather through the emphasis he put on rights rather than responsibilities." So that is what you have: a constant battle for rights, a constant battle of entitlement. Love does not seek its own.

The Mind of Christ

Now, if you want an illustration of love at every one of these points, we can pull them from the life of Christ. Turn to Philippians chapter 2, where Paul is talking about humility. He encourages us to "do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." There is the charge: love does not seek its own.

Then Paul gives us the role model in verse 5: "Have this attitude in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus." One translation renders it, "Have the mind in you that is also in Christ." The context is humility, humbleness, looking out for others' interests instead of your own. When Augustine was asked the key characteristics of the Christian life, he responded: first is humility, second is humility, third is humility.

Let me say it plainly — that is not natural. It is a rare commodity to find someone who looks out for other people's interests. So rare is it that when Paul was preparing to send a pastor to one of the churches, commending this man Timothy and encouraging the congregation to follow him, he said, "I have nobody else like Timothy. He cares for other people." That is how rare it is. So here is your role model: have the attitude in you that is also in Christ Jesus. Think like Christ. See the world like Christ.

Christ Empties Himself of His Glory

Verse 6 continues: "who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped." Although He existed in the form of God, He did not clutch that equality — indeed, the term carries the stronger sense of seizing something by robbery. Verse 7: "but He emptied Himself." Kenosis is the theological term. Jesus empties Himself — not of His deity, but of His glory.

When we started this series we were in Isaiah chapter 6, so let me read it to you. "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filled with smoke." That is who Jesus was. He voluntarily empties Himself — not of His deity, but of that glorified position. He voluntarily limits Himself to the will of the Father.

That is what He prays: "Not my will, but Yours be done." Jesus is in heaven, receiving worship, praise, and adoration, and He does not regard that as something to be clutched. He empties Himself. In John 5:30, John records Jesus saying, "I do not seek my will, but the will of Him who sent Me," and again in John 6:38, "I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." The night before He died, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." He emptied Himself. He became poor. He became like us, for our sake — emptying Himself of His glory, though not of His deity, and taking the form of a man.

The Bondservant and the Cross

He became obedient. He became a bondservant — the lowest possible station. When we think of slavery, many of us think instinctively of the enslavement of African-Americans brought into this country. But in Rome and the ancient world at that time, there were a variety of forms of servitude. Some were free persons who voluntarily placed themselves under the possession of others. The idea of a bondservant, specifically, is someone who owns not even the clothes on his back. So what Paul is saying is that He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of man.

Verse 8: "Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" — the most excruciating, cruel, and shameful way to die. Public exposure, hanging, beaten, tortured. One author writes: "Death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of the horrible and ghastly — dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, shame, public" —

Love Does Not Seek Its Own

The shame, the long continuance of torment, the horror of anticipation, the mortification of intended wounds — all of it intensifies up to the point at which the sufferer can barely endure it, but stopping short of the point that would give the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The Romans took what the Persians had developed in crucifixion and refined it into an art and a science. They knew exactly how to crucify — how to inflict the most severe pain and yet keep the sufferer alive to endure it.

"Becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore," verse 9, "God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, on earth, under earth, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God."

There is the crucifixion, the resurrection, Christ's time here on earth, the ascension, His resumption of His glorified role in heaven, and the fact that He will come again. At some point in time, everybody — sinner and saint alike — will confess. That means agree, acknowledge, affirm, and understand who Jesus is.

The context here is our study of love. Love does not seek its own. If you want a role model, there it is: Jesus. He became obedient to the point of death, giving and giving and giving everything He had for your benefit and mine. He died so that we could live. If Christ does not die on the cross, there is no salvation for you and for me.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life." As many as believe in Him will be moved from darkness to light and be united with Him forever. That is your picture.

A Picture Closer to Home

Let me give you another picture, a little closer to home for me — the greatest example in my life of this characteristic. Whether we talk about Susan as a wife, a friend, a lover, or a mother, she lives this. I could give you illustration after illustration.

Last week, Susan was not feeling well — she felt awful. Haley was not feeling well either, but she had Braden and could not get out of the house. I was trying to get Susan on the phone and could not reach her. Do you know where she was? She had gone to the grocery store to get groceries, to make food, and to take it to Haley. No one would have expected that of her.

I want to step back from that, because that is a fairly small example. What it really points to is parenting itself. Parenting, in a sense, is the most selfless of all human endeavors. If you are going to have children and be a remotely decent parent, it requires selflessness.

We have not been around babies for a long time, and we are getting them back again. I had forgotten about a lot of it — forgotten what they do and do not do. Gracie's functions are very simple: she eats, she sleeps, she cries, she poops — every day, on repeat. If you have any selfishness in you at all, it will come oozing out in those moments.

