Category Archives: Intimacy

When Loving Gets Difficult

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

roses in the trash

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].  It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. (1st Corinthians 13:4-8/Amplified Bible classic edition)

Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening] (1st Corinthians 13:4-8/ Amplified bible).

It should be effortless to love our spouses this way, after all, we are to love them as we love our selves. If we have entered the covenant of marriage with them, then we should already be convinced that they always, or at least the majority of the time, have our best interest at heart. Yet there are wars and fighting’s among the married in Christ. What is the problem…Division! Everything about marriage is toward unity and oneness, yet division is permeating in marriage. What does it mean to be divided? Here is the definition from Merriam Webster: “Separated into parts or pieces,”

also “directed or moved toward conflicting interests, states, or objects.”

The word “Divorce” mean to sever or separate. When couples get legally divorced, it is simply the manifestation of their disunity.

One of the definitions above states that divided means, “directed or moved toward conflicting interest, states, or objects.” The key word in the definition above is “conflicting.”  Conflicting means opposed to one another or resisting one another. So, becoming divided happens when a force, either from without or within, moves or directs a couple to interest that are opposed to one another, or this force is causing a couple to be moved into opposing states of mind or being, or the things or objects that they each desire are opposed to one another.

The conditioning of the world causes people to celebrate quantity over quality. People talk about themselves or other couples being married for 30, 40, or 50 years, and it is assumed that these are great unions, or good marriages. Not necessarily so. We seldom know the inner workings of other people’s relationships. We are not always privy to how much compromise or pain was endured. Furthermore, just because a couple never gets a legal divorce doesn’t mean that they have remained married in the true sense of biblical marriage. Christ taught in Matthew 5:27-28, that if a man looks at another woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery in his heart. Many people who are legally married have actually divorced in their hearts, because they are no longer submitted to one another in unity. They live lives of opposition, in disunity, but still live together and have occasional sex. Some married couples are in such disunity that they no longer have sex, or they may even sleep in separate beds. All this while legally still married. Some couples are divided, but they stay in marriage for the children, or due to financial dependency. These are all very sad and unfortunate circumstances, and do not come close to our Father’s vision for marriage or becoming ONE.

Many people get married having no idea what it really means, or what it will require. Marriage is just one of many things that people get involved in without research, or fully reading the manual (BIBLE- Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth). Existence is the result of biological circumstance, but to live is to answer a call to a vision given by GOD. Being married is just a legal matter, but becoming ONE is a supernatural act only realized through the power of GOD. Unity comes to fruition as a couple submits to His vision for their lives, while living moment to moment by faith. It is impossible to fulfill the requirements of life’s callings without GOD. That which we accomplish in our own strength award us the praise and approval of men, but it is what we accomplish by faith  that please GOD.

There are no 10 steps to a happy marriage, or 20 steps to a successful life; only seeking life through faith in GOD, moment by moment, and day by day. Anything else is manmade and falls short of GOD’s glory. This is what Romans 3:23 is referring too; the sum of our lives when lived in our own strength. On the contrary, the life we live through faith in GOD’s ability is glorious. In the second year of my marriage, I realized it was beyond me. This was even before having children. I fell on my face and cried out for GOD’s anointing to fulfill His vision for me as a husband, and a father.

The “Love” spoken of in 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 is impossible to embody without abiding in GOD, because He is “Love.” We will never be the husband, wife, father, mother, or person we were called to be until we surrender to the governance of GOD’s love, by faith.  Husband, do you think it is impossible to love your wife in sacrificial love the way Christ loves the church…It is unless you surrender to the Word and the Spirit, and allow GOD to do it through you. Wife, do you believe it is impossible to love your husband with sacrificial love as the church loves Christ…It is unless you surrender to the Word and the Spirit, and allow GOD to do it through you. The cost is the same for all…It will cost you everything you have and then some…but you were made for this and the reward is beautiful beyond description.

