1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NLT)
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
In many marriages, partners don’t find out until things have severely broken down that the foundation wasn’t strong from the very beginning. We need to understand that being positive and loving hard doesn’t make the marriage last. Heartbreak often teaches us this lesson. We pour ourselves into our significant relationships without having a strategy to replenish when we run out. We don’t think of ourselves as the architects of our lives, and that we must build them from the very best materials and tools, but we should. The Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthians 3:10 that through God’s grace, we are master builders. We’ve been given the responsibility and privilege to lay a foundation strong enough that another can build upon it. Jesus Christ has taught us how to do this, and we need to have this lesson firmly under our belts for relationships that lead to marriage.
In Luke 14:28(NLT), Jesus Christ teaches us an extremely important lesson that helps us build strong and healthy significant relationships. He said, “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?” Sadly, this is a piece of wisdom that many of us do not practice, especially when it comes to relationships. There are so many details that we don’t think about. We neglect our own mental and emotional readiness to care for the heart of another. We don’t pray nearly enough for the spiritual growth and well-being of our partners, and we haven’t spent enough time walking in the Spirit and building faith muscle, so that if the partner leaves, we’ll still be standing strong in the Lord. So, the reality is that in many of our relationships, we write checks that we haven’t built the faith to cash.
Counting the cost requires us to know what it takes to build something strong, and Jesus Christ tells us that we shouldn’t begin until we’ve given this some serious thought. In the passage of 1Corinthians 13:4-5, God tells us that His unconditional and limitless love is patient and kind. God’s love isn’t jealous, boastful, proud, or rude, and it doesn’t demand its own way. We are commanded by Him to love others just as He does, and we certainly must love the significant person in our lives this way. We must make God’s love the standard in our relationships, because this is the way to keep them strong and pleasing to our Heavenly Father.
This passage in 1Corinthians 13 is a favorite at weddings, and we hear it read at these ceremonies all the time, but so few take the time to understand the quality of love that He is conveying. So few couples have studied it to the point of actually living it. We must count the cost before we take that walk down the aisle, and this means that we know the standard of God’s love. It means that we’re continually analyzing and calculating to truthfully see how we stack up, and then correcting ourselves when we don’t.
1John 4:10(NLT) says, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” As God’s children of light, we must renew our minds to what real and genuine love is. We must recognize the transformation we must make in our hearts and minds to love through Jesus Christ. This is so important because in our significant relationships, many of us come to the table with only our own brand of love. We expect that this is enough for our partners to feast upon, but it’s not. Although it may be difficult to hear, our brand of love isn’t enough to build a strong foundation for marriage. Once we’re in a relationship, we bring jealousy, insecurity, anger, obsession, entitlement, and pettiness into the mix. We become easily offended, and this weighs down our unions. Without the heart of Christ, we place too many conditions on how we will love and who we will love, and we can miss out this way.
The Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthians 3:11(NLT), “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.” This tells us that we must use the building materials and tools that our Heavenly Father provides us through Jesus Christ, and we must build our lives on His love, peace, strength, and power. Love does not demand its own way; it causes us to humble ourselves before the Lord Jesus in every aspect of our existences. In truth, the solid foundation of the love of Jesus Christ is so profound that if every Christian built their marriage on it, divorce would be the furthest thing from their minds. We must see our spouses as our brothers and sisters in Christ first, and we must remember that we are commanded to love them according to the standard our Heavenly Father has set in His Word. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Marriage Built on the Foundation of Jesus Christ”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.