Love Takes Work

The Bible is a book of signs and wonders. And when God did miracles through his son Jesus Christ here on earth, what it did was it made cynical people into saints. The doubters, who saw Lazarus come out of a grave, no longer doubted that Jesus Christ had the power over death. They just saw it and suddenly they believed. One of the problems that we have in our modern context is that we believe that when those who are lame begin to walk, that's a miracle. When those who are blind can see, that's a miracle. When the dead come back to life, that's a miracle. And indeed, they are, but those are not the only miracles that God does.

There are miracle marriages that the enemy had on the brink of divorce. But God walked in and resurrected dead things and brought new life where there was no hope. There are testimonies of individuals who were so crippled and so hindered in their relationships that when they came into the presence of the Lord, only he could fix what the hands of others had tried to destroy. What I'm telling you is, if we could line up wheelchairs and say that the individuals who were sitting in these are now walking out of the sanctuary, the saints would shout for joy. But what would we do if we began to celebrate restored relationships and renewed marriages just like we did the miracles of healing in other cases?

God wants to do a miracle in your house. God wants to fix what the enemy is trying to destroy. God wants to break every chain that is in any way hindering your home. God wants your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren to live in the generational blessings that he wishes to pour out through his power, through his word, through his Holy Spirit. And what I want you to do today is have enough faith to believe that if God can do the miracles in the New Testament, he can do a miracle in your marriage today! But that miracle requires something from you, work. You don't get to outsource this one. You've got to be an active part of it.

This is what the Bible says, "This is my commandment", that's Jesus, "Love one another", say that with me, "Love one another", and then he qualifies it, "As I have loved you". Now there's your standard. How did he love you? How many of you are glad that Jesus loved you when you weren't really lovable? You see, the currency of the kingdom is love. What did the Old Testament say? "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your strength". The New Testament adds to it, "And love your neighbor as yourself". In 1 Corinthians 13, in it you read, it doesn't matter how intellectually astute you are. It doesn't matter how financially rich you are. It doesn't matter how much you possess.

Without love, you're broke, as far as the kingdom is concerned. Kingdom currency is love. And if you're going to restore your relationship in your marriage, it's going to require a labor of love done in God's grace and by his mercy. If you're going to have a good marriage, it's going to take good work. It's going to take the kind of work that shows how much you care. And right now, whether you know it or not, you are engaged in effort. The question is, is it good work or is it just work? Are you building up or you tearing down? Are you encouraging or you discouraging? Are you bringing unity where God commands a blessing? Are you building trust? Are you bringing division?

If you're going to have the kind of relationship that God wants you to have, you're going to have to commit yourself to doing good work. And you need to understand that that work is going to be met with resistance. It's not easy. The reason it's met with resistance is because everything that God wants to bless you with, the devil wants to deprive you of. This is what Jesus said, "I have come to give you life more abundantly. But the thief has come to kill, to steal and destroy". Your abundant life does not fully become what it can be until God brings a spouse in it. How do you know that God wanted your life to be with them in it? Because God created man. And then right after he created him, he said, it is not good for this guy to be alone.

That jumps out at me in creation. And here's why: God creates the sun. He says, "It's good". God creates the earth. He says, "It's good". He creates water. He says, "It's good". He creates fish. He says, "It's good". He creates land. He says, "It's good". He creates man. He says, uh-oh. We can't leave this guy unsupervised. That's not really what it says. If you've read your Bible, you'd know. He didn't create the spouse for supervision. He created it for partnership. He said, "It's not good that he's alone". We need a compliment. We need to have someone that he can share his life with. At that moment, Adam was the king of the world. He was the only guy on the earth. But he couldn't enjoy his kingdom because he had no queen to compliment him. He had no one to enjoy his success and all of the things that he had in it.