{Guest Post}: Rev. Heath Ferguson
{Engagement Photos}: Anna Claire & Rob taken by Adam + Alli Photography
{Engagement Photos}: Anna Claire & Rob taken by Adam + Alli Photography
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What are we built for? Experience tells me we are built for love. Life has revealed to me that we are designed to share. Scripture leads us to see that we depend on fellowship found in the Lord, and it is from this union with God that all good relationships grow.
So, if we believe that the best thing we can do is include Christ in our relationships, maybe we can also decide that we should model our attempts at relationships after Christ. Philippians 2:1-11 tells us: Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, {2} then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. {3} Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, {4} not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. {5} In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: {6} Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; {7} rather, He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. {8} And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross! {9} Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, {10} that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, {11} and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here, Paul is telling us that if we have decided to buy in and seek Christ and from that we have received any blessing, then the only way to continue that momentum is to climb out of our own selves and seek to share and love.
This is what lies at the core of marriage. This is what lies at the core of a relationship. Every step of Christ’s earthly ministry was motivated by love. In our relationships, every movement and every decision must be based on love. Love is not slave to emotion. Love is not dependent on mood or moment. Real, binding love that survives is found in the decisions made in the midst of life’s little pauses. Love is a continual choice to live as Christ did, beyond one’s self to lift up, tend to, and comfort those near us.
Thankfully, through the Holy Spirit, we are capable of such a feat. In Christ, we are now beyond our old capabilities having shed our insecurities, our fear, and our desperation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 promises us: {16} So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. {17} Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! {18} All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
Free from our selves, we discover we can love, we can live, we can be INSPIRED by this new hope that exists in us. Our relationships cry out for this real love born out of the God of love. In this, we find out what we are built for.
So, if we believe that the best thing we can do is include Christ in our relationships, maybe we can also decide that we should model our attempts at relationships after Christ. Philippians 2:1-11 tells us: Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, {2} then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. {3} Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, {4} not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. {5} In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: {6} Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; {7} rather, He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. {8} And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross! {9} Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, {10} that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, {11} and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here, Paul is telling us that if we have decided to buy in and seek Christ and from that we have received any blessing, then the only way to continue that momentum is to climb out of our own selves and seek to share and love.
This is what lies at the core of marriage. This is what lies at the core of a relationship. Every step of Christ’s earthly ministry was motivated by love. In our relationships, every movement and every decision must be based on love. Love is not slave to emotion. Love is not dependent on mood or moment. Real, binding love that survives is found in the decisions made in the midst of life’s little pauses. Love is a continual choice to live as Christ did, beyond one’s self to lift up, tend to, and comfort those near us.
Thankfully, through the Holy Spirit, we are capable of such a feat. In Christ, we are now beyond our old capabilities having shed our insecurities, our fear, and our desperation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 promises us: {16} So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. {17} Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! {18} All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
Free from our selves, we discover we can love, we can live, we can be INSPIRED by this new hope that exists in us. Our relationships cry out for this real love born out of the God of love. In this, we find out what we are built for.
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