Loving Difficult People

Article by Stacy Reaoch

It was only a three-minute escape. Listening to my name being chanted over and over, louder and louder, with greater urgency, along with pounding on the door, you might imagine me to be a rock star.

But in reality, I’m the mother of a toddler who has decided he is only content when he is in my arms. My escape was merely a trip to the bathroom in which I took a deep breath behind the locked door before re-entering my world of diapers, blocks, and Daniel Tiger. And even though I love this little guy with all my heart, at times he can definitely be a difficult person to keep showing love to, especially in the midst of tantrums and tears.

Difficult People Are Everywhere

It probably isn’t hard for you to think of a difficult person in your own life. In our broken, sin-filled world, they are everywhere. The coworker who is willing to do anything to get ahead, including taking credit for your ideas. The in-laws who always seem to be peering over your shoulder, critiquing your parenting skills, and offering “suggestions” for improvement. The child who knows exactly how to push your buttons to leave you exasperated and flustered again. The person in your ministry who is constantly complaining about your leadership, who thinks he has better ideas and communicates them with a sharp and biting tongue. The passive-aggressive friend who is kind one moment and gives you the cold shoulder the next. The list can go on and on.

So, what do we do with these people? With constant strained relationships? Our natural tendency is to want to run the other way, to avoid them as much as possible. But is that what honors God in these hard situations?

Difficult People Have Been Around Forever

Moses was no stranger to leading a group of difficult people. Even after rescuing them out of slavery and leading them safely away from the Egyptians, the Israelites were not happy with him. Instead of being grateful for their new freedom and provision from God, they were shedding tears over the menu (Numbers 11:4–6), grumbling about not having water (Numbers 20:2–3), wishing they had died in Egypt and could choose another leader (Numbers 14:2–4). Even Moses’s own siblings were jealous of his leadership (Numbers 12:2) and complained to God about their brother and his Cushite wife.

Yet what amazes me about Moses is that he didn’t retaliate against this annoying group of people. He didn’t even defend himself against the harsh accusations. Instead, he demonstrated amazing humility and compassion on those he led, repeatedly interceding for them.

Moses pled with God to heal Miriam’s leprosy (Numbers 12:13). He begged God to forgive Israel’s unbelief when it was time to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14:19). He lay prostrate before God, fasting forty days and nights after Aaron and the Israelites had made the golden calf to worship (Deuteronomy 9:13–18).

Admittedly, there were moments when the Israelites’ constant complaints drove Moses to the brink of despair (Exodus 5:22; Numbers 11:14–15), yet by God’s grace he persevered. And even at the very end of his life, he was still lovingly leading the disobedient Israelites.

Keep on Loving

Moses remained steadfast to his last days and made sure God had another leader in place to take over. He didn’t want his wandering sheep to be without a shepherd (Numbers 27:16–17). Moses never stopped loving them, even at their worst.

“Ask God for grace not to run away, but to keep engaging in love that hard-to-love person.”

By God’s grace, we too can keep loving the difficult people God has placed in our lives. The easy thing is to cut the troublesome person out of your life when possible, or just avoid them at best.

But I suggest we are more like our patient and loving Savior when we bear with each other and seek to show mercy and kindness, no matter how we are treated.

Here are six practical ways, among many others, to show love to a difficult person God has placed in your path.

1. Pray for your own heart.

Ask God to soften your heart towards this person, to put off anger and irritability, to put on meekness and kindness, to understand this person’s struggles and meet them with compassion (Colossians 3:12–14).

2. Pray for them.

Ask God to be at work in their hearts, drawing unbelievers to himself and sanctifying believers to become more like Jesus (Philippians 1:9–11).

3. Move toward them, not away from them.

Although our tendency is to want to steer clear of people with whom we have strained relationships, they are exactly the people we need to be intentionally moving toward. Find ways to engage them in conversation, meet them for coffee, send them a text.

4. Find specific ways to bless and encourage them.

Write them a note of appreciation. Buy them a book that has been an encouragement to you. Tell them you are praying for them.

5. Give them grace, just as God extends grace to you.

Remember God’s lavish grace poured out for your own daily sins. Ask God to help you bear with them, forgiving them, as he has forgiven you (Colossians 3:13).

6. Realize that you too could be the difficult person in someone else’s life!

You might not even realize that you are a thorn in the flesh for someone close to you. Don’t be oblivious to your own shortcomings and sins.

So, when that child has you on the brink of tears, or you’ve just received a harsh and critical email about your ministry, or you’re confronted with that extended family member who drives you up the wall, ask God for grace not to run away, but to keep engaging that hard-to-love person in love.

God will be honored and our hearts will find deeper satisfaction as we seek to love people just as Christ loved us when we were his enemies.

Article Originally posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/loving-difficult-people

What Our Anger Is Telling Us

Article by Jonathan Parnell Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anger is not good for you, at least not in its typical form.

New studies argue that regular feelings of anger increase the likelihood for heart disease, and that within two hours of an outburst, the chances of a heart attack or stroke skyrocket. Which means all you angry folks better watch out; it’s a dangerous foible.

But wait. Anger is more than a problem for “you angry people.” It is actually a problem for all of us — that includes you and me.

Traditionally, the anger issue has been divided up between those who get angry and those who don’t. Some personalities tend toward red-faced eruptions; others are unflappably relaxed and easygoing. But the truth is, everyone gets angry — it’s just expressed in different ways. In her article “Why Anger Is Bad For You,” neurophysiologist Nerina Ramlakham says, “Now we separate people differently into those who hold rage in and those who express it out.” The question, then, isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.

And why we get angry has to do with love.

The Love Behind Anger

Anger doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not an original emotion. In one degree or another, anger is our response to whatever endangers something we love. “In its uncorrupted origin,” says Tim Keller, “anger is actually a form of love” (“The Healing of Anger”). Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat to someone or something we truly care about. And in many ways, it can be right.

“The question isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.”

