This is a part of a 3-post series.

• This world was born IN love, THROUGH love, FOR love (read this first)
• Marriage – in, through, for love (read second)
• You have been regenerated (born) again (read last)

I have an even more exciting message for those who have been through difficulties in their life and don’t feel that they were born in love, or don’t feel that their parents wanted them.

You were born IN God’s love

The idea for you to exist is God’s own idea. God personally chose YOU before this world began.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us - Eph 1:4

He prepared a path for you in life, a path that no one but YOU can walk.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Eph 2:10

You see, God showed me that you and I were formed IN His desire for love. It doesn’t matter if you natural birth was by accident or rape or whatever, God Himself formed you just as He formed Adam. Your spiritual birth was planned IN God’s desire to love you and be loved  by you.

You were born THROUGH God’s love

God personally formed you, like He formed Adam, in your mothers womb

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. – Jer 1:5

It doesn’t matter how your conception happened, God Himself formed you and me. We are born again of the Holy Spirit

²³You have been regenerated (born again), not from a mortal origin (seed, sperm), but from one that is immortal by the ever living and lasting Word of God. – 1 Peter 1:22-23

Not only did the idea of you and I existing come from God’s own desire, but we actually came about because He formed us in our mother’s womb. We were literally born THROUGH His love.

You were born FOR love

And we were born FOR love, because He desires to love us, He wants us to learn to love HIm – and His command is for us to love one another.

If your parents didn’t want you, it doesn’t compare to the truth that you were born again… IN the love of God, THROUGH the love of God, FOR a love relationship with God.

This is a part of a 3-post series.

• This world was born IN love, THROUGH love, FOR love (read this first)
• Marriage – in, through, for love (read second)
• You have been regenerated (born) again (read last)

In the bible it gives us this high calling…

¹THEREFORE BE imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father].
and walk in love, [esteeming and delighting in one another]
as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us – Eph 5:1-2

We are to imitate God’s love.

What does that mean for families and marriage?

• Born IN love… Your marriage should come out of the love you and your wife/husband have for each other.
• The marriage should come about THROUGH love, just as God was so intimate with Adam and Eve, highly personal, shaping one another.
• The marriage should be FOR love. The love of each other, the love of God and a Kingdom purpose of loving others around us.

Children – in, through, for love

Children should also be born IN love… they need to be thought about and planned for well before conception. Just as God was already love and then He lovingly designed this world for us, our children need to come out of an overflow of love between a married couple. Children don’t rescue marriages, they are not crutches to distract unhappy parents and to give meaning to an otherwise empty life. Children are an expression of the love that a couple have for one another.

Should come about THROUGH  intimacy between the parents. A loving intimacy. The Message verse of the bible puts it like this…

Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex. - Hebrews 13:4 MSG

The choice to have children should be FOR love. The love of those children, for the children to receive love from God, for the children to learn to love God… and for the kids to learn to loving others around us.

I believe that this is what God showed me, His heart for myself and my future wife and our child(ren). He is showing me His heart, His desire, His vision. I hope you can catch it before you are married. If you are already married, then catch it now and work with His Holy Spirit to make this your reality.

Through obedience this can be achieved, because with His help it will happen.

This is a part of a 3-post series.

• This world was born IN love, THROUGH love, FOR love (read this first)
• Marriage – in, through, for love (read second)
• You have been regenerated (born) again (read last)

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:8

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. - 1 John 4:16

Please read this slowly and prayerfully, letting this sink into you…

IN love

The idea for this world and the people in it came from God Himself. The idea for this world was born IN love… IN God’s desire to have and share love. This world was formed IN God’s desire for love, community and family.

THROUGH love

The world was brought into being when God spoke “let there be” and when the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters and when God created Adam from the dust. Just think… God Himself formed Adam – lovingly – and God Himself put His mouth up against Adam’s nostrils and breathed into them, giving Adam life

⁷Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being. – Gen 2:7

Isn’t this amazingly personal? Not at all distant. Up close, loving, intimate.  Adam was born THROUGH the loving actions or a loving God. God mouth was pressed up against Adam’s nostrils.

FOR love

For a few thousand years God struggled to get humans to grasp how He wanted us to live.

Then Jesus Christ came and demonstrated God’s heart of love. He walked amongst us, dwelled with us, healed us, brought us back from the dead… and then He commanded us to do the same to each other. He gave us the command to love one another.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” - 1 John 3:16

This world was created FOR love. God’s intention is that we love one another. And of course that we love Him and believe Him. We were created FOR the purpose of love.

