Love Well

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
And He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
-Matthew 22:36-40

I have only been married for a few short months, but already I have seen whole new sides of myself. Never before have I been so confronted with my own selfishness, short temper, condescending tones, impatience, and negative attitude. 

Prior to getting married I lived in an apartment on my own for five years. Things were organized to my satisfaction and whenever I threw a temper tantrum the only one that heard it was my pet fish. Now when things don't go my way or I am having a day that I want to pout, my husband is the recipient of all my grumbling. Gary Thomas says, "If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there's no question- stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than to get married."1 Marriage becomes the context where love is put to its greatest test. 

In Matthew 22 Jesus highlights the two greatest commands in all of Scripture: Loving God and loving others. Between these two commands He uses the word "homoia" which literally means "of the same nature, like, similar."2 It is as if He is saying "this second command is just as important as the first one!" He places the two commands on an equal level. It implies the idea that in order to love God well, we must love others well. 

This same theme is picked up in 1 John 4:20-21- "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also." When John says "this commandment we have from Him" he is speaking of Jesus' words in Matthew 22; and notice that John doesn't see them as two separate commands, he sees them as one singular command.

If you want to love God well, it means demonstrating love to those closest to you. I recently attended my cousins wedding and I will never forget how the officiant ended the ceremony. He said "if there is anything you should remember about today, let it be this: 'be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you' (Ephesians 4:32)." That is how we are to love, by speaking kindly and responding with a soft heart rather than a selfish heart.  

Beyond this, the most surprising discovery since being married has been the way my husband, Jon, loves and accepts me despite my selfish faults. Most people see the fun-loving, entertaining, extroverted side of me, but only Jon is close enough to see the full package- all the good and all the, well, not-so-good. This is why Scripture constantly uses the picture of marriage to describe God's love for Israel and Christ's relationship to the Church. God designed marriage, not only to teach us how to love well, but also to demonstrate His eternal and unconditional love for us. "'It will come about in that day,' declares the Lord, 'that you will call me Ishi [my husband]...I will betroth you to Me forever'" (Hosea 2:16a, 19a). 

(1) Gary Thomas, "Sacred Marriage" Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2000, p 21. I highly recommend this book if you want further reading on this topic. His main premise is that perhaps God designs marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy. An excellent read. 
(2) Bauer, "A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament" 3rd Ed. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2000, p 706.