It is right that we get angry with the delivery guy who speeds down our street when our kids are playing in the front yard. That makes sense. The delivery guy puts our children in danger. It also would be right that we get angry about Boko Haram’s hideous evil in Nigeria. It is unbelievably horrible.

But if we’re honest, as much as there are right instances for our anger, most of our anger isn’t connected to the incidental dangers surrounding our children or the wicked injustices happening across the world. As much as we love our children and care about innocent victims, our anger typically points to other loves — disordered loves, as Keller calls them.

Those Inordinate Affections

Disordered loves, or “inordinate affections,” as Augustine called them, are part of the age-old problem of taking good things and making them ultimate. It’s the slippery terrain that goes from really loving our children to finding our identity in them, to thinking that our lives are pointless without the prosperity of our posterity. It’s that insidious shift that turns blessings into idols. And when our loves get disordered, our anger goes haywire.

We’ll find ourselves getting annoyed at the simplest, most harmless things — the things that really shouldn’t make us mad. Keller explains,

There’s nothing wrong with being ticked — getting angry to a degree — if somebody slights your reputation, but why are you ten times — a hundred times — more angry about it than some horrible violent injustice being done to people in another part of the world?

“If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed, the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.”

Do you know why? . . . Because . . . if what you’re really looking to for your significance and security is people’s approval or a good reputation or status or something like that, then when anything gets between you and the thing you have to have, you become implacably angry. You have to have it. You’re over the top. You can’t shrug it off.

If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed in social media, or being cut off in traffic, or going unrecognized for work, or having an idea shut down, or feeling underappreciated by our spouse — the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.

Three Steps Out

So, what do we do? If anger is everyone’s problem, and if it often exposes our disordered loves, how do we break free from its claws? Here are three steps out.

1. Analyze the anger.

We must get into the details of anger and understand its source. It means that when we find ourselves getting angry — when those emotions start to rise up — we stop and ask: “What is this big thing that’s so important to me that I get this defensive?” What am I loving so much right now that my heart is moved to feel angry?

“If you ask that question,” says Keller, “if you do this analysis, more often than not you’ll immediately be embarrassed, because many, many times the thing you’re defending is your ego, your pride, your self-esteem.”

2. Feel sorrow for our sin.

We may feel embarrassed after asking these questions, or worse. Nothing is more ugly than opening the lid of our hearts to find this kind of corruption. But as rancid as it might be, we can face the fright with a bold sorrow. We are bold because the corruption, present though it is, cannot condemn us, or defeat us. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love. He bore the wrath we deserved, freeing us from sin’s guilt. He rose from the dead, empowering us over sin’s dominion.

“We can face our corruption with a bold sorrow. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love.”

And then there is sorrow. We are rightfully sad for how slow our souls are in receiving God’s grace. We are sad that we find ourselves more perturbed by our wounded ego than we are by the abortions that take place downtown, that we shake our fists at rude media more than we lift our hands to heal the broken, that we inwardly mock those who disagree with us more than we publicly defend the rights of the voiceless. We are sad about that in our depths with a kind of serious sadness that isn’t content to leave it there. We are grieved into repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9–10). We turn and we say, No more, Lord. Please, no more.

3. Remember the love of Jesus.

The obvious solution to disordered love is ordered love. But we can’t flip a switch for that. We can’t just stop loving one object wrongly to start loving the most lovable object rightly — that is, unless we’re strengthened by the Spirit to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14–19).

When our eyes are opened to see and savor Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6), when we’re overcome by his grace (2 Corinthians 8:8–9), then we’re led to love him more than anything — and so increasingly care about the things that matter, and grow in not becoming angry when we shouldn’t be.

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis–St. Paul, where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and their seven children. He is the author of Never Settle for Normal: The Proven Path to Significance and Happiness.

When God Interrupts Your Plans

Article by Christina Fox

We were recently on a vacation when God interrupted my plans. My family and I had traveled hundreds of miles to stay at a hotel on the beach. I had made arrangements to spend one day visiting with friends. But then, in the middle of the night, the night before my scheduled day out, one of my kids woke up sick. I spent the whole next day stuck inside, staring out the hotel window at the long stretch of beach that was just outside of my reach.

An Interrupted Life

My life is filled with interruptions, inconveniences, frustrations, and unexpected events. Things break. Accidents happen. The phone rings just as I climb into bed. Traffic makes me late. Just when we don’t need another added expense, an appliance breaks. Unexpected illnesses change my carefully crafted plans. I could go on and on. You probably could too.

The problem is, I usually handle these interruptions to my life poorly. I react with frustration and anger. Like a young child, I want to stomp my feet and say, “It’s not fair!” I blame others for inconveniencing me. I’ll even throw my own pity parties.

“Small frustrations and interruptions give us opportunities to rely on God.”

Though these interruptions are unexpected and catch me off guard, they do not catch God off guard. They are not random, meaningless events. In fact, these interruptions are divinely placed in my path for a reason. God uses these interruptions to change me to be more like Christ.

Slow traffic, a sick child, or a costly home repair may not seem like important tools in our sanctification, but they are. We often overlook these interruptions and inconveniences and instead expect God to work in our lives through huge life-changing circumstances. But the reality is, we often won’t have major events in our life that cause us to trust God and obey him in some deeply profound way. We won’t be called to build an ark or take an only child up Mount Moriah. Rather, it’s in these small frustrations and interruptions, the little things in our life, where we are given opportunities to rely on God, to obey him, and to bring him glory.

Paul Tripp puts it like this:

You and I don’t live in a series of big, dramatic moments. We don’t careen from big decision to big decision. We all live in an endless series of little moments. The character of a life isn’t set in ten big moments. The character of a life is set in ten thousand little moments of everyday life. It’s the themes of struggles that emerge from those little moments that reveal what’s really going on in our hearts. (Whiter Than Snow, 21)

Interruptions of Grace

These ten thousand little moments come in the form of our children asking us to play a game with them when we are tied up with something else. They are moments like when we get stuck behind a school bus when we’re already late to an appointment, or when we have a flat tire on the way to work. They are in all those moments all throughout the day when things don’t go our way, our plans fail, and our life is interrupted.

