Sacrifical Love

Marriage After God Podcast – 

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We’re your hosts. I’m Aaron. I’m Jennifer. And this week’s episode is week five of our marriage devotional series that we’ve been going through and it’s on sacrificial and transforming love. But before we get into the topic for the day, I just want to invite you as usual, hit that like button, subscribe to our channel wherever you like to watch or listen. That way you don’t miss any of these devotionals or any future episodes. also, if you haven’t yet gotten a

copy of our Husband After God, Wife After God Devotionals, which this series is based on. You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, pick up a copy today. You can even get them at amazon.com. Some people like to shop there as well. ⁓ yeah. Awesome. Well, today’s ⁓ topic is about sacrificial love and transforming love, which they’re one and the same. It’s love. It’s God’s love. today we’re going to talk about what

God has done for us through his son Jesus Christ and how that influences and impacts marriage. If you haven’t noticed already, ⁓ we get all of our understanding about marriage and how God desires us to be a husband and a wife ⁓ through walking out what his word says. Yeah, we don’t try and make this stuff up as we go. We try and get it from what the source text, you know, what does God say about all this?

And not just what he says, but what has he done? And so we look to the example of Christ, which we spoke a lot about last week. ⁓ so, yeah, we just wanted to reiterate that ⁓ the things that we share are found in Scripture. So to understand sacrificial love, there’s really only one place to look, and that is the person of Jesus. As believers, we know that Christ’s sacrificial love changed everything for all of us. And the Bible explains that.

So we’re going to jump in and why don’t you start by reading Matthew 27 through 32. All right. says, Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters and they gathered the whole battalion before him and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand and kneeling before him, they mocked him saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

and they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Man, just recounting like what he went through and that was just a small portion of it. It just, I don’t know, does it ever just bring you right back to like not meeting him for the first time, but like understanding, like really grasping what he Yeah, well this text leading up to his crucifixion showing how much he sacrificed for us because the root of the gospel is in the crucifixion of Christ.

in the suffering of Christ, living a perfect life, going to the cross to die a death that we deserve, and then being resurrected to new life. In reality, the Bible tells us that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered, even suffering death on a cross. And so there’s no better place to look at sacrificial love than, like we just said, in the person of Christ and in what he did, because it is the

It’s the root of why we do what we do. It’s the root of why we care about you listeners. And our marriages are to reflect that we’re given an opportunity in our marriage to have to practice sacrificial love. It’s essentially what happens when you become married. You’re no longer your own person. Now you’re this single unit with another person and it requires sacrificial love. So, yeah, when I think about, like you said, when I think about the crucifixion, when I think about Christ hanging on the cross for me, it…

It reminds me of how much I’ve been saved from and how good God is. Yeah. There’s another verse here I wanted to read. It’s Hebrews 10, 14. says, by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. One offering. Yeah. There’s not multiple. The reason we want to bring this up, this topic is so important to a marriage after God, to having a marriage that wants to focus on Christ is because when we have

Christ’s sacrifice, when we have a sacrificial love at the center of what we’re doing, everything that we, our whole marriage is going to be transformed by that, which is why we have this episode called, Sacrificial and Transforming Love, because it’s that kind of love that transforms everything, the way you think, the way you act, the way you love, the way you speak. And so Jesus giving himself for us to cover our sins, to atone for our sins, he knew what he would have to endure, that he would have to go to the cross.

All throughout the Gospels you hear Jesus, he’s anticipating what’s to come when he looks towards Jerusalem, when he’s telling his disciples of what’s coming. He knows what’s happening and he’s preparing his heart for it. He’s prepared to do it because it’s the plan. This is the plan for redemption for the world, is to sacrifice himself. Otherwise the whole world would have to be sacrificed. So it’s like it’s him or it’s everyone. And so he’s

He goes to the cross for us so that we’d have a way to the Father. And this was the point of this chapter in both husband after God and wife after God is we really just wanted to draw attention to exactly this point that he went to the cross and he poured himself out for you, for you listening, for each one of us. And for your spouse, which is another thing to ⁓ highlight in this is realizing that Christ died for your wife.

that he died for you. So even though the chapters in these two devotionals are titled different things, they are together. They’re one. I pulled a quote from Husband After God, just because the content is very similar. So you’ll see very similar wording in both chapters. But I’m just going to go ahead and read it. Betrayed by a close friend, accused of wrongdoing, sentenced to death, his body beaten.

His character mocked, his spirit crushed, excruciating affliction and gaping lacerations, leaving him unrecognizable. Despite the agony he was suffering, he continued to walk himself to his death. Anguish gripped his heart, yet he persevered. Blood poured from his wounds and he carried on. There was no rescue plan. This man knew what was to come. Still he walked on, headed toward the place where he would breathe his last breath. His motivation was you. What I love about this is

Again, we’re highlighting what Christ did for us because it, like last devotional we did is about realigning our perspective of our spouse, but having a correct perspective in general about who Christ is and who we are and what he did for us, ⁓ it humbles us. It brings humility. It reminds us that there’s nothing your spouse can do to you. No sin they can do against you. That’s worse than the sin that

Christ died for on the cross and that his death on the cross brings forgiveness and