Husbands and Wives
The Great Commandment
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
Matthew 22:37-38 (Deut 6:4-6)
All marital hurt and brokenness are because of sin. All marital healing begins, middles, and ends with Jesus. To address the broken horizontal relationship that marriage is in our life, we need to first address our vertical relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Jesus quotes Deut 6:4-6 as the basis and foundation to how our lives are to be ordered and prioritized. This foundational verse is critical for marriages and is not something that can ever be moved on from. It is the road map to how marital issues are solved. It is how a marriage grows healthier. It is how sexual intimacy within a marriage is renewed. This scripture removes you as king/queen of your marriage and puts God at the center instead.
A marriage that is seeking to heal and rebuild trust in each other again, needs to learn what God is asking of them individually first. God asks a husband and a wife to seek him with a whole heart, to value him above the marriage, their spouse, and themselves. This scripture is a challenge to what we think we know about marital healing and repair. Modern day thinking says to look at where things went wrong in the marriage by identifying incidents and situations that may have been harmful and then work backwards from there to come up with solutions. How a husband responds to God first in his life will determine how he treats his marriage and his wife and vice versa.
Trusting that God knows you and your marriage and when he calls you to love and worship him with a whole heart, its not because he’s a narcissistic God; but because he knows you were created to worship him and find purpose and thriving in doing so. A marriage that puts God in Jesus Christ first, is a marriage that is serious about healing. Focusing on the Greatest Commandment is not just doing “busy spiritual work”, but it is reordering and reprioritizing our affections and worship of who truly is God. Many of us have gotten into a bad situation in our marriage, because we valued ourselves, our hurts, our wants and our desires over and above God.
So, I want you to look at the questions below and reflect on them. If you are a husband, consider how God has made you and what he has asked you to do. If you are a wife consider how the Lord has made you and what he is asking you to do. Honestly come before God and answer these questions from a humble heart:
Questions to ask God:
· Do I matter to you?
· Do I believe you’re all powerful?
· Have I given my heart fully to you?
· Do I think about you daily and what you would have for my life?
· How does Matt 22:37-38 impact my personal healing?
· How does Matt 22:37-38 impact reunification in my marriage?
Christian Bringolf MA LMHC