Jesus & The Unfaithful Bride

TOP 5 WAYS TO BE SURE YOU WON’T HAVE THE MARRIAGE OF YOUR DREAMS

1. Stop Communicating With Your Spouse! Talk about them not to them, and give them the silent treatment as much as possible! It’s best if you can yell something unrecognizable at them and storm out of the room. If you need help watch a five year old do it and be sure to be animated like them!

2. Stop Listening To Your Spouse! See #1 add, quit taking their call, and responding to their text message’s, un-friend them on FaceBook so they can’t see what you’re up to with your friends. Avoid being in the same room with them at all costs.

3. Always Assume The Worst About Your Spouse! Never give them the benefit of the doubt, stand under the motto “they are guilty until they can prove they innocent!” Be sure to second guess everything they say even if it sounds reasonable--watch old reruns of People’s Court or Judge Judy for more ammo accusatory phrases!

4. Focus On What Your Spouse Does Wrong. In fact keep a list of their inadequacies and shortcomings! Point them out as much as possible, tell them to their face, better yet tell them to your friends in front of them as much as possible! Also, don’t forget to add in how they are “not meeting your needs.”

5. Quit Having Fun With Your Spouse! Don’t do anything that either of you enjoy and certainly not together. Quit laughing and joking and be sure to hang out with other couples who are killjoys and focusing on the above 1-4. In fact begin to view your spouse as your enemy, and try to just coexist living separate lives and if you can make sure you have friends that your spouse doesn’t like!

Start with these 5 things and I can promise you will NOT have the marriage of your dreams but will be on the road to divorce in no time at all! You can add the biggest one of all QUIT SPENDING TIME WITH GOD. Don't go to church or pray together or seek God's Word for daily wisdom for marriage. If you walk down this road I can guarantee you will be on the road to a broken marriage. Or, you can go to Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 8, and several other bible verses that talk about God's love and faithfulness to us. (even when we are unfaithful) In Ephesians we see a perfect example for what a Godly Marriage is to look like with Jesus portrayed as the Groom and the church depicted as the Bride. The love, respect, and sacrifice portrayed in Jesus very life and death is the perfect example that God gives us for marriage. It's also a clear picture of how God loves us.

What has struck me recently is how how much God loves us. How much that He would send His only Son Jesus to receive what we morally and justly deserve--God's Punishment. This really didn't set in for me until I had my own son Andrew. We call him Drew-Dog and he is amazing, in fact I can't imagine my life without him as many of you with kids understand. I have often said that it's a good thing that I am not God because if it were up to me I wouldn't give Drew-Dog's life up for anyone. In fact I would do just the opposite and protect him from anyone or anything that would try to harm him. Now, imagine the pain as God watches His Son get beaten, the verbal and physical assaults as His Son walks the road to Golgotha--a death march. This is where the unthinkable sets in; when we understand Jesus depicted as the Groom, and He willingly agrees to sacrifice His life for an unfaithful bride. Who's the bride? The church is depicted as the bride of Christ. Who's the church? The community of believers who gather in the name of the Lord as Acts 2:42ff explains. We who make up the church have been an unfaithful bride to Christ in thoughts, words, and deeds. We have been unfaithful to Jesus our Groom by the things we have done and by the things we have left undone. Nevertheless, our faithful Groom, steps in at just the right time to do what only He could do, namely love an unfaithful bride and make her clean with His very body and blood.

Romans 5:6-8(NIV)
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is such a clear picture of the love and sacrifice that we are to have in marriage as God designed. When we understand God's sacrificial love for us and align our thoughts of what the "the marriage of our dreams" looks like with God's intentions and design for marriage. We can love and respect our spouse(with the help of God) even when they are unfaithful, even when they are undeserving of love or respect. We can do this when we understand that we ourselves are also unfaithful and undeserving yet God showers us with His love. God's word transforms us and our thinking as we see love in a new light explained in Romans 12 We turn to God for our example of what a Godly marriage looks like. It's then we see that marriage has everything to do with sacrifice and loving as God loves us. I am thankful for the love of the Father, I am thankful that Jesus is the perfectly faithful Groom that sacrifices as no man on earth would ever dare to do...Jesus love's the unfaithful bride.