It’s these moments where the rubber meets the road — where our faith is stretched and we look down to see whether we are standing on rock or sand. Do we really believe that God is in control of all the details of our life? Do we really believe that his grace is sufficient to get us through the day? Do we really believe that the gospel of Christ is powerful enough not only to save us for eternity, but also to sustain and strengthen us in the midst of life’s interruptions? Do we really believe that Christ is enough to satisfy all the deepest needs of our heart?

These interruptions are acts of God’s grace. They force us to work through these questions. They make us face our sin. They are God’s way of taking off our blinders and making us see that we need the gospel in every moment of the day. They are a light that shines on the darkest recesses of our heart, revealing the truth of what’s really there — the sins and idols that we’ve pushed off into the corner, thinking that if we can’t see them, they must not exist.

The Reminder We Need

These interruptions remind us that we don’t have life figured out and that we can’t do it on our own. They are like the Shepherd’s rod, pulling us back from our wandering ways, back to our Great Shepherd. We need these interruptions. Like nothing else, they push us to the cross of Christ where we must remember the gospel and receive his grace and forgiveness.

“Christ cares more about our transformation than about our daily comfort.”

It’s hard to see all the little frustrating events and interruptions in our day as divinely placed opportunities to grow in grace, but they are. And seeing them as such helps us take our eyes off ourselves and put them on Christ, who cares more about our transformation than about our daily comfort. Rather than giving us a life of ease, he interrupts our lives with grace and shows us what we need most of all: himself.

How about you? Is your life filled with interruptions? Do you see God’s hand at work in them?

Christina Fox (@christinarfox) writes for a number of Christian ministries and publications including True Woman, ERLC, and The Gospel Coalition. She is the author of Closer Than a Sister: How Union with Christ helps Friendships to Flourish. You can find her at www.christinafox.com and on Facebook.

Article originally posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-god-interrupts-your-plans

Just Forget About Marriage for a Minute!

Article by Tim Challies

We are a people obsessed with love. We crave love and long to both extend and receive it. It is the subject of our favorite films, the theme of our treasured poems, the thrill of our happy hearts. Yet for all the love we see and experience, there is one much greater than them all. While we find it in a passage of the Bible that describes the relationship of a husband and wife, it points us to a love that is even deeper, even greater, and even more thrilling. Ephesians 5 tells a husband he must love his wife as Jesus Christ loves his church. So let’s forget about marriage for a minute and reflect simply on how we are loved by our great Savior.

Christ Loves the Church with a Sacrificial Love

First, Christ loves his church with a sacrificial love. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Jesus’s life culminated in an act of sacrifice for the sake of his church. He sacrificed himself to all the horrors of the cross so that we would not need to endure it ourselves. He turned himself over to the wrath of God so that we would never need to face it. There is no sacrifice that could ever be greater or costlier than this.

Christ Loves the Church with a Sanctifying Love

Second, Christ loves his church with a sanctifying love. “Jesus Christ gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” The point and purpose of Christ’s sacrifice was sanctification. That word is used in a few different ways, but here it refers to being devoted to God. This tells us that Jesus sanctifies his church by setting her apart to the service of God. We were merrily (or miserably) going our own way, set apart to serve the world, the flesh, and the devil, when Jesus Christ reached out to us, saved us, and set us apart to serve God. Christ loves his church and sanctifies us to the best and highest purpose a human being can achieve—living to the glory of God.

Christ Loves the Church with a Purifying Love

Third, Christ loves his church with a purifying love. “Jesus Christ gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her.” Jesus does not merely set us apart to God’s purposes, but he also gives us what we need to be effective in accomplishing those purposes. And what is it that we need? Purity! Holiness! He equips us by purifying us from our sin. We enter the Christian life as people with sinful desires, sinful habits, sinful inclinations, sinful longings, but Christ delights to purify us. He gives us new desires, new habits, and new longings. This is not a one-time act but one that goes on every day as we take hold of his power to put sin to death and come alive to righteousness.

Christ Loves the Church with a Gospel Love

Fourth, Christ loves his church with a gospel love. “…that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” We all know that water washes away dirt. It cleanses and purifies our bodies. What cleanses and purifies our souls? The gospel! The gospel is the spiritual water that cleanses us from all impurity. We hear this gospel and believe it and are saved, then all throughout our lives we continue to hear this gospel and to become purified from indwelling sin. The gospel is what saves us, the gospel is what sanctifies us, the gospel is what purifies us. The Christian life is not all about our grit and determination to be better people, but about continuing to hear, heed, and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ’s love for the church is declared by the gospel, enabled by the gospel, and eventually completed by the gospel.

Christ Loves the Church with a Purposeful Love

Finally, Christ loves his church with a purposeful love. Why did Christ sacrifice himself, then sanctify and purify his church by the gospel? Verse 27: “So that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” At the end of time, when history comes to its close, Jesus will present the church to himself in absolute perfection—this is the purpose he holds in mind. In Revelation John looks forward in time and sees this: “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem [i.e. the church], coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’” Here is a vision of Christ the groom receiving the church his bride, perfectly adorned for her husband. Spotless. Pure. Holy. Perfect. Unstained. And they will dwell together forever as one.

Conclusion

Do you see how we have been loved? Do you see how we are being loved? Do you see how we will be loved? Do you rejoice at the love of Jesus Christ for you, his church? You were dead in your sin, a spiritual corpse, unable to do anything but deepen your rebellion. There was no hope for you. But then, out of love, Christ sacrificed himself to do for you what you could not do for yourself. Out of love Christ sanctified you to God’s purposes, to set you apart so you could live the life God created you to live. Out of love, Christ purified you, so he could put aside the sin that hinders you and instead give you his righteousness. He did this all through the word of the gospel and through it all has a great and final purpose in mind. You are loved. 

