Good News October 2017 Broward

MARRIAGE 30 october 2017 Good News • broward edition "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one an- other. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35 NIV). "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). I have been counseling people since 1972. I began counseling married couples in 1982. Most of these couples have been people who pro- fessed faith in Christ Jesus. They sang in choirs, served on deacon boards and went on mission trips. They would have said that they loved Jesus; they just could not stand their spouse. Somehow, the spirituality of Sunday found little expres- sion in the home. For the most part these couples did not pray together, avoided reading scripture to- gether and failed to worship to- gether in their home. In fact, outside mealtimes when a short prayer might be said, one would hardly know that the couples were disciples of Jesus at all in how they lived their married life together. If these spiritual exercises were in the home, these Chris- tian activities could be followed by emotional, verbal, religious and even physical abuse. There was a form of religion, but it lacked all power to bring love to the home. Hypocrisy was a way of life. Somehow, the couples had forgotten that their most basic and eternal relationship is not in their marriage but in a God-ordained spiritual friend- ship in which they have been chosen by God to be the small- est church and have the most intimate Christian fellowship possible. These couples failed to define their relationship as first “in Christ” as disciples involved in a spiritual friendship of shar- ing, serving and caring for each other for the sake of Christ. This relationship is eter- nal and more fundamental than even their marriage. Human marriage is till “death do us part”; while our relationship with each other as spiritual friends is forever. Most Christian couples have never developed a spiritual friend- ship, and this weakens their ability to have a gospel cen- tered marriage. “Friendships begun in this world will be taken up again, never to be broken,” said Dr. Francis de Sales. Spiritual friendship What do I mean by spiritual friendship? In spiritual friendship, the two people are cooperatively responding to Jesus’ call by Spiritual Friendship and Marriage Dr. Norman Wise Living Water Counseling