A Note on Marriage - by Shawn Boreta

"Love one another" is for all of us, including husband and wife. Often we allow our past to cloud our present, our hurts to run over into our actions, our tongue to slay as we have been slain, to beat down, as we have been beaten. Intentionally, probably not, but completely avoidable.

“I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. You must go on living in my love. If you keep my commandments you will live in my love just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in his love. I have told you this so that you can share my joy, and that your happiness may be complete. This is my commandment: that you love each other as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this—that a man should lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I tell you to do. I shall not call you servants any longer, for a servant does not share his master’s confidence. No, I call you friends, now, because I have told you everything that I have heard from the Father." ~John 15:12 (J.B. Phillips New Testament)

I am guilty. No one is innocent. We all react because of our past, rather than act in the nature that we have been given. Here's my challenge to all those having trouble in your marriage.

STOP before speaking. PRAY for wisdom and guidance, and don't speak until you have spent some time with your Savior. ACT in righteousness in the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Wives, be pleasing to your husbands; a compliment, encourager and lover.

"At all times and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself the Savior of [His] body.As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,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]." ~Ephesians 5:20-27 (Amplified Bible)

written for the Facebook page, Three Strands Strong