Article originally posted here:  https://www.challies.com/articles/just-forget-about-marriage-for-a-minute/

Do Not Consume One Another

Article by Howard Eyrich

Galatians 5:15 "Do not consume one another".

The same Scriptures that provide us with the positive protocols about which we have written also delineates five practices that we should avoid in order to glorify God in our marriages and enhance a joyful relationship.

In this essay we will consider the protocol found in Galatians 5:15. It says this: “Do not consume one another.”  Let me suggest six ways that couples typical say or do that contributes to consuming one another. The first one is angry outbursts. Angry outbursts have a deleterious impact in several ways. They provoke anger in your mate. The anger may be a defensive anger, an anger of disgust or a retaliatory anger.  For example, Jim and Sally sat in the counselor’s office attempting to provide their counselor an understanding of how their marriage demise had spiraled. As Jim was reporting an incident for the sake of illustration, Sally responded with defensive anger. Immediately Jim shut down and withdrew.  Angry outbursts diminish affection, cooperation and hope that things can ever change.

A second way we consume one another is by an attitude of demandingness. Demandingness is often the outgrowth of unmet expectations. It is not unusual to hear in the counseling office an accusation that sounds something like this. “You are supposed to be the provider for this family (which often means I expect you to enable us to live at the level of our peers) and I am not to put up with your feeble attempts.” Or, a husband may say, “I thought when I married you that you were supposed to be available for my sexual needs. I did not see where the Bible limits that to once a week and if we are going to make it you will have to get with the program.” Now these illustrations may be simplified and overstated, but they are examples (and will be heard at times in counseling).

A third way of consuming one another is by sheer selfishness. Yes, demandingness is a form of selfishness, but this is more pervasive. What is in view here is a self-centeredness that touches all of life. Sometimes this is a malady of which the individual is totally unaware. For example, a person who was raised with the proverbial “silver spoon” in the mouth may well develop a self-centeredness that not only impacts the mate directly, but also impacts every other relationship. This person’s mate finds him/herself energy drained in attempts to manage the collateral damage with the children, the Sunday School class and even with his/her friends. The mate is consumed in the process.

Yet another practice that is consuming is sulking. The mate of a sulker finds him/herself consumed with the task of figuring out what is generating the displeasure of the mate this time. Often these attempts elicit some the anger response discussed above further exasperating the consuming of the mate.

No one appreciates being manipulated. But when manipulation is characteristic of a mate, it becomes consuming. If this trait is a character trait, it will often go unnoticed in courtship, but once engaged in living intimately it will surface. I once had a young couple in counseling where this is exactly what happened. The wife said, “If I had caught on to this when we were dating I would have broken the relationship. It takes all my effort to be alert to your tricks.

Lastly, we can consume one another by distrusting. In a relationship in which trust is absent, mates find themselves consumed with being self-protective. If I am not trustworthy, my mate is consumed by me. Her/his conscious energy is poured into the action of discernment.

So, when Paul writes, “Do not consume one another”, we once again have instruction from the hand of God as to how to live within the church and especially within the marriage in a manner that contributes to our happiness as an outgrowth of glorifying God.

Who Is the Real Problem in My Marriage? It’s Me!

Article by Bob Kelleman

What Causes Our Marriage Fights and Quarrels? 

Shirley and I are watching a Paul Tripp marriage seminar video series based upon his book, What Did You Expect? Session 2 of the video was quite convicting. In about four dozen different ways, Tripp communicates the same convicting message:

“My biggest problem in my marriage is me!”

All of us as spouses, when asked the question, “What’s the reason for your marriage problems?” tend to answer with:

“My spouse is the cause of our marriage problem!” “It’s him!” “It’s her!”

We are all slow to apply Matthew 7:3-5—slow to see the large log in our eye and slow to focus on our own issues. Instead, we are quick to see the speck in our spouse’s eye and quick to focus on them as the root cause of all our marital fights and quarrels.

James asks and answers the great marital diagnostic question in James 4:1-4:

What causes your marital fights and quarrels? Don’t they come from within you—from your unmet desires and self-centered demands that battle within you? You desire and demand your happiness, your agenda, your kingdom, but you do get what you want from your spouse.

So, in anger and frustration, you lash out at your spouse, blaming them—you retaliate: “You hurt me; I’ll hurt you!” You covet—you manipulate: “I’ll do whatever I can to get you to meet my needs.” But you still cannot get what you want from your spouse.

So that’s why you quarrel and fight. Your marital issues are actually rooted in a spiritual issue in your heart and in your relationship to God. You do not have because you do not ask God humbly. Instead you keep subtly demanding your will be done, your kingdom come.

Even when you do get around to asking God, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong, selfish motives—that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures—you become a taker, a consumer, a demander, instead of a sacrificial giver.

You know what that makes you? A spiritual adulterer! That’s right, you forsake God your Spring of Living Water and you try to make your spouse come through for you as your Messiah. You try to make your spouse do for you what only God can do, what only the Savior can do—quench the deepest thirsts of your soul. But no spouse makes a good Savior. So you end up turning to broken cisterns (your imperfect, finite spouse) that can hold no water. You live for your kingdom of self, instead of living for the Kingdom of God. (Bob’s marriage counseling paraphrase of James 4:1-4).

The Problem in My Marriage Is Me! 

As Shirley and I watched the video, we took some notes. Here are our bullet points of the dozens of ways that Paul Tripp says the same thing—the problem in my marriage is me!

