Today's featured response
daniel! i'm holdin' it dowwwn. and i find your
email...interesting. i think a love for God and a love for a woman are
two different things. But i think they are innately
related. I mean that i have a love for God (which is
expressed in one form worship as you mentioned) but
that love for God extends to a wife. my love for a
wife inpart comes from my love for God. (i'm grateful
to God for instance, because he provided me a wife.)
(...for now i wait patiently.) then there is human
love, erotic or brotherly love. that's love shared
and expressed between me and you and a husband and
wife. it's tangible. i think that's different than
loving your brother or your wife because you know God
made them and so they are worth love. ...i'm not sure
i can give a good answer to the phrasing of your
question, but i do have more to say. as to a 'line'
of loving God more or less than a person, i don't
think you can be 'saved' or a Christian or 'in love
with God' and place more value in human love. and i
suppose the only way to differentiate a 'line' is if
you put too much of your value or hope or even
'worship' in a person who can't meet that standard,
and isn't even worthy of such a position. you know
how we're told a husband and wife become one flesh, i
think that's true in that you meet each others earthly
needs, but that doesn't mean she can know your mind at
every moment and all thoughts that somehow prompt the
next emotion and tangent. one thing to remember is
that we love God because he first loved us. That’s
one difference in how we love God and each other. he
created us. we didn't create each other and it
doesn't matter who loved whom first. It’s a different
kind of love. If you want to love God more…thank him
for you life and forgiveness. Ask him to meet your
needs as they need to be met. It’s so foolish to
think a person determines their whole life. Those are
some of my thoughts… I don’t know what my parents
might say. You should email them.
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I'll use this e-mail to take the opportunity of extending my exhorbitant amount of knowledge on the subject of the question you pondered upon me. To answer quite honestly, actually, I don't know. God is the paramount of importance. This is beginning to create a small rift between %&^@# and I. I found that I have not been emphasizing God as much as I have wanted to with her. She's been away for a couple weeks, on vacation, and I have taken the opportunity to reassess my values. I think we are going to begin to actually get to know each other now. If you know what I mean. We learnt stuff about eachother and familiarized ourselves with each others' personalities, but now I feel we are ready to actually get to know eachother. This means I will be much more straight forward about my beliefs. Of course this will be a great potential dividing line between us. I'm not going to assert my beliefs upon her, but if she is not comfortable with me in this way, or I am not comfortable with the way she reacts to it, then there is a great potential for a line which will keep us from getting serious. Ideally she will take an interest and come to know Christ. If this happens then God will naturally have been put first in the relationship, and we will both thank each other. If this isn't the case, which very likely will be the turn-out, then I cannot compromise my beliefs. God is whom I serve. This is how I feel one puts God first, and in essence-draws the line. When in a dual-Christian relationship, it goes the same. We need to put what God says above what our spouses say. That can often be difficult, since both people in the relationship are Christians. Of course, if this were the case every time, then as partners we would grow dramatically. Thanks for the pondering question. I hope this lends to the light, brother!
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I think that there is a definite difference between the love a man has for
his wife and the love he has for God. For example, a man is supposed to
love his wife the way Christ loves the church. That doesn't mean a man is
supposed to love his wife the way Christ loves his Father. It's two
completely different kinds of love. Christ didn't worship the church, the
way we are supposed to worship God. Perhaps this is one of the biggest
difference in the two kinds of love. There are, of course, similarities,
but I think the line between loving God first and loving a spouse second
exists in worship. We are to have no other Gods but the Lord, and so
worshiping anything else, be it a person or a thing or whatever, is crossing
the line. A man looks to God for strength, not to his wife. A man seeks
the Lords will for his life, not his wife's will. A man may love his wife
more then any other person in the world, but the relationship between
spouses is based on the fact that they are in the same position. They are
both equally sinful, and have an equal need for salvation. Where as the
relationship between man and God is based on his need of God. We need the
Lord for everything, from salvation to provision of our basic needs. Does
that make sense? I'm sorry if my thoughts seem jumbled, I have never
actually thought about this before.
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After pondering the difference, I have not prepared an answer at this moment, just brief comments. It is evident that there must be a difference between the two types of love, yet there should be some similarites since both are classified as types of love. This question, I believe, leaves the reader with much to contemplate. It could lead you down a variety of paths into remote jungles or congested cities or even desert lands. Perhaps, the best approach would be to seek God Himself. For if He is the Creator of all things and hence Knower of everything, then He could clearly answer such a question. So, Lord, please answer this question and confirm this in our hearts. I have seen you work in my life before in which I immensely thank You. Please hear my plea again. Thank You and in Jesus' Holy Name. Amen. I will reply in the future. Thanks.
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