It’s all about love

The bible begins with a marriage between Adam and Eve which was created by God; and it ends with a marriage between Jesus Christ (God) and His bride (all of us).

The whole story of our human existence is a love story. It’s a story where a woman is captured by an evil person and kept captive, away from her husband. Her husband to be eventually marries her and they live ever after.

Then I saw this verse

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. – Ps 127:4

I began to understand that children are like arrows, they can be aimed and then they fly in that direction.

So HOW do we aim our kids to go in the right direction? Movies, playstation, song lyrics and TV might aim my kids in the WRONG direction. How do I aim them in the right direction?

Aiming our kids – with love

I am convinced that I can ensure my (future) daughter (or son) is a safe young teen and young adult… by loving and showing respect to their mom.

As my baby boy or girl grows up and tries to figure out what is ok and what not to allow in this world of wolves, she will naturally come to me and sit on my lap and ask me many times “tell me the story of you and mom met and got married”.

Here is the key: if I can answer truthfully about how we did not do the wrong things before marriage, how I showed her mom respect, how we waited and made the effort to learn to communicate, to speak each other’s love language, learning to give and receive love from one another, learning about one another’s needs, growing together, talking things through and forgiving… then my daughter (and son) will want the same things for herself (or himself) and in this way they won’t settle for less than what her mom had.

She will be safe from harm, because she won’t settle for less, she will want the same for herself! If a man tries to consume her beauty to make up for a lack in his own life, she will refuse to be used. If a man or woman with unclean hands reaches out to touch my son, he will feel the uncleanness and he will find it unpleasant and he will naturally pull away.

But this only happens because they have experienced and observed the love and kindness and goodness of Christ in me and Christ in their mother and God’s Presence in our home.

Formed in their mind is the desire to be loved like her mother is being loved. They won’t compromise. They won’t settle.

The home

In that same way I will strive to have a home that is filled with warmth from love and the light of God’s Presence.

Why? Because if she (or he) grows up around God’s Presence and thinks that is normal, when she (or he) comes into contact with unclean people or an unclean place, she will immediately pick up on the change in atmosphere and she will know to move away from that person or place because it doesn’t feel nice to be there.

In my life the opposite was true. I was so used to being around anger and darkness that I did not know it was wrong. It was just how it always was. But no more, I stay in the light now. And the more I am in the light, the more I can stop when darkness tries to invade.

By turning this around, by showing my children – both literal and spiritual – that love is normal, that talking and a healthy exchange of views is normal, that respect is normal, that God’s Presence is normal… they will flee darkness and death if they sense a change.

This requires long term self-sacrifice

This will take a life-long commitment from me and it starts now. And then when my future wife comes along she has to see the vision and agree to work in that direction.

Just think, long before I have met my wife, I am already planning to love my child. The way I treat my wife is not just for her, but for my son and/or daughter as well. Love is like this… it is the intentional giving of ourselves for others.

In that same way, long before you met Jesus Christ He was already praying for you

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. – Heb 7:25

A prayer center

And it goes way beyond this.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have repeatedly asked for financial support to create a prayer center where He will be manifest. I truly believe that God wants a place where people can come and taste and see that the Lord is good. A place where YOU – people of all shapes and sizes and importance – can come and experience what good and right feels like.

You see… the only way to change people’s behavior is by changing their world view. When you go to jail your world view changes – and your behavior changes, sometimes for the worst! When a person is abused their world view changes and their behavior also changes from then onwards. When abandoned children are adopted and loved for the first time, their world view changes and their behavior changes. When lonely people find love, or find a warm accepting loving church, or find God’s love… their world view changes and their behavior changes.

I believe that God wants a place where He will be manifest, a place where we can come to and experience His goodness, His Presence, light and love – and then by finally experiencing what is good, our world view can change and we can return home to our countries with our new world view and changed behavior.

Her Diary:

Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn’t flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn’t say much. I asked him what was wrong; He said, ‘Nothing.’ I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn’t upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can’t explain his behavior I don’t know why he didn’t say, ‘I love you, too.’ When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep – I cried. I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.

His Diary:

Motorcycle won’t start… can’t figure out why.

So let’s look at this scripture

let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. – Eph 5:33

To understand what God wants from us, let me describe that scripture in a much more natural and human way.

Imagine a woman comes to her husband and says that she needs ABC money and suport in order to take care of her needs and the needs of the children that they have together.