• Marriage is not a container for my happiness. Marriage is a receptacle for receiving God’s grace and for sacrificially giving Christ’s grace to my spouse. A broken spouse—and that’s every spouse—is a God-given opportunity to be a grace-giver. My spouse’s weakness and wickedness are opportunities to be a grace-dispenser.
• Marriage is soul school. In God’s Kingdom agenda, marriage is not about my happiness; marriage is about my holiness. God uses my unholy, imperfect, finite, failing spouse to sanctify me—to mature me increasingly into the image of Christ’s sacrificial, other-centered, giving love.
• When you see that your demanding heart is the core problem in your marriage, then you become desperate for grace—Christ’s grace. Then you begin to look at your marriage and your spouse with grace eyes. And you begin to realize that there is no marriage problem so deep that the grace of Jesus isn’t deeper!
• Marriage is a battleground between two kingdoms: the Kingdom of God and my Kingdom of Self. The battle begins in my own heart—who is on the throne of my marriage—Christ or me? Marriage is always a war between two kingdoms—either the Kingdom shaped by Christ or the Kingdom driven by self and my agenda for my happiness and satisfaction.
• Our marriage expectations are not rooted in the gospel. They are rooted in self. My unstated marital expectation is that my spouse will make me happy, will satisfy me, will fulfill me, will fill me, will make me feel good about me, will complete me.
• My biggest problem in my marriage is me—my putting myself on the throne of my Kingdom of Self.
• I don’t need to be rescued from my spouse. I need to be rescued from myself! I need to be rescued from my self-centered, demanding heart.
• When I’m more concerned about my spouse’s issues than my heart issues, my marriage will never become a Christlike, Christ-centered marriage.

Is My Marriage All about Me? Or, Is My Marriage All about Him—About God’s Glory and Christ’s Grace? 

• Matthew 6:33—Seek you first my Kingdom. We are all Kingdom seekers. The question is, “In my marriage, am I seeking the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Self?” Is the secret agenda of my marriage to get my spouse to come through for me, to make me happy? Or, is the spiritual agenda of my marriage to glorify God by loving my sinful spouse with Christ’s agape, giving, other-centered, sacrificial grace-love?
• We trap our marriages in the tiny Kingdom of Self. Then we wonder why our marriage relationship feels claustrophobic. My happiness, my comfort, my fulfillment, my contentment—these are shrunken visions of the purpose of marriage. God wants to open my eyes to his grand, eternal vision for His glory and grace at work through me to my spouse.
• Is the agenda of my marriage about worshipping my preferences and my personal happiness, or about worshipping God and loving like Christ?
• When I get mad at my spouse for not coming through for me—that’s Kingdom of Self stuff! I’ve reduced marriage to me—my needs, my wants, my preferences, my desires, my happiness—me. That’s Kingdom of Self stuff! “You’re in the way of what I want and what I think I need! That ticks me off!”
• What causes conflict in marriage? Marital conflict is caused by the pre-existing conflict in my heart between surrendering to the Kingdom of God or living for my Kingdom of Self. When two people cling to their own Kingdom, no wonder marriage is filled with endless conflict and emotional turf wars! But if at least one spouse will surrender to the Kingdom of God—sacrificial giving—then the whole conflict changes. And if both spouses will surrender together—then you have a God-glorifying, grace-giving marriage.
• What did we expect at the altar? If we’re honest, we married our spouse because we thought they were the whole package—they had what I needed so that they could fill me up! We were attracted to them because we sensed what they could do for us. That’s attraction, not love. And that attraction dissipates as soon as we see our real spouse—our sinful, finite, imperfect, selfish spouse.
• Not the way it was meant to be. Our secret marriage vow: “All I want is for my spouse to make me happy.” “Be my own personal Messiah!” That’s not God’s purpose for marriage. Our marriage problem is rooted in our secret heart sin of ME and my happiness!
• The marital lie we believe: We believe the lie that what we signed up for in marriage was personal happiness. So, we say, “This is not what I signed up for. You are not who I signed up for. You make me mad because you are not making me happy!” That is not biblical love.

So What Is God Up To in Marriage? 

• So…why would an all-wise and all-loving God put two immature, self-centered people together in marriage? Because marriage is a principle tool of sanctification. Marriage is a workroom for two people to become more like Christ! God intends marriage to break us of our self-sufficiency and our self-centeredness.
• Two Conflicting Marital Agendas: While we are working on our happiness in our marriage, God is working on our holiness in our marriage. While we are working on our comfort in our marriage, God is working on our conformity to Christ in our marriage.
• Your marital calling: Your spouse’s sinfulness and immaturity, rather than a reason for your rage, is an opportunity for your maturity! The more you witness your spouse’s weakness and wickedness, the greater your opportunity for your own personal holiness.
• What drives my marital agenda? My happiness, my demandingness, my taking? Or, grace-love: sacrificially serving, loving, and giving to my spouse for Christ’s glory. Am I a selfish consumer or an other-centered giver in my marriage?
• Your marital need—grace and strength. The more honest you are about your own wickedness and weakness, the greater your awareness of your need for Christ’s grace and the Father’s resurrection power. You can’t love like Christ in your own strength.
• Jesus didn’t shed His blood to make my little Kingdom of Self work! Jesus shed His blood to crucify my Kingdom and to invite me into His Kingdom of grace-love for others.
• God calls you into a messy, imperfect, sinful marriage so you can grow in your love for your spouse in their darkest, most wicked, ugliest, most evil moments—and so you can move toward them with Christlike grace.

So What? What Now? 

• How would my attitude toward my spouse and my marriage change if I admitted to myself and God that the core problem in my marriage is me? “I have been about me and my happiness instead of about God’s glory and my spouse’s holiness and my own holiness.” 
• More God-Dependent: What if I admitted that I can’t love my spouse like Christ without Christ’s grace, the Father’s resurrection power, and the Spirit’s filling? This is why Ephesians 5:22-33 is surrounded by the Spirit’s filling (Ephesians 5:18), Christ’s power (Ephesians 6:10), and the armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-18). 
• The only hope for a holy marriage is a humbled, repentant spouse desperately dependent upon Christ’s strength to sacrificially love their spouse. Agape love is not natural. It’s supernatural. We need Jesus! 
• Can I quit blaming my spouse? Can I quit maiming my spouse? Can I cry out for help from God to be more like Christ? 
• Can I own the two-by-four in my eye, repent of my marital self-centeredness, and live for Christ? Can I repent of my marriage being about my happiness, my agenda, my preferences, my plans? 
• What does my marriage need? My marriage needs an intervention—an intervention in my heart, in my attitude, in my Kingdom of Self agenda. My marriage needs an infusion of grace that convicts me of my Kingdom of Self agenda and empowers me to live for the Kingdom of God (grace comes to us teaching us to say no to self-centered passions and yes to other-centered sacrificial love—Titus 2:11-12). 
• Through Christ, can I make my marriage vision All About Him—All About the Father’s Glory through the Son’s Sacrificial Love, by the Spirit’s Power?

