Linkedin Share

Couples Who Love God First Love Each Other Better

Linkedin Share

I have heard it said throughout my life that when your relationship with Christ suffers, so does your relationship with others. You must have the vertical relationship prioritized correctly for the horizontal relationships to work properly.

I have been engaged for almost 2 months. Now that I am preparing for marriage, I feel this advice is needed all the more.

In order for us to love our spouse fully, we must love God completely.

The Bible teaches that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, ESV) and that “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19, ESV). Because “God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11, ESV). We are only able to love our spouses because God has loved us first.

Our love for others is an overflow of our love for God. But the temptation to love your significant other over the Lord is easy to give in to.

Trending:
Watch: Former Pro Bowl QB Vince Young Knocked Out Cold During Intense Bar Fight

When my fiancé and I started dating, we knew that this would be a temptation. We agreed that we did not want our relationship to become the most important one in our lives.

I remember requesting that if at any point in our relationship he felt that his relationship with Christ was suffering because of me or that he desired a relationship with me more than a relationship with Jesus then he would tell me.

If I ever felt this way, I also promised to address it with him. Then we would take whatever action was necessary.

We never had to strongly deal with this, but there were times when we admitted to each other how tempting it was to prioritize our relationship over that of our relationship with Christ.

My fiancé and I have both continually prayed that we would not love one another more than we love God and that we would not long for our future marriage more than we long for Jesus to return.

Why? Because we know that we cannot love each other well until we are loving God the best. Our relationship will never be strong if our relationship with our Creator is not.

But how does loving God first help us to love each other better?

The closer we are to Jesus, the closer we can become to one another. The more we love Jesus, the more we are enabled to love our spouse.

We cannot truly, fully, and deeply love others unless we know God because knowing God is knowing love since God is love (1 John 4:8). We know God by spending time in prayer and reading Scripture, keeping His commandments, and seeking to have His will done in our lives.

Related:
It's Time for Thinksgiving

These actions come as a response to God’s love for us and show love back to God.

When we truly know and love God, it will naturally overflow into our relationships. When we experience the height and depth of God’s perfect love for us, we cannot help but demonstrate that same love for others.

If we do not know how God defines and demonstrates love, then we will wrongly define and demonstrate love to our spouse. We will make love whatever we want it to be. More often than not, it will become self-serving and self-pleasing.

But this is not true love. Love seeks to serve and please God and others. When we understand where love comes from and the depth of love through our love for God, only then can we fully love our spouse.

Couples who love God first love each other better because their understanding and demonstration of love is selfless, true, righteous, and honoring to the Lord.

May we always seek to love our significant other better by loving them second.

Submit a Correction →



Linkedin Share
Hannah Salyer is a follower of Jesus who loves writing about her faith and sharing the gospel through her work. She is a graduate of Cedarville University (2022) with a B.A. in Professional Writing and Information Design and minors in Bible and Women's Ministry. Hannah loves coffee, reading, and hammocking in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee.
Hannah Salyer is a follower of Jesus who loves writing about her faith and sharing the gospel through her work. She is a graduate of Cedarville University (2022) with a B.A. in Professional Writing and Information Design and minors in Bible and Women's Ministry. Hannah loves coffee, reading, and hammocking in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee.




Tags:
, , , , , ,