Love Rightly Understood

Devotions for Word Sermon Series. January 24, 2017 

Selfish Love

“Paul said something startling in Galatians 5:14: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ’” (NIV). Now, I’ve thought about this many times. If I had written those words, “The entire law is summed up in a single command,” I think I would have followed with, “Love God above all else.” But that is not what Paul wrote. How is it that love of neighbor summarizes all that God has called us to? The principle embedded in these words is incredibly practical and insightful once you see it. It is only when I love God above all else that I will ever love my “neighbor as myself. At the foundational level, the difficulties in our marriages do not first come because we don’t love one another enough. They happen because we don’t love God enough; and because we don’t love God enough we don’t treat one another with the kind of love that makes marriages work.

Consider the Ten Commandments: it is only when we keep the first four commands (having to do with the worship of God) that we will keep the last six commands (having to do with love for our neighbor). Sturdy horizontal love always begins vertically. Lasting, persevering, other-centered living does not flow out of romantic attraction, personality coalescence, or lifestyle similarity. It is only when I live in a celebratory and restful worship of God that I am able not to take myself too seriously and I am free to serve and celebrate another.

I probably taxed your patience here, and you’re thinking, “Come on, Paul, get to the point and help me understand what this looks like!” Worship that gives you sturdy marital love and a reason to continue will flow out of three ways that you must worship God.

1. A marriage of love, unity“and understanding will flow out of a daily worship of God as creator. It is only when you look at your spouse and see the glory of God’s creative artistry that you will treat her with the dignity and respect that a healthy marriage requires. God created every aspect of your personhood. He administrated every choice of your hardwiring. He determined how tall you would be, whether you would tend to gain weight, the color of your eyes, the texture of your hair, the shape of your nose, the size of your hands, the tone of your voice, your innate personality, your natural gifts, the tone of your skin, your natural degree of physicality or athleticism, and whether you are mechanical, analytical, or relational. You didn’t choose any of these things. You didn’t wake up at six months and say, “I think I’ll grow up and be a mechanical guy,” or “I’m going to work on developing a long, thin nose because that will benefit the symmetry of my face.”

All these choices were made by the Divine Artist who has infinite creativity. But there are moments in our selfishness, when that other person is in the way of “of what we want, that we all wish we could rise to the throne of the Creator and re-create our husband or wife into our own image, or at least into someone who would be easier for us to live with. The relational wife wants to turn her mechanical husband into her clone. The analytical husband wants to re-create his more emotionally wired wife into a dispassionate thinker like himself. The husband allows himself to be irritated by the screechiness of his wife’s voice, or the wife is impatient with how slowly her husband does everything.”

Excerpt From: Paul David Tripp. “What Did You Expect?.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/gtPSv.l

I included this Excerpt from Paul David Tripp’s “What did you Expect because, in this brief passage, the author demonstrates how to rightly understand and apply the word of God.  To understand and apply the word of God-we must did under the surface of a passage, to understand the complete underground river of scriptural thought, so we may quench out thirst daily in practical obedience.