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Follow God's Example...

             Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Yesterday’s blog was about God’s love for us. Often, love is described as a desire and commitment to do someone good, but it is also the desire and commitment to a relationship with someone without making that person nothing more than an extension of oneself. It’s one of those two sides of the same coin things. Today’s passage turns the focus from God to us and challenges us to experience God’s love for us and live out love for God and one another.

How are we to accomplish this? After all, God is good at this because God is God, but we aren’t. Different people experience love in different ways. While one person wants to spend hours walking, working, and being together, another would find that smothering. Someone else may want to give gifts that may make the person receiving them feel inadequate because they can’t reciprocate or as if they now owe the giver. One person may want to hold hands, hug, or put a hand on the shoulder of a touch-me-not, speak encouragement to someone who hears empty words, or do something for someone who might consider the activity a rival for the server's attention. All of that is discussed in The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

But the other side of the equation is equally important. Our love must not make the other person merely an extension of us, nor should we become an extension of the other person. Extensions are not partners. They are slaves. Part of this means that we must not think of love as meaning that two people must always hold only one opinion. And here’s where we run into a Biblical issue, the misunderstanding of which causes problems: submission. The Bible clearly states that wives must submit to husbands, children to parents, slaves, servants, and employees to owners/masters/employers, and citizens to rulers. It also states that we are to submit to and love one another, but those pieces of the puzzle get lost once submit, submission, or submissive gets mentioned. 

The problem is one of definition. Subcontractors help general contractors accomplish their tasks. They may be far better at the part of the job they do than the contractor. But huge problems develop if the contractor and subcontractor work from their own and not shared blueprints. When it comes to marriage, such wisdom seems to fade away. Differing expectations and plans don't matter. All that seems to matter is attractiveness, sexual prowess, and the ability to make the partner "feel good." In other words, both walk into the marriage thinking of the other as an extension, not a partner. Small wonder that nearly half of all marriages officially fail, and probably at least another half fail without the freedom provided by divorce. Those things are not love.

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