Stop trying to figure it all out and start focusing on just being in GOD. The rest will work itself out. Through being born again in Christ, we have 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 within us. We just need to work it out, moment by moment, through the awareness given by the Holy Spirit. The motivation to do the work comes from the joy of the vision that GOD sets before us. If the work seems to difficult, then the vision needs to be restored. To have the vision restored, it is necessary to spend some time with GOD in solitude, so you can hear Him. The just shall live by faith, and faith comes from “hearing” the Word of GOD. You will not see clearly, until you hear clearly. In marriage, the husband and wife must have intimate time with GOD, not just with one another, if they are to succeed in fulfilling the vision of GOD for their union. This is the part that is most neglected. A couple can date each other, and have all the intimacy with each other that they can handle, but the love of 1st Corinthians 3 will only come from intimacy with GOD. The Love that never fails is the Love that is sourced from faith in GOD.

holding hands

 

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Two Feet Away from Deeper Intimacy

Posted by D.L.Fuller on

Reaching-Hand

Christ engaged His disciples in a foot washing ceremony to teach them a few things about how they were to serve each other and to lay a foundation for them to understand a greater purpose for His coming. When He prepared to wash the feet of Simon Peter, Peter reacted saying, “You will never wash my feet.” Peter’s reaction reflects a religious mind set based on a lack of understanding. In that moment, Peter was just like the Sadducees and Pharisees of that day who resisted the person and workings of the Savior. Today there are many followers of Christ, just like Peter, that still resist the washing of the Savior. This resistance is due to a lack of understanding and a religious mind set held instead of the presence of a relationship based on trust and intimacy.

Yeshua’s desire to wash His disciple’s feet was a call to a more personal relationship. Willingly exposing your past and your sins creates intimacy. The resistance to entering the level of intimacy that the Creator is calling us to, creates a barrier between us and the many benefits of His mercy and grace. Yeshua responded to Peter saying, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” So, Peter allowed the washing, but the understanding of what was happening came much later. Yeshua told Peter, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” We must let Him take away the shame of our dirty past. We must allow Him to take our dirty feet into His pure hands and wash them clean. We must allow the weightiness of His love to break our pride and free us from our independence. We can never clean our own feet because all we have in our possession are filthy rags. The work of Christ is to clean us up and furnish us with white raiment; to empower us to walk in the Spirit, down clean paths. An understanding of His grace assures us, that if we should stumble, He will cleanse us yet again.

Today the Church still struggles to understand the washing by the Savior. When Yeshua washed Peter’s feet, he was in effect erasing the traces of the earthy places Peter had been before. Symbolic of cleansing him from his past sins. Yeshua also wiped Peter’s feet with His own covering. This symbolizes the extension of His righteousness in place of the removed dirt. Today many saints are still living soiled in the past, because they fail to grasp the understanding of the Savior’s washing. Christians all around the world celebrate the resurrection of Christ and His redeeming blood, but still have not excepted resurrection power into their own lives. Our resurrection to new life is in the moment we believe He can cleanse our souls, and transform us from the dirty people we have been in the past into the righteous children of the Father.

It is written in 2nd Corinthians 5:17, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. This teaching is in direct conflict with the consensus I often hear among the confessing Christians of today. I have heard Christians saying of the Church that all have wicked hearts, all continue to be bound by sin, that there are none righteous, as if the Church is just as filthy as when Christ redeemed her.

Don’t confuse old testament references to the children of Israel with the resurrected Church of Christ. We must enter our calling of being the holy and righteous people of GOD. The ones who show forth the righteousness of Yahweh, by manifesting His good and perfect will through obedience. Yahweh sowed a Son that he might get a harvest of righteous children. We are the planting of GOD and should be bringing forth righteous fruit. Now, in this present life! We are the evidence of the Savior’s resurrected life. We are not just sinners that have been forgiven. We are the redeemed of the Lord who have been cleansed from our sins and endowed with power by His spirit to walk in newness of life.