LOVE, RESPECT AND MARRIAGE.

What is Love? I know a lot of people have different opinions on the word LOVE. Our different ideas on Love has caused havoc to the world we live in today. So what is Love? The offline dictionary defines Love as a profound and caring affection towards someone or it can be a benevolent, concern, care for others and their well being.

And it can also mean a feeling of intense attraction towards someone. Which is the type of Love people are quick to warm up to right? Lol.

However, Love to me, means the affection, care, concern or benevolent bestowed on someone unconditionally.

So you know, God is the creator of Love, His Love itself. The bible in 1 John 3:15, 1 John 4:6-21 says that he who hates his brethren is not of God. So you see, God is Love, when you Love others you show that you are of God.

Love is categorized in so many forms or types but I will categorize mine in two forms, namely:

1)Godly Love

2) Carnal Love

Godly Love: this is the type of Love that honors God and it's principles in relationships. It is also called Selfless love. It is the Love that puts God first or the love that acknowledges God in his/her relationship with others.

​Carnal Love: This is the opposite of Godly Love. It is the love that dishonor's God. It is selfish and gives no regard to God and it's principles.

What is Respect? According to the English offline dictionary, respect is an attitude of consideration or high regard for someone. It is a good opinion,honor and admiration for someone.

Respect to me is the importance, goodwill, value and admiration you place on someone or a group of people.

What is Marriage: Marriage is the joining together of a man and a woman, and their families as one unit or family; with Legal, Social, and religious rights and responsibilities.

Why is Love and Respect Needed In Marriage?

Love, Respect are vital components needed in marriage for growth and longevity. Everything God created, was created with the purpose for growth and longevity. For instance, human beings, animals, plants etc are all created by God himself and they all grow and have all lasted till this very moment. So, God's plan for all His creation is for them to grow and last long.

Nonetheless, whether you believe me or not, Love and Respect are all God's plan for a beautiful, joyful and long lasting marriage until death separates one partner from the other.

But today, separation and divorce has eaten deep down into our world that these days, Long lasting marriage is seen as a farce or unattainable because Love and Respect have lost it's track or place in the journey of marriage. Why?, because of CHOICE.

The power of Choice given to humankind by God has made humans to wrongfully choose lifestyles that have destroyed God's Original plan for Humanity, reason why the evil systems of this world like Separation and Divorce has sneaked into our world today unknowingly. This situation ( Separation and divorce), simply explains the scripture that says, while men slept, the enemy came in and sowed tares among the wheat, (Matthew 13:24-30).

And, whatever the enemy has sown, is what has polluted marriage today. Even in the Bible, Love and Respect were mention in Ephesians 5:24-33, where Apostle Paul encouraged the husbands to Love their Wives just like Jesus Loves the Church and gave his life for it. And also encouraged the Wives to respect their husbands in return.

However, in many marriages today, these two key components are far fetched, even CHRIST BELIEVERS are not exempted.

Many married believers or Christians are struggling to Love and Respect their marital partners, Why is that? I will give you three reasons :

​AGAPE LOVE (UNCONDITIONAL LOVE): This is simply define as God's kind of love for humankind. It is unconditional and exactly the kind of Love Jesus encouraged first his disciples and then to us his believers to share or give to one another. Now as believers, individually, we ought to have the spirit of Love living in us already as children of light which enables us to practice Agape Love immediately we surrender our lives to Christ. Agape Love is supposed to help us practice Love unconditionally. But the truth is, most of us believers are pretenders and hypocrites. We mention Christ with our mouth but our hearts is far away from Him. There's no explanation why a Christan couple will outrightly disrespect and not show Love to one another, except, for the case where one spouse is a genuine believer while the other isn't. My point is, if we are really practicing Christianity the way Christ told us to, we will not be struggling to give Agape Love to our spouse and others we come in contact with. Read 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 for more insight on LOVE, the God's way.

​Fruits Of The Spirit : This means the evidence of your identity in Christ. It is the characters of Jesus Christ who we follow while he was on earth. For you to fully be a Christ follower or believer they characters of Christ are supposed to be seen in you. And you can only acquire these characters through the help of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit enables you to have and act out these characters as seen in the book of Galatians 5:22-24. However, Every child of God should have the Holy Spirit to enable them function as Christ Soldiers. The Holy Spirit is the power of God, living and working in us. It is by this power that we are able to do extraordinary things, it also helps us to produce the fruits of the spirit which shapes our characters. Therefore, as a Christian couple or a Christian single, getting ready for marriage, Loving and respecting your spouse or "Spouse to be" shouldn't be a challenge, if your character has been shaped by the help of the Holy Spirit, ( Galatians 5:22-26).

Put God First : According to Matthew 6:32-33, we ought to put God first in everything we do. When you give God your heart and soul, automatically, He begins to teach you what you need to know and do for your spouse in your marriage as He helps your Love and Respect for each other to blossom day by day and last longer in joy and beauty until death part your ways. When you give God your heart first, he makes sure that your lines falls unto you in pleasant places and will also give you a goodly heritage, Psalms 16:6.

In conclusion, marriage is a beautiful thing God created, a union between two people that suppose to surpass human understanding. Marriages are fallen apart today because of lack of Agape Love and Respect for each other, lack of evidence of Christ character in them and finally, not putting God first in their relationship.

It's so shameful that Christain believers depends on the inlove feelings or fleshy feelings and sexual attraction to build a relationship before they can begin to show love to their love partners, which isn't working as you can see in our world today . This also means that most Christians still do relationships carnally.

Notwithstanding, Love is a Verb, it's suppose to be active not dormant according to 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. If you tell someone you love them and not act it or if your words doesn't match your actions, then, you are a liar.

And God's children ain't liars because our Father in heaven is a true God and there's no form of lie in him.

Love is a choice, not a feeling.

Love is first of all, a decision you make to love and respect your partner and others unconditional just like Jesus Christ.

Love is intentional or rather Love should be intentional.

"Love your neighbor as you love yourself "means, love is a personal journey you have to take yourself, by loving yourself first . You also have to find and discover yourself too to be able to love yourself rightly.

Practice and give yourself those good things you have discovered about you. The good things you discover about you are the Treasures God deposit inside of you before you even came into existence. Then when you have discovered these Treasures inside you, and have practiced how to give it to yourself, then share those Treasures with God FIRST before sharing or giving to others including your spouse because our God is a jealous God.

Loving God with all our heart, with all our mind and all our soul should be our greatest desire (Mark 12:30-31), if we must find and enjoy True Love . True Love means "Love as it should be" in other words called Agape love, don't let the different ways the movies and romance novels has diluted True love cloud your sense of choice. Only God can help us find, experience and enjoy True Love in our lives and in our marital homes. As Christian believers, we shouldn't settle for any kind of love but this complete kind of Love called True Love which is "Love as it should be".