Over the next several months, I hope to do a series of blogs on how to live the “lifestyle” of Jesus. Jesus not only came to save us from sin and give us life-altering teachings; he modeled and called us to follow his pattern of living, his actual way of doing life. This is how we were designed to see the world now and for eternity, how we relate to each other, and how God designed us to enjoy, celebrate, and just have fun with Him, each other, and this amazing physical world!

So I’m going to begin with the most amazing, wonderful, complicated, and difficult relationship God designed for us: marriage! (And if you are not married and don’t want to be, these practices still apply to other relationships and will make your life better than you can ever imagine!)

Now, some may ask “What does Jesus know about marriage? He was a single guy who never even got married!” Well, consider this…Jesus was God, and he was the Creator, and marriage was his idea! When someone questioned him about divorce, he answered by pointing to what marriage was designed to be…

⁴  “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵  and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶  So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  -Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV)

Not only that, but when Jesus came down to earth as fully God/fully human, he came as a groom searching for his eternal bride! Did you know the Bible says when Jesus returns and banishes all evil and inaugurates his Kingdom, our relationship with him will be this: He will be the groom, and all of us who believe in him and trust him with our lives (the Church) will be his bride forever! (Guys, I know it’s weird to think of being the “bride”, but hey, he’s God and can do it anyway he wants to!)  So, marriage here on earth, as imperfect as it always is, is meant to be an example and give us a “taste” of the most amazing, intimate relationship God desires for us, which is a personal, loving, eternal relationship with him!

SO, WHEN JESUS CAME TO EARTH, IT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS THE FIRST, COSMIC “CHRISTIAN MINGLE”!

Now, I just happen to be on a Christian dating site called “Christian Mingle”. Not something I ever thought I would do, but… it is what it is! Here’s how it works: you put your best pictures of yourself on the page, and you write a “profile”, which is a description of yourself which hopefully makes you look great and appealing, without actually lying about it! And you may also hint at the type of person you hope to meet and date, describing what they “should” be like.

So just imagine Jesus, the only “Mr. Perfect” ever, coming down to earth and looking for his potential bride to be the perfect “match” for him. He, being “Mr. Perfect”, is without sin, he never lies to you, he listens intently to you all the time, his heart and motives are always pure, he promises to stay with you no matter what you do, he will forgive you over and over, he will overlook your flaws and his main desire is to redeem you and build you up into the amazing person God designed you to be! And then he looks at our profiles, and says, ‘Wow. There’s not anyone close to being a match for me here!” The reason is this…

1) BECAUSE WE ARE ALL SINFUL BY NATURE, WE ARE FLAWED, MESSED UP IN MANY WAYS, AND LESS THAN WE WERE CREATED TO BE!

The more vulnerable and intimate a relationship is, the more this becomes apparent! That’s why marriage is so tough and complicated sometimes. Claudia and I had a lot of wonderful married Christian friends, and we really admired them and learned a lot from them over the years. But even their marriages were never perfect, and they got mad and frustrated with each other at times. As a pastor who counseled with many couples, I often heard these thoughts:  “He doesn’t spend much very time with me, and when I’m hurting, he doesn’t listen to me or care about how I feel”. Or guys might say, “She’s always nagging me to get this or that done, and she’s always wants to change me or get me to do something new”. And of course, there are usually a lot of worse conflicts than that!

I honestly tell people that Claudia and I had a wonderful marriage, and that is true! But, it was far from perfect. Claudia was someone who liked to “journal”. She would weekly, sometime daily, write her thoughts out to God. Some were expressions of praise and thanksgiving for how he was working in her life. But she also wrote down her frustrations, disappointments, and even anger, both at God and other people in her life. I have read some of those now that she is gone. I was surprised to discover (and I’m sure that my friends who know me would be too) that Claudia was often angry and frustrated with ME! Things like I didn’t listen to her and ignored her feelings, was too busy with work and didn’t spend enough time with her and the kids, and so on. My first thought in reading these was “Wow! It’s so sad that Claudia was so flawed by her sinfulness that she completely misunderstood me so often! She really failed to see just how compassionate, sensitive, and caring I really am, and just what a really great guy I am!”  …Nah, just kidding.  I know many of my flaws back then, and truth is, she probably left many out! (Just a note for any women whom I might talk to or date now: all of those flaws have since been corrected, and I’m good to go now. Everything’s fine, its good, nothing to see here anymore. Okay? Lol!)

