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LOVE LABORATORY “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” –1 John 3:18 Marriage, I’ve come to conclude, is actually the laboratory in which God produces love. In a typical research and development lab each new marketable product is often the result of hundreds or thousands of trials and tests. In the same way God’s perfect love is produced in us as we grow through trials and testings. It’s in the very laboratory of our marital relationships that God removes the impurities in our own hearts like self-righteousness and self-serving motives. It’s in this laboratory that we practice being submitted one to another out of reverence for Christ. In other words, the way we treat each other is actually the way we are treating Christ. Why is it that this relationship is often the most difficult? It’s because in this laboratory the real person shows up. Everything else is a “put-on.” I had a client say to me once, “I have no problem when I’m with others; my real self is gentle, humble and kind; it’s only when I’m with my spouse that this other angry person comes out; it’s just not me!” Oh yeah? Guess what; he had it backward. The angry person was the real person, while the other gentle and kind person that showed up in public was the actor. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” –Jeremiah 17:9. That’s why we need the laboratory of marriage, to bring out the real carnal person that we are, so that the blood of Jesus can wash away our sin, and we can press forward for the prize of living a life that is more Christ-like each day. That’s the goal. So let’s thank God for the laboratory of marriage and all the trials and testings that the master performs in us to produce the very image of His own Son –in us! Let’s surrender to the Master’s hand to let His love be produced in us. Let this marketable product called love be seen in us that the world will know Jesus. What a privilege! What an awesome privilege! Question for the Both of Us: “How have we seen our marriage resemble a laboratory for love? What have been some of the testings and trials that have helped us to grow and change? How is the experiment coming along? Prayer for the Both of Us: Lord, help us to submit to the Master’s plan to produce His love in our laboratory of marriage. Let the impurities come to the surface, not to bring condemnation, but to bring forgiveness and new life. Help your love to grow in us that the world might see Jesus in our marriage. |
© 2007 Marriage & Family Savers Ministries