Let’s say that the man makes a commitment to earn that money and bring it to her.

If his wife then goes around to her girlfriend and moans about her useless husband and what a bad provider he is and how she doubts he will ever amount to anything and that he won’t bring her what he said he would… pretty soon he will be demotivated and eventually he might become unwilling to keep his part of the arrangement.

But.

If while he is toiling away on the farm or at work in a building somewhere, he knows she is praising him to her children and to her friends, telling them how much she admires him and believes that he can do anything he sets his mind to – and she is saying this even before he has brought home the money that she asked for – then any man will move Heaven and Earth and be massively motivated to excel in his work and to perform for her and for his kids.

Do you believe in the goodness of Jesus Christ?

The issue – from a man’s perspective – is does she believe in him, does she see the best in him?

You see, God/Jesus Christ also feels this way about us:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church… – Eph 5:25

You see, this is God’s behaviour in the OT as well… take a look:

to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” – 2 Chron 16:9

So now we can see that the kind of faith that Jesus Christ wants is very heart felt.

He wants worship NOT because it’s our duty, but because we admire Him. What man wants a wife who decides it’s her duty to be intimate with him? Men want their partner to admire them, to see the best in them!

Jesus Christ wants us to be like that towards Him too. If we ask Him for something, He wants us to believe we HAVE received it. The reason for us believing that so confidently is not legalistic, it’s because He is a Man (God) of His Word. What He says, He will do. He doesn’t break His promises.

Can you see how highly relational God is?

See with the eyes of your heart

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened – Eph 1:18

If you can grasp this all in an emotional way, with the eyes of your heart, then you will begin to see the depth of Jesus Christ’s love for His bride - the church. (Not just the bride in a building, but all who believe and have faith in Him).

Now we can see why the people who are saved have done two things:

• spoken with their mouth
• believed with their heart

Now we can also see why religion and law kills… because a series of laws has nothing of the heart in it.

Now we can see why God declared Abram righteous when Abram simply believed the words of God.

[Urged on] by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance; and he went, although he did not know or trouble his mind about where he was to go. – Heb 11:8

I’m so glad I did look into this. Right away I found that there is more than I had expected to covenants and the marriage covenant. This post is not at all exhaustive. I think it will be useful for me (as a long standing single guy) and useful for men and women considering marriage and also for those who are IN a marriage and could do with a refresher.

Marriage by definition is

1. A holy covenant
2. Initiated by God
3. Conditioned on an irrevocable agreement and promises
4. Oneness with an imperfect person of the opposite sex
5. For a lifetime
6. To glorify God

When I read this what immediately jumped out at me is:

• the marriage is initiated by God, and
• there is an opportunity for BOTH parties to come to an agreement about what each is going to do for the other, which is useful because different people have different strengths and globally there are different cultures with different expectations, and
• the marriage is to glorify God which means the couple has a calling and pulls together in the same direction.

Divorce (release from the marriage covenant)

Now… before we go too far and place people into life-long legalistic bondage, always bear in mind that if you are in a marriage where the covenant has been broken – through abuse or adultery for example – then your covenant is broken and (unless there is repentance and a change of behaviour) you are released from your covenant.

To know if you are released, you need to think through what covenant is that you made with the other person. A covenant is binding when both people keep their end of the agreement. It is no longer binding if one side refuses to keep their side of the covenant.

Abuse and adultery break the covenant. People do make mistakes in this fallen world, so we must be open to forgive but we must expect better behaviour from that time onwards. We can’t expect perfect behaviour, since everyone is fallen and we live in a fallen world… but we can and must expect the other person to get the help they may need in order to be able to keep their side of the covenant that you guys agreed on.

It’s also possible that a couple were immature when they got married and came in with wrong expectations. Things change or time. In olden days may have only lived to an average age of 25, women were pregnant with kids most of the time, families were big and they lived with the danger of dying from disease most of the time. Now in some cultures we have birth control and we might live to 80 years old with small families. Things change… so over time you may need to renegotiate what each other wants from the other person.

But still… at the end of the day what God says in scripture does not change… Jesus said that divorce happens because of hardness of heart… God’s basic plan is that we love one another…

What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is better than a liar. – Proverb 19:22

‎”As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man” Proverbs 27:19

It’s a covenant relationship

God considers marriage to be a covenant relationship.

Furthermore marriage is a God-sealed Covenant for in (Mark 10:8, 9)

Jesus teaches that God Himself joins the husband and the wife together.

AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together (suzeugnumi yoked together as oxen and so coupled together as a team), let no man separate (put space between, isolate one from the other).

The verb “joined together” is in the aorist tense which speaks of a definite completed action (in context in the past) and active voice indicates He (God) actually did this!

Jewish tradition

in several other posts on this blog I describe different aspects of the Christ-to-church relationship which is a metaphor (example) of how a man is to be towards his wife.

What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is better than a liar. – Proverb 19:22

‎”As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man” Proverbs 27:19

Men… brothers… the state of your heart is vitally important.

Do you know what God’s advice to a wife is? He asks a wife to submit to her husband. He also asks her to let her husband be her head, just as Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. – Eph 5:22-24

He also asks her to mould herself to her husband, reverencing him:

let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. – Eph 5:33

“Reverence”… how many of us men deserve to be reverenced? We all want it, but how many of us behave in a way that causes someone to want to do that?

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a wife who does this? What an incredible privilege to have someone support you in this way.  But wait… there’s a catch. I have heard women say so many times that if their men loved their wives AS Jesus Christ loves the church THEN they would happily submit to their husband.

That is so important to understand, that it begins with us. If we are leading, if we are loving, if we are giving of ourself… then our wives (in my case my future wife, since I don’t have a girlfriend at this time) will gladly love us in this way.

What is it those women ask for? What kind of love? God tells us…

However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self – Eph 5:33

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her – Eph 5:25

And here is a command to husbands that I think we might not have seen before. We all know that women fall in love through their ears. When you speak lovely things to your wife, she responds. The bible says use your words to cleanse her, to

So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless]. – Eph 5:26-27

There is a high call on our lives men. Rise up. When the bible says to cleanse your wife with the washing of the Word, it doesn’t just mean your words, but it actually means the Word – which is scripture. Scripture is our sword. Speak the truth of Jesus Christ over your life, over her life, over your marriage, over your children, your house, and family and friends.

You are the warrior. You are the head. It’s a high calling. It’s not compatible with being passive.

God gave His command (to subdue the earth) to both Adam and Eve, not just to Adam. While “headship” rests with the man, the calling is to both people and neither are a second class citizen. Not at all. The calling is for both Adam and Eve as a couple…

Both men and women were created in His image and he called both “man” in Gen 1.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. – Gen 1:26-27

God created man (both men and women) in his own image, in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. – Gen 1:27-30

So clearly the male man is not the only one to be given dominion.

Equal, but to be handled very differently

Certainly God treats men and women differently, we can see that in the way he speaks to them and what He says to them.

But the command to have dominion in Gen 1, the initial instruction given, the overall plan, was given to both.

There is no greater or lesser, just different roles both working towards a goal given to the couple. Not greater or lesser, but indeed there are different roles, because God designed us differently.

He made us for a purpose and things work better if we adopt the roles He has given us.

• Boyhood stage – a time of wonder
• Cowboy stage – a time of adventures and testing, a time of daring and danger, a time of learning that he has what it takes
• Warrior stage – he gets a cause and encounters evil face to face and learns to defeat it, he learns discipline and resolution of spirit where he sets his face like flint like Jesus did and he cannot be deterred from his mission. If he does not find a mission, he will take his longing need for validation to his partner and expect her to give him validation and meaning in his life. Passivity and masculinity are mutually exclusive. In this stage he becomes a lover and offers his strength to his partner.
• King stage – here he begins to rule a kingdom and draws around him men in the warrior stage, he becomes a father to younger men.
• Sage stage – he has a wealth of experience and knowledge and his mission is to counsel younger men, he steps down as president and his influence increases.

It will be my delight to encourage my son, or younger men who I walk with, to go through those stages.

Fathered by God

FREE Fathered by God Workbook

I agree that passivity and masculinity are mutually exclusive. Young men need to find the limits to their strength and they do this by pushing physical boundaries.

Girls explore and understand their world by talking and interacting, but boys must run, jump, climb and fight in order to grow, understand and find their place in the world.

The cowboy behavior – always jumping higher and further and harder –  is not silly nor is it ADD, it’s the beginnings of a warrior who overcomes evil and sets the captives free. A warrior can protect women and children. A warrior who has learned to defeat evil is useful to the whole of society and will be able to rule a kingdom or a domain which God gives him.

To stop the development of a young boy is to deny the world of a future king who overcomes evil and releases men, women and children from captivity.