Parenting and Delayed Gratification

One of the most significant illustrations of pursuing delayed gratification is parenting. I mentioned this in the first hour, and someone passed me a note that read: "The little things in life now are really the big things later on in life." That is the parenting thing exactly. It is a season where selflessness is not optional. You can be selfish and still be a parent. You cannot be selfish and be a good parent. It simply will not happen.

Tuesday night is babysitting night for us — Braden comes over. It takes more and more effort to keep him entertained for smaller and smaller periods of time. The television was on, and after Dancing with the Stars it was time for American Idol. I have never really watched the show. I have only caught the finale, and I could never hang around for it — I just wanted to know who won. But I do enjoy these early episodes where people like me come in and try to sing.

There was a young man, sixteen years old, on last Tuesday's episode. They played his taped interview, and it was a striking moment. He said his parents were not there to support him, that he had been traveling with the choir and his parents did not approve. He went in, he sang, and he was picked. He came out and called his mother — "Mom, I made it, Mom, I made it" — and you could hear her joy through the phone. When he hung up, he literally fell to his knees and said, "My mom is proud of me. My mom is so proud of me."

And I thought, I would love one moment with that mom — or that dad, who did not even get a phone call — to say, you are missing it entirely. This whole idea of parenting is meant to draw the selfishness right out of you. You cannot be a good parent and remain selfish.

Coaching and Letting Go of Self

I used to coach third and fourth grade girls' basketball, and it was a challenging experience. I have a certain competitive side — you may not see it often, but it is there. We were getting ready for our very first game. It was Friday, we were practicing, and we would play the next day. I gathered the girls together and said, "All right, girls, here we go. We have run our drills, we know what we are doing. Any questions?" A hand went up: "Mr. Schrader, what color ribbons do you think we should

Love Is Not Self-Seeking

What gets you into a relationship will not keep you in it. I'll give you an example. We were in our first chemo treatment and they mentioned several other patients: there was Betsy, whose husband left when he found out she had cancer; there was Laura, whose husband left when she found out she had cancer; there was Helen, whose husband left when she found out she had cancer. My first reaction was, what a jerk — jerk, jerk, jerk. But now, being two years into this, I know exactly why they left. Because they thought, "I didn't bargain for this. If all I did was get into this for what I could get out of it, what's in it for me?"

What got me into my relationship with Susan was really simple. I saw her and I didn't know if she could talk. I didn't care if she could think. I didn't care about anything — I wanted her at any cost. We were married three months when I came to her and said, "I married you to make me happy, and I'm not happy." She said, "Slick, you're no bargain either, and this thing is about over." That right there was the world's definition of love: I'll get that person, that place, that thing, that experience — whatever it is — because it's about me. The only reason I have any concern about you is so I can get you and use you for me.

Jesus says that's not it at all. What got me into this marriage with Susan would not keep me in this marriage with Susan, because that relationship has now gone to a whole different level. To this day, if we're sitting together — at church, a restaurant, a game, it doesn't matter — and she reaches over and puts her hand on my leg, electricity just screams through my body. But that's not how it started, because I didn't love her. I probably didn't love Susan until we were two or three years into the marriage. And if most of you were honest, you probably didn't love your spouse two or three years in either.

I would never have gotten there if God hadn't saved me, because the love He is talking about is impossible to have without the indwelling Holy Spirit. So when we ask, "Are you a lover?" we are asking: Are you consumed with your own praise, your own honor, your own profit, your own pleasure? Are you concerned about yourself, or are you concerned about the people around you — a spouse if you are married, children if you have them?

Love Cannot Be Separated from Parenting

I believe with all my heart that most people simply don't love their kids. They just aren't honest enough or bold enough to say it. How can I say that? Watch how they raise them. I coach third-grade girls, and one of the kids said about the opposing team, "You know that team — that's the team where none of the parents come to the game." If we have screwed-up kids today, it is most likely because we have screwed-up parents, because you cannot parent and be selfish. Not if you are going to do it right.

This idea of love that Jesus has in mind — the love He models for us — is self-giving, self-sharing, self-sacrificing love. The same principle applies in a marriage. I meet people all the time who say things like, "I can't love her — she's a nag," or "I'm not going to be intimate with him. I'm going to hold that back. I'm going to use it as a tool to punish him because he's not being the man he's supposed to be." That is exactly the opposite of love.