2) JESUS, “MR. PERFECT”, SAW OUR BROKEN, SAD PROFILES, AND RATHER THAN TOSS US AWAY AND LOOK FOR SOMEONE BETTER, MORE LIKE HIM, HE DECIDED TO FORGIVE US, REDEEM US, AND GIVE HIS LIFE FOR US SO WE CAN BECOME THE BEAUTIFUL (OR HANDSOME), JOY-FILLED, PEACEFUL MEN AND WOMEN THAT HE WANTS TO HAVE AS HIS “BRIDE” IN HIS FUTURE KINGDOM!

The apostle Paul recognized that if we ABIDE in Jesus (meaning to make our home with him), trust our lives to him, and make him a main part of our everyday relationships, we will have his power to treat each other as he treated us: sacrificially, humbly, and putting our interests and needs above his own.

¹  If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷  but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  ⁸  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! – Philippians 2:1-8 (NIV)

So, how do we begin to treat each other in marriage (or any relationship) anything close to like Jesus treats us? How does it look to live in marriage “like the lifestyle of Jesus”?

3) BE REALISTIC. REMEMBER WHO YOU BOTH REALLY ARE (AND AREN’T), GIVE EACH OTHER A BREAK, AND NEVER GIVE UP!

As a pastor, I performed hundreds of weddings. And to be honest, most couples, especially younger couples, didn’t really pay much attention to the vows, the scriptures, or the great advice I offered them! They looked at each other with “rose colored glasses”, thinking “how could anything ever go wrong or be disappointing, because we love each other so much!”

The traditional wedding vows that most pastors use tell the real story and challenge of marriage. The ones I used said this:

“In the name of God, I_______, take you, _______, to be my wife (husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

Every married couple knows that no matter how wonderful you both are, you’re going to have some better and worse, some richer and poorer, and some sickness and health, and those tougher experiences will define who you really are, who you become together, and what kind of marriage and the depth of love you will have. And, you are to live that great adventure, together, until you are parted by death!

4) FINALLY, TO MODEL JESUS’ LIFESTYLE IN MARRIAGE, “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE”!

No, I’m not taking about simple, superficial love the Beatles sang about in their song in 1967, or the simplistic love we see in romantic comedies.

To love like Jesus, we need to work with the best and worst in each other, and never give up wanting the best for the other person!

Paul describes that Jesus-like love in I Corinthians 13, often dubbed “The Love Chapter” and quoted at most weddings, at least when I did them!

⁴  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres .⁸  Love never fails…

 – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)
 This is what real love looks like! :

– Love is patient.   Do you fume and get upset when your spouse is late, or doesn’t do something the way you want them to?

– Love is kind. Do you say encouraging things to your spouse, and never demean them or embarrass them, especially in public?

– Love does not envy, does not boast, and is not proud. Do you envy an ability your spouse has that you don’t? Or, envy someone else’s spouse who is better at something than yours? Are you boastful and proud, maybe embarrassing your spouse in public, rather than being humble and caring about them more than you?

– Love is not rude or self -seeking. Are you rude and disrespectful to your spouse?

Does it have to be “all about you”, or are you willing to sacrifice some time and interests to please him/her instead?

Love is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. Are you angry about every little thing, always blaming him/her? In conflict, do you get “historical”, recalling every transgression they have done for years and never letting go and forgetting the past?

– Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. Do you constantly highlight all the sins, mistakes, and failures of your spouse? Or, do you encourage him/her by focusing on all the good growth and improvement in their lives?

– Love always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. Love like this never fails! This mirrors exactly the way Jesus treats us! He will always protect us, and as we trust him we will also better be able to trust each other. He gives us hope for a strong marriage, in him, that will last all our life and never fail!

Paul closes the “Love Chapter” by saying “And now these 3 remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love”.

Faith in Jesus will give us a new life and the power to live like him, through his Spirit dwelling within us. Hope from God helps us know that there is a great, eternal future for us in Jesus, no matter how tough life may be at the moment.

But Love is the very character of God, and as we grow in that, our marriages and life relationships will get constantly better! And our love will continue to grow with Jesus forever!

For those who are presently married, I prayer your Jesus-like love for each other will build the other person into a wonderful man or woman of God!

And for those of us who are perhaps looking for a potential marriage in the future:  I pray that rather than focusing only on finding that special “soulmate” or “one” to make us happy, complete, and no longer lonely, that we would actually seek to find a special person to us that we can love as Jesus loved, and live in such a way as to build them up into the wonderful woman/man that God intends them to be. For when we do that, we will both experience the joy, peace, and fun that God desires for all our marriages!

Happy loving, and living like Jesus!