Pauline’s Notebook

This is an extract from a talk written for the Gracepoint Parents Group. It has being broken down into 4 parts. To continue reading the rest of the talk, click on the link to part II.

We do not Love

Scriptures tell us that due to sin, relationships are broken. Yet despite broken relationships, we still see in some marriages, a love that is special and good. But, even in the most devoted couples, there are the “in-laws”. There is a common saying that we get to choose who we marry but we did not get to choose whose family we are to marry into. Sometimes marriages do get rocky but we do love our husbands. It’s easier to love our husbands because we chose to love them. It’s like how most people have a little circle of ‘in people’ - those whom they find easier to love. We chose our husbands so its easier to love them – but we certainly did not choose our in-laws! Now here is the challenge … bible passages that speak the language of love towards our husbands – agape love (unconditional) - is also the same love language Scripture uses towards those around us. In other words, we are told to have the same agape love towards our in-laws as we do towards our husbands. The tensions we get relating to our in-laws are pressure points but when we respond with anger or revenge onto our in-laws, we sin against them. We do not love them. We do not love them when we get angry and complain about them. We do not love them when we set boundaries up to avoid seeing them. We do not love them when we stop our children from seeing them.

Why we need to Love

We are called to love them because God loves them. God’s love has providential love. In other words, He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45). His love is unconditional to all people, so much so, that He sends His Son Jesus to die for all, the righteous for the unrighteous – thats you, me, your spouse, your family, your friends and your enemies. Yet in this broken world, most people love those who are like them and resent those who are different. Jesus tells us to love our enemies – a love that is rich and costly. We love even when it’s hard to love, because it marks us as the children of our Heavenly Father. We love even when it’s hard to love, because that shows our transformation of becoming more like Jesus (Rom 5:8). We love because that is our calling. We love because we know that God is sovereign and He alone will exact justice on those who wrong us. And finally, we love because of the promises and hope that is to come, comes with many blessings.

To continue reading the rest of the talk, click on the link to part II.