Article originally posted at RPM ministries: https://www.rpmministries.org/2018/03/real-problem-marriage/

A Personal Disciple-Making Plan

DAVID PLATT

As we follow Christ, he transforms our minds, our desires, our wills, our relationships, and our ultimate reason for living. Every disciple of Jesus exists to make disciples of Jesus, here and among every people group on the planet. There are no spectators. We are all born to reproduce the life of Christ in others. So how are you going to reproduce?

The purpose in asking this question is to spur you on to consider how the life of Christ in you might be multiplied through you in the world. That’s what this Personal Disciple-Making Plan below is all about. (See the link at the bottom for a free download of this Personal Disciple-Making Plan, which includes space to answer the questions under each of the six main headings above.) Don’t feel like you need to come up with new and creative things to do in response to each of the questions. It is helpful with many questions simply to identify normal patterns of Christian obedience that may already be present in your life. In the end, these questions are not exhaustive, but they are essential. Our hope and prayer is that they will serve us as we consider what it means to be disciples of Jesus and make disciples of Jesus.

1. How Will I Fill My Mind with Truth?

The life of the disciple is the life of a learner. We constantly attune our ears to the words of our Master. As He teaches us through His Word, He transforms us in the world. Consider a plan for reading, memorizing, and learning God’s Word, but don’t forget that disciples do these things not merely for information, but for transformation. Our goal as disciples is never just to believe God’s Word; our goal is to obey God’s Word. So as you plan to fill your mind with truth, purpose to follow the One Who is Truth.

• How will I read God’s Word?
• How will I memorize God’s Word?
• How will I learn God’s Word from others?

2. How Will I Fuel My Affections for God?

There is a dangerous tendency for discipline in the disciple’s life to become mechanical and monotonous. Our aim is not simply to know God; our aim is to love God, and the more we read His Word, the more we delight in His glory. Our aim in other spiritual disciplines is similar. As we worship, pray, fast, and give, we fuel affection for God. It is impossible to separate true faith in Christ from profound feelings for Christ. So as disciples of Jesus, we intentionally worship, pray, fast, and give in order to fuel affection for God.

• How will I worship?
• How will I pray?
• How will I fast?
• How will I give?

3. How Will I Share God’s Love as a Witness in the World?

God’s will in the world and for our lives is to spread His gospel, grace, and glory to all peoples. Instead of asking what God’s will is for our lives, disciples of Jesus ask, “How can my life align with His will for me to be His witness in the world?” Every person that God has graciously put around you is a sinner eternally in need of a Savior. You were once that person, yet someone intentionally sought you out to share the gospel with you. And now this is the purpose for which God has graciously created, saved, and blessed you. So with the Word of God in your mouth and the Spirit of God in your heart, end your quest to find God’s will by deciding today to follow it.

• Who?
• How?
• When?

4. How Will I Show God’s Love as a Member of a Church?

The Bible flies in the face of American individualism and church consumerism, prompting followers of Christ to ask the question, “Am I committed to a local church where I am sharing life with other followers of Christ in mutual accountability under biblical leadership for the glory of God?” To follow Christ is to love His church. It is biblically, spiritually, and practically impossible to be a disciple of Christ (much less make disciples of Christ) apart from total devotion to a family of Christians.

• Who?
• What?

5. How Will I Spread God’s Glory among All Peoples?

The eternal purpose of God is to save people through Christ. The clear commission of Christ for every single disciple is to make disciples not just generally, but of all nations. So regardless of where you live, how is your life going to impact every nation, tribe, tongue, and people in the world? This is not a question for extraordinary missionaries; this is a question for ordinary disciples. God wants His will to be accomplished through us more than we do. And as we follow Him, He will lead us to the people, places, and positions where we can most effectively make disciples of all nations for the glory of His name.

• How will I pray for the nations?
• How will I give to the nations?
• How will I go to the nations?

6. How Will I Make Disciple-Makers among a Few People?

Jesus spent his life investing in a few people. His strategy for reaching all peoples was clear: make disciple-makers among a few people. God will lead us to live in all kinds of different places in the world. Yet regardless of where we live, the task we have is the same. No Christian is excused from the command to make disciples, and no Christian would want to escape this command. So every one of us looks around and asks, “How will I make disciple-makers among a few people?”

• How will I bring them in?
• How will I teach them to obey?
• How will I model obedience?
• How will I send them out?

No child of God is intended by God to be sidelined as a spectator in the Great Commission. Every child of God has been invited by God to be on the front lines of the supreme mission in all of history. Every disciple of Jesus has been called, loved, created, and saved to make disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus until the grace of God is enjoyed and the glory of God is exalted among every people group on the planet. Making a personal plan for how we are going to join God in His mission is a huge step in joyfully experiencing the fullness of His grace in our lives as we join Him in His mission for the world.

* See below for the free download of this Personal Disciple-Making Plan.

____

David Platt is the president of the International Mission Board (IMB) and founder of Radical. He is the author of several books, including Radical, Follow Me, and Counter Culture.

DAVID PLATT

David Platt is the president of the International Mission Board (IMB), Teaching Pastor at McLean Bible Church in Washington D.C., and founder of Radical. He is the author of several books, including Radical, Follow Me, and Counter Culture.

Six Lessons in Good Listening

Article by David Mathis, Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

Listening is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do, and one of the hardest.