Jerry Smith reminded me of a principle that is Counseling 101: when I am sinned against, I will most likely have a sinful response. That is why marriages don't work. She's a nag, he's a jerk — and both are responding to the other's sin with more sin. But here is the truth: it doesn't matter what he isn't doing for you or what she isn't doing for you. What matters is what you are called to do for them. Love does not seek its own.

The world says something very different. The world says: dump the jerk, get rid of her, you don't need him, unload him. God says no. Better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health, till death do us part — that is what you said you were going to do. That is what real love is.

Love Is Not Provoked

Love does not seek its own, and since that is the case, love is not provoked. It is not aroused to anger. Jonathan Edwards said...

Temper and the Limits of Grace

The greatest mind America ever produced, the preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards, had a daughter with an uncontrollable temper. A young man fell in love with her and asked Edwards for her hand in marriage, and Edwards said, "You cannot have her." "But I love her and she loves me," the young man protested. "It doesn't matter," Edwards insisted. When asked why, he said, "Because she is not worthy of you." "But she's a Christian, isn't she?" "Yes," said Edwards, "the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else ever could live."

Love Does Not Keep a Record

Now look at the quality that follows: love "does not take into account a wrong suffered." That phrase "wrong suffered" is a bookkeeping term. It speaks of an entry into a ledger, a calculation, something that has been reckoned. It was designed to be entered into a ledger and permanently kept. Love does not keep a permanent record.

We see that pattern all the time. One gentleman said, "When my wife and I fight, she does not get hysterical — she gets historical." She goes back through it again and again. You've experienced that. "Back in '98..."

There is a show I love to listen to on Saturday mornings on NPR — Click and Clack. They are two guys who give car advice. A lady called in once, and this is one of my favorite calls. She said, "I need your help. I went out the other day and my husband was changing the oil in the car. He drained all the oil out, then came inside to do something. I didn't know that was what he was doing. I needed something from the store, so I got in the car and drove there. It's downhill, so I was only in the car for about two minutes. When I was in the store, my husband came running in and told me what had happened. Did I permanently damage the car?" They said no — you can't do any damage in that short a length of time. She said, "Well, I'm glad to hear that." But they told her, "I would sell the car." She asked why. They said, "When the radio doesn't work, he's going to say, 'Remember when you drove the car without oil?' When the tire goes flat, he's going to say, 'Remember when you drove the car without oil?'"

Don't do that.

Ephesians 4: Put Away Bitterness

Look with me at Ephesians chapter 4, where Paul is talking about the new man. Verse 25: "Lay aside falsehood, speak truth." Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals, steal no longer. Ephesians 4:29: "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, only such a word as is good for edification for the moment." Verse 30: do not grieve the Holy Spirit. And then verse 31: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other."

Here is what Paul is saying. Here is what you should be: kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. Do not let bitterness get in there, because with bitterness comes a whole packet — wrath, clamor, anger, slander. Get rid of it all. Be kindhearted and forgiving.

How Can Anyone Actually Do This?

"But how can I possibly do that? He's a jerk." I am not debating whether he is a jerk. "She's awful." I am with you. No bargain. I do not see any redeeming qualities there either. But you are in that relationship, and this whole thing is not about the other person. It is about how you respond. It is not about you getting your needs met. It is about you meeting the needs of the people around you.

"But they will take advantage of me." I understand that. But your role model is Christ, and they took advantage of Him — to the point of killing Him, to the point of His experiencing death, even death on the cross.

I do not boast about many things, and I do not think there are many things I would say I do well. But I believe, by my own personal assessment, that I am one of the greatest forgivers in the world. I will tell you why. When I first read that verse — "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other" — my response was, "I can't do it." And then I read the rest: "just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." And all of a sudden, I could.

My whole mantra had been, "I don't get mad, I get even." I lived all of that, same as you — get ready, pal, because it is coming right back at you. And then all of a sudden I thought, wait. That is not how God dealt with me. God did not give me what I deserved. And now He says, "Tom, you go and live that way." "But they're going to take advantage." It doesn't matter. "But I'm going to—" It doesn't matter. "Well, what if—" It doesn't matter. So I learned: it doesn't matter. Because it is not about them. It is not about how they respond. It is about what they need, what they desire most.

Love in a Struggling Marriage

If you are in a marriage that is not going well, I know what your worldly friends are telling you: get out. That is not what God says. Love him. Care for her. Nurture her. Hold her. Listen to her. Feed him. That is love. That is biblical love.

So if you say you are a great lover, that means you are loving her, loving him, just as you promised — for better, for worse. It does not matter whether they ever respond, in your entire life. Nor am I promising that if you love this way they will respond. I do not know that they will. But you will be able to stand before God and say, "God, I did what Your Word called me to do as Your child."