SPIRITUAL GROWTH ARTICLES
for the
Christian Woman

LOVE
BORN OF GOD

A Failing Marriage

1. Create Margin
   
2. Hearken!
   
3. Invite the Lord’s Chastening through Obedience
   
   • Distinguishing Between Works and Obedience
   • Love Born of God—A Failing Marriage Testimony
4. Believe and Abide (3 parts)
   
5. Simply Surrender
   
6. Worship and Pray Without Ceasing
   
7. Be Content and Hope in Christ
8. Wisely Steward Your Liberty in Christ
   

I remember the first time the Lord pricked my heart with I John 4:7 was in 1994 when my four-year-old daughter and I were listening to a children's song cassette in the car. These little children's voices were singing "Beloved, let us love another... for GOD IS LOVE."

Reasoning with God

I was still going through a marriage crisis then and trying with all my might to love my husband. I knew I was supposed to love my husband but I just was numb from the crisis. I asked all sorts of questions about love and what it was and what it meant and why we were supposed to love and how were supposed to love. Then this simple children's song quoting this Scripture hit me like a ton of bricks. God is love and love is of God.

Hearkening to God

When I looked up these verses, the Spirit revealed to me that I could not love anyone, including God, in my own power; it was when I began living through Him (whatever that meant) that I could love. Then I saw that verse at the end there, "He hath given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4:13). I cried and cried because I had no idea what all of this meant or why God was showing me this particular verse right now through my daughter's children's song. So I began meditating on God is love. Love is of God. I sang that song over and over again in my head.

God’s Love Outpoured

I was so distant from everyone at this time. Then one day my mother and my best friend called me and wrote me a letter, respectively, and asked me why I was shutting them out of my life. It was so weird because I wasn't purposely doing that, and both my mother and my best friend live hundreds of miles from me (my mother lives 300 miles from me in Pennsylvania and my best friend lives 2000 miles from me in Colorado). How did either of them know that I was shutting people out?

They both told me, “I love you.” There it was again: love. It meant so much to me that God would use them to love me, even though they were miles away. Through this experience, I began learning about one-anothering and the Church—how God uses His people to minister His love to each other if they are sensitive to His Spirit. Thank You, Lord!

Thanking God

Many other things were happening during this time, but I began thanking God for His love for me (fact) until I eventually believed (faith) that He really did love me. Love was all a mind thing at the time. I had no emotion.

Responding to God through Obedience

So I began "loving" my husband with my mind. I believed I loved him because God loved me, and so I loved him the best I could as God was living in love in my mind. Even though I didn't feel loving, I began obeying God with my mind and through my actions towards my husband.

The processes that the Lord takes us through to grow us into Christ, our Head, begin with responding to the Lord through obedience... no matter how we feel. As we obey, the Spirit will renew our minds about the facts. When we know the facts through meditating on them, we can begin to apply them by faith as we act upon what we know to be true.

That has been my process time and time again as God gently leads me through the sanctification process.

God was Self-less when He sent His son to die for us. Jesus was Self-less when, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).

In our marriages, by purposefully choosing to obey God through cooperating with Him to love our husbands by an intentional act of our wills, He will take us to the cross and mortify the flesh—deprive it of its power. The resulting selflessness, emptiness—because of His powerful, transforming love for us and in us—will make room for Him to fill us with His Spirit so we can experience liberty and joy on the on the other side of the cross.

1. Create Margin
   Purposefully develop an environment that fosters spiritual growth.

2. Hearken!
   Cultivate discerning the meaning of His message to you.
   
   • God Leads Us Through What We Know
   • Hearing His Voice through the Din
   • Hearing His Confirming Voice
   • Hearing His Voice through a Child

3. Invite the Lord’s Chastening through Obedience
   Obey—through your personal conduct—the seemingly little things God has set before you.
   
   • Distinguish Between Works and Obedience
     A practical example
     
   • Love is Born of God
     A Failing Marriage Testimony

4. Believe and Abide, Part 1 of 3
   Believe and Abide, Part 2 of 3
   Believe and Abide, Part 3 of 3
   Believe Him as you abide and be released to love.

5. Simply Surrender
   Now that the flesh has no power over you, walk in the Light and simply surrender.

6. Worship and Pray Without Ceasing
   God seeks you to worship in spirit and in truth moment by moment.

7. Be Content and Hope in Christ
   Serve the Living God, in Whom you find your contentment.

8. Wisely Steward Your Liberty
   You are free indeed! Praise the Lord!

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