In a sense, listening is easy — or hearing is easy. It doesn’t demand the initiative and energy required in speaking. That’s why “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The point is that hearing is easy, and faith is not an expression of our activity, but our receiving the activity of another. It is “hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:2, 5) that accents the achievements of Christ and thus is the channel of grace that starts and sustains the Christian life.

But despite this ease — or perhaps precisely because of it — we often fight against it. In our sin, we’d rather trust in ourselves than another, amass our own righteousness than receive another’s, speak our thoughts than listen to someone else. True, sustained, active listening is a great act of faith, and a great means of grace, both for ourselves and for others in the fellowship.

Lessons in Good Listening

The charter text for Christian listening might be James 1:19: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” It’s simple enough in principle, and nearly impossible to live. Too often we are slow to hear, quick to speak, and quick to anger. So, learning to listen well won’t happen overnight. It requires discipline, effort, and intentionality. You get better with time, they say. Becoming a better listener hangs not on one big resolve to do better in a single conversation, but on developing a pattern of little resolves to focus in on particular people in specific moments.

Freshly persuaded this is a needed area of growth in my life — and possibly yours as well — here are six lessons in good listening. We take our cues from what may be the most important three paragraphs on listening outside the Bible, the section on “the ministry of listening” in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, as well as Janet Dunn’s classic Discipleship Journal article, “How to Become a Good Listener.”

1. Good listening requires patience.

Here Bonhoeffer gives us something to avoid: “a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say.” This, he says, “is an impatient, inattentive listening, that . . . is only waiting for a chance to speak.” Perhaps we think we know where the speaker is going, and so already begin formulating our response. Or we were in the middle of something when someone started talking to us, or have another commitment approaching, and we wish they were done already.

Or maybe we’re half-eared because our attention is divided, by our external surroundings or our internal rebounding to self. As Dunn laments, “Unfortunately, many of us are too preoccupied with ourselves when we listen. Instead of concentrating on what is being said, we are busy either deciding what to say in response or mentally rejecting the other person’s point of view.”

“Poor listening diminishes another person, while good listening invites them to exist and matter.”

Positively, then, good listening requires concentration and means we’re in with both ears, and that we hear the other person out till they’re done speaking. Rarely will the speaker begin with what’s most important, and deepest. We need to hear the whole train of thought, all the way to the caboose, before starting across the tracks.

Good listening silences the smartphone and doesn’t stop the story, but is attentive and patient. Externally relaxed and internally active. It takes energy to block out the distractions that keep bombarding us, and the peripheral things that keep streaming into our consciousness, and the many good possibilities we can spin out for interrupting. When we are people quick to speak, it takes Spirit-powered patience to not only be quick to hear, but to keep on hearing.

2. Good listening is an act of love.

Half-eared listening, says Bonheoffer, “despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person.” Poor listening rejects; good listening embraces. Poor listening diminishes the other person, while good listening invites them to exist, and to matter. Bonhoeffer writes, “Just as love to God begins with listening to his Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them.”

Good listening goes hand in hand with the mind-set of Christ (Philippians 2:5). It flows from a humble heart that counts others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). It looks not only to its own interests, but also the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). It is patient and kind (1 Corinthians 13:4).

3. Good listening asks perceptive questions.

This counsel is writ large in the Proverbs. It is the fool who “takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (Proverbs 18:2), and thus “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13). “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,” says Proverbs 20:5, “but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

Good listening asks perceptive, open-ended questions that don’t tee up yes-no answers, but gently peel the onion and probe beneath the surface. It watches carefully for nonverbal communication, but doesn’t interrogate and pry into details the speaker doesn’t want to share, but meekly draws them out and helps point the speaker to fresh perspectives through careful, but genuine, questions.

4. Good listening is ministry.

According to Bonhoeffer, there are many times when “listening can be a greater service than speaking.” God wants more of the Christian than just our good listening, but not less. There will be days when the most important ministry we do is square our shoulders to some hurting person, uncross our arms, lean forward, make eye contact, and hear their pain all the way to the bottom. Says Dunn,

good listening often defuses the emotions that are a part of the problem being discussed. Sometimes releasing these emotions is all that is needed to solve the problem. The speaker may neither want nor expect us to say anything in response.

One of Dunn’s counsels for cultivating good listening is: “put more emphasis on affirmation than on answers. . . . [M]any times God simply wants to use me as a channel of his affirming love as I listen with compassion and understanding.” Echoes Bonhoeffer, “Often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously.” At times what our neighbor needs most is for someone else to know.

5. Good listening prepares us to speak well.

“The best ministry you might do today is to listen to someone’s pain all the way to the bottom.”

Sometimes good listening only listens, and ministers best by keeping quiet, but typically good listening readies us to minister words of grace to precisely the place where the other is in need. As Bonhoeffer writes, “We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”

While the fool “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13), the wise person tries to resist defensiveness, and to listen from a nonjudgmental stance, training himself not to formulate opinions or responses until the full update is on the table and the whole story has been heard.

6. Good listening reflects our relationship with God.

Our inability to listen well to others may be symptomatic of a chatty spirit that is droning out the voice of God. Bonhoeffer warns,

“He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. . . . Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.”

Good listening is a great means of grace in the dynamic of true Christian fellowship. Not only is it a channel through which God continues to pour his grace into our lives, but it’s also his way of using us as his means of grace in the lives of others. It may be one of the hardest things we learn to do, but we will find it worth every ounce of effort.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

Forgiveness Is a Marathon

Article by Vermon Pierre, The Gospel Coalition

It’s the kind of video you watch with silent awe. There on your screen is Dylann Roof, clad in an orange jumpsuit, his stare cold and flat. As you watch, you soon hear the voices of the family members of the people he murdered at the Emanuel AME Church prayer meeting. They’re in a courtroom, speaking to him via closed-circuit video. The murders have happened only a few days earlier. Memorial services are still being planned. Pain and loss are clearly present as you hear the emotion in the voices of these family members.

But the words they speak to Dylann Roof are words of mercy and grace. Instead of anger and hate, they offer him forgiveness.

