RESTING IN GOD’S, CHRIST’S & OUR HUSBAND’S LOVE: a message on true love. 17 JUNE 2017

The ultimate union of love is where a person can rest in the love of her spouse. Wow, what a wonderful love. We can be a resting place for the love from Heavenly Father, from Yahshua, and from our spouse!! Resting in our spouse’s love is like resting in God’s love.

With divine inspiration, it came to me that not only do we fail to rest in God, we often fail to realize that just as we are to rest in God’s love, we are also to rest in Messiah’s love, and the wife is to rest in her husband’s love. To see the parallels to all of this may be helpful in several directions. Perhaps the spouse can rest in her spouse’s love, but is restless towards God…the more natural spousal love may provide a template for loving heavenly Father. Or perhaps a person is able to rest in God’s love but has a hard time to rest in their spouse’s love…then the spiritual rest in heavenly Father becomes a spiritual pattern for one’s married life, if the level of love allows for that kind of rest in love.

RESTING IN GOD’S LOVE IS FOUNDATIONAL TO OUR SPIRITUAL WALK. The entire Word of God emphasizes rest…the concept of the Sabbath is hammered at in scripture like the samurai sword maker beating the iron of the sword with thousands of strikes continually. We see how foundational it is in verses like EX 33:14 (“And He said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”), PS 32:2, 46:10, MT 11:28-30 & HEB 4:1-12. We find that it is the true response to God: “Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for YHWH hath dealt bountifully with thee.”(A) We enter into His rest by faith.(B) Love believes all things…the true love between two lovers, when it is pure and strong, believes all things.(C) Likewise, a divinely inspired faith will always come with divinely inspired love, and this love will believe all things. “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” PHIL 4:13. Lovers, deep in love, believe that they can conquer the world, and rightly so…true pure love can conquer. It is very powerful. If we abide in His rest, then “ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” JN 15:7

WHAT DOES RESTING IN THE LOVE OF GOD, THE LOVE OF CHRIST & THE PURE LOVE OF OUR SPOUSE LOOK LIKE??? It actually has a great number of facets. Here is what resting in the love of our spouse & Lord looks like:

1) ACCEPTED…We are accepted by our lover without having to prove oneself: “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”(D) The husband must take the good with the bad, for better or worse, when he loves & marries his wife. Love comes with acceptance. Perfect love from a husband forgives his wife. Perfect love covers a multitude of sins. The husband is not in a position to atone for his wives sins, but true love will cover sins in a bunch of ways (1 PTR 4:8).
2) RENEWED, RESTORED, REFRESHED…our beings are renewed, restored, & refreshed by the receiving of this deep love. This love carries with it forgiveness. Spouses need to forgive each other, as God has forgiven those of us who rest in His love.

3) A SHELTER…our hearts are sheltered in the love. “For thou hast been…a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm…”(E) And nothing can separate us from our lover’s love.(F)

4) A WORRY-FREE COMFORTING PRESENCE…When we accept God’s unconditional love we receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, a person resting in their spouse’s love will feel comfort from the presence of their dear loved one. Oh how comforting to relax in the arms of one’s lover. Worrying is wearing ourselves out uselessly. So resting in the love of our lover changes our attitude towards stresses…we receive grace and not worry to enjoy the presence of God, even though we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. So overtrying, overworrying, overthinking, and overanalyzing can leave us frustrated because it is the opposite of resting in the love of our lover. Insecure restlessness is not resting in the love of our lover. The spouse needs to quit blaming God, her spouse, and her circumstances. It is all irrelevant to resting in their love.

5) HELPMATE, COMPANION & SOULMATE. The Word says that God’s love takes us from being servants to being friends…and as friends we are given a place in the work of our Love. A deeper extension of this is the union of rest that happens when we come inside our lover. Our God is one. The oneness (echad) is a unity…like how a husband and wife become one flesh. Because the wife & husband become one, they have the true companionship of soulmates. Likewise, the believer in the love of Christ is his bride, a special honored place of assistant & companion. So the wife rests “in work”, not from work. This means the wife is a partner, who does what she can, and leaves the rest to God. Love does not “try to believe”, but love believes. (1 COR 13:7) This means that true love between soulmates contains trust, hope, and the assurance that things will work out.

6) PLANS TO PROSPER…”I have plans for you. Plans to prosper you,” our lover says. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”(G) The love of God, Christ and our spouse wants to give us more abundant life, and for us to enjoy our lives.

7) A PLACE OF SURRENDER & SUBMISSION… Christ abided in the love of God, and his finished work of love on the cross in what we surrender to and abide in. There is also a finished work of covenant marriage that the wife can abide in. The marriage oneness, once obtained is a finished work to abide in and not to earn.

THE HUSBAND’S LOVE=CHRIST’S LOVE…THE HUSBAND SERVES AS CHRIST TO HIS WIFE. “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church…Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it….that it should be holy and without blemish.”(H) The husband must live with and love his wife with wisdom, truth & knowledge. “Ye husbands, Dwell with them according to knowledge…giving honor to the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”(I) The husband & wife abide in their love, as the bride of Christ abides in Christ and he in turn abides in the Father.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (J) May you rest in the Lord, & have a blessed Sabbath my dear reader.

(A) PS 116:7 cf. ISA 14:3 (B) HEB 4:3 (C) 1 COR 13:7 (D) ROM 5:8 (E) ISA 25:4 (F) ROM 8:38-39 (G) JN 10:10 (H) EPH 5:22-33 (I) 1 PTR 3:7 (J) 1 JN 4:16