Believers are challenged or should I say we are commanded to live life in a way that reveals an image of God to whoever we encounter. This has traditionally been taught as being an essential part of one’s witness and testimony of who they now are as a child of God through Christ. And yet they are often not seen as an offspring of God, but as a religious individual who stands in preference of scriptures that speak of Christ and Him crucified. I see this as a rejection of truth that is expressed in one’s witness of who He is and what He has done. It goes without saying there are far more who have rejected Christ than those who have received Him as Lord.
In today’s marriages between believers, there is no intimacy in Christ to the degree it is seen as a spiritual posture of love. What is meant by such a statement? If you look into your salvation through Jesus Christ, you will see you have confessed your sins and received Christ as Lord, and you are in an intimate relationship to not just Him, but God Almighty and the Holy Spirit. This intimate relationship is expressed through a relationship with these three different personalities though they are singular in a foundation of Agape love. So, no matter who of the Godhead is affecting our senses spiritually it is done in a manner of love that is common in nature to all of them.
In marriage, it is difficult to distinguish between this manner of intimate love, and one’s affectionate passions that arise from the sensual activity of the flesh through sexual intercourse. And yet the latter should be accountable to the former in that nothing should be done outside of any truths each is content with regarding who they are, not as a husband and wife, but as individual offspring of God. It is this priority contentment to live life as an offspring of the highest that is still alluding most believers. As a result, many are way too attached to the things of this world and have easily garnered an intimate knowledge of it in aspect to their lives. This in a way is the same as a rejection of Christ by those whom we have testified to ourselves.
Believers more comfortable in a knowledge of worldly things than a knowledge of the one who came to deliver them out of it often affect marriage in a way it tends to keep them apart more than bring them together. And yet the truth is each of us has faults that are revealed in our living witness and because of them, we tend to see each other incomplete based on our mistakes. Or in a more direct meaning, we see others not as a sibling we are willing to be content with showing we are lacking in an intimacy of love that scripture says we are to have for one another in Christ and in marriage.
Most believers have at some point in their life in Christ been ministered to concerning an Agape love that God is as revealed from scripture and that this love is not the same as the sensual type loves of flesh, which is Eros, or sensuality of soul, which is Phileo. But many are not taught it is a love that is meant to arouse the senses of the spirit, this is Agape. 4 Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, 5 Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, 6 Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, How many of these preceding aspects of Agape love are working in your life?
Now do not get excited this is not about what you are or not doing or any failure to do all that is revealed in Agape, but it is about you knowing what manner of love this truly is. 7 Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. It is easy to see how God can love us despite our faults as He is not looking at our present failures or even caring about our past ones. He is focused on what we will become by faith in Christ. It is this ability to see by faith what each of us are to become as siblings of the family of God that makes all the difference in intimacy. No other form of love exists in the world that can ever compare to the one love that is from above.
8 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9 We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. We are not perfect yet, but we are becoming what God said we will be if we by faith receive the truth as revealed by the Spirit. 10 But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. 12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
This intimacy that is to exist between believers and God is not forged by the laws of Moses or by any laws of righteousness it is forged by love. And all other things will come to light as they are supposed to when we do as commanded by Christ in loving God as His offspring with all our heart, mind, and soul. 13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. 1 Cor 13:4-13 (MSG) The thing about Agape is that it exists in all believers so that it brings a sense of contentment into one’s life to the degree they no longer see the chaos and anxiety of it.
True intimacy in a relationship with Christ is content in who one is as His sibling among those who are of the same by faith. This must occur so that the Spirit of God flows effortlessly in and through all God’s offspring making a path for Agape love unhindered.