Many were amazed by what they witnessed from these family members. And it is amazing. But it most certainly was not easy. I fear that in our era of short video clips and changing Facebook and Twitter feeds we’re prone to quickly highlight a video like this yet fail to fully understand or appreciate all it represents.

We need to slow down long enough to consider what it takes to offer this type of forgiveness, and what it takes to continue in this spirit of forgiveness. Indeed, many of us have moved on from this story. Yet the family members and Emanuel AME community cannot. The tragedy will always feel near in their memory.

They have chosen the path of forgiveness, but let’s recongize that this path is costly, and this path is long and difficult. 

Forgiveness Is Costly 

Forgiveness doesn’t come cheaply or easily. It always comes at great expense to the one wronged. In some cases, it comes with permanent cost. The wronged parties must “take it on the chin,” allowing themselves to be physically, emotionally, or spiritually wounded by the offending party instead of seeking an equal measure of revenge. Christians do this in imitation of Jesus, who faced sinful rebels and yet still suffered and died so that we might be forgiven and reconciled to God.

We rightly celebrate what Jesus did, but let us remember that it resulted in him bearing permanent scars on his body. Within God himself, there is a constant memorial to the heavy cost of forgiving us.

It’s a bit trite, then, to point to Emanuel AME Church and tell those who have suffered a significant injustice that they need to “get over it,” to forgive instead of responding with anger.

Actually, anger is the natural, instinctive reaction to being sinned against. Think of your own reaction the last time you felt taken advantage of or misunderstood. The movie Taken is popular not because the main character decides to forgive and reconcile with those who kidnapped his daughter; it’s popular because he takes angry, bloody revenge on them. In many tragedies, such as the recent shooting of Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, we don’t blink an eye at the many outcries for immediate retribution against the perpetrators.

So it should shock us when we encounter a situation in which a victim doesn’t take revenge. When someone chooses to forgive, we are watching someone pay an enormously heavy and personal cost.

Historically, the black church has arguably paid this bill more than most other communities in America. We should never take this forgiveness for granted. We should marvel and thank God every time we see it.

Forgiveness Is Long and Difficult

Though Charleston has already faded from the news, it won’t ever fade from the view of those who personally experienced this tragedy. We applaud what they’ve done, share it on social media, then move on to the next thing. But Emanuel AME will have to live out the spirit of forgiveness every day. Forgiveness is neither easily offered nor easily lived. It requires daily “working out”—a daily willingness to look at the scars of injustice and choose to press deeper into grace instead of turning back toward anger and revenge. Over time, the land of anger and revenge will fade farther and farther from our view.

But we don’t get there quickly, especially when the wound is deep. This is why forgiveness is more like a marathon than a sprint. Some stretches are harder than others. At times we go uphill against strong winds. When loved ones vanish from your life because of racist hatred, the act of forgiveness will be continual and tiring. The cry How long, O Lord? by many African Americans arises out of the burden of trying to preserve and maintain faith in the Lord when the end of the race feels a long way off.

Our Bank Account

The example of Charleston victims’ families isn’t a “silver bullet” talking point for us to win arguments about whether racism really matters today or about the right view on the Confederate flag. Instead, their example should be honored with reverence and considered with care. It should encourage us to look first at ourselves, to count the heavy ongoing cost of showing grace to others—especially those who have hurt us most.

Thankfully, our bank account of grace is not empty but full, since someone was willing to pay the greatest cost before any of us ever could or would (2 Cor. 8:9). May this sacrifice lead to more thoughts, more words, and more actions of Christ-bought grace from us to the world around us. 

Vermon Pierre (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is the lead pastor for preaching and mission at Roosevelt Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of Gospel Shaped Living. He and his wife, Dennae, have four children.

Originally posted on:  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/forgiveness-is-a-marathon/

24 Things Love Is.....

Article by Paul David Tripp

What is love?

You won't find the best answer on the pages of Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster or Shakespeare. No, the best definition of love was established at an event, the most important event in human history: the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ's sacrifice of love is the ultimate example of what love is and what love does. Here's a definition I like to use:

Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.

If we are followers of Jesus Christ and believe in the cross for salvation, then our words and actions and responses must be motivated by cruciform love. That is, love that shapes itself to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ (cruci = "cross" and form = "in the shape of").

On this Valentine's Day, here are 23 more ways that you can express cruciform love in your daily living.

1. LOVE IS being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.

2. LOVE IS actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward another while looking for ways to encourage and praise.

3. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.

4. LOVE IS being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding.

5. LOVE IS being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.

6. LOVE IS a making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.

7. LOVE IS being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.

8. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to another is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient.

9. LOVE IS being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged, but looking for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.

10. LOVE IS being a good student of another, looking for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support them as they carry it, or encourage them along the way.

11. LOVE IS being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the relational problems you face, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.

12. LOVE IS being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.

13. LOVE IS recognizing the high value of trust in a relationship and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.

14. LOVE IS speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack the other person’s character or assault their intelligence.

15. LOVE IS being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to co-opt the other person into giving you what you want or doing something your way.

16. LOVE IS being unwilling to ask another person to be the source of your identity, meaning, and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, while refusing to be the source of theirs.

17. LOVE IS the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a spouse, parent, neighbor, etc.

18. LOVE IS a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your relationships.

19. LOVE IS staying faithful to your commitment to treat another with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when the other person doesn’t seem deserving or is unwilling to reciprocate.

20. LOVE IS the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of a relationship without asking for anything in return or using your sacrifices to place the other person in your debt.

21. LOVE IS being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm a relationship, hurt the other person, or weaken the bond of trust between you.

22. LOVE IS refusing to be self-focused or demanding, but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.

23. LOVE IS daily admitting to yourself, the other person, and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

God bless

Paul David Tripp (originally posted on PaulDavidTripp.com

Reflection Questions

1. For more on cruciform love, spend time reading, and meditating on, 1 John 4:7-21.
2. Print this list out or save it to your phone and revisit it, asking the Lord to show you where you can grow in cruciform love.