Love your Husband Challenge week 4

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails

The love verse..... Most of us are familiar with this verse. We have heard it at Church, we have read it in our Bibles or on Hallmark cards. This verse might have been read at our wedding ceremony. It is a verse that makes us feel good and all gooey inside. Is this a verse that calls you to action? Well it should. This month we are challenging you to love your husband, the way God wants you to love your husband. For the next four weeks we will take one verse and challenge ourselves to do what it says.
click here if you missed week 1
click here if you missed week 2

click here if you missed week 3

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails

Has someone you cared about ever let you down?  Maybe you were lied to, cheated on, abandoned by, deeply hurt, or abused?  Possibly even betrayed by the very person who was suppose to love you?  

If so, it may be especially difficult to imagine a love that never fails.

Oh, Taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Psalm 34:8

This never-failing Love is God Himself (1 John 4:8) . He created you in your mother’s womb and knows you by name (Psalm 139). He longs for you to surrender to His plans for He loves you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). 

 It is heartbreaking the terrible things that happen every day in this broken and cursed world. 

Those things will either break us making us hard, angry, and bitter people 

or 

they may catapult us into the arms of Love. His heart breaks too with the sadness and pain in this world. But praise God! For He is able to bind up the broken hearted, proclaim good news to the poor in spirit, and He sets the captives free. (Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:18)

 We as Christians must abide daily in Christ so that though us these things would take place! 

 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

But the fruit of the Spirit is love... Galatians 5:22

He is the author and source of love. True followers of Christ will be known by their love.  May we, the church, rise up in His Love to finish the work He has for us! Prepare the way of the LORD!  He is coming. 

 Love never fails. 

Challenge:

How can I be all that God created me to be?

1. Pray & plan a time/date for a personal spiritual “retreat”.

 It could be for as short or as long as you can pull off. The purpose is to “get away”  and be still to examine your life making sure your goals & focus are aligned with God’s word & match your actions. Come back refreshed and be intentional in doing something extra special for your spouse!

Love is the most important spiritual act!  It’s worth taking the time with God and yourself to re-energize and re-focus your life. We all need to do this from time to time.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and posses all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26

2) Grow in love.  Put your name where “love” goes to examine areas in which you can grow.

______ is patient and kind. ______ is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. ______ does not demand their own way. ______ is not irritable, and keeps no records of wrong. ______ does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices in the truth. ______ never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. ______ never fails...

Pray that your love for your husband would be pure & deepen. 

Over all, let the Truth of God’s love - He has rescued you from death & redeemed your soul! - fuel the love you have for others, particularly those difficult to love/forgive. Listen and obey. With HIM all things are possible...

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:1-2,38-39