Love: An Exclusive, Permanent Commitment?
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Matthew 19:5-6 Have you not read, Jesus replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
When people say, Why don t we live together, and why do we need to be married? I love you, so why do I need a piece of paper to show you that love? If you define love as a feeling; that is right, but that is not what the Bible ever means when it means love. Biblically, if somebody says, I love you, but I do not want to marry you; what they mean is, I do not love you that much. There is no way around that.
A person who says, I love you, and I want to marry you, loves you more than the person who says, I love you, but I do not want to marry you. Why? Because love by definition biblically is an exclusive and permanent commitment. That is what you most want, and you know that. When somebody says, I do not need a piece of paper to show that I love you-yes you do! If you love a person the way the Bible says that two people are supposed to love one another in order to share their lives together, it means that you have no problem making a legal, permanent and exclusive commitment to them.
At some point love is simply a decision to serve somebody and be committed to that person regardless of your feelings and regardless to how that person acts. Your feelings can take you to the door. The person attracts you, there are a lot of things that you like about them, you have fun together, but at a certain point you simply make a decision that you are going to love this person because your feelings will always come and go. A lot of people do not get married because they are sure that if this is the one, My feelings will never ebb, and I will never have any problem. I will always feel like giving myself to them, and I will never look at that person and feel, Ugh!
You will wait until Hell freezes over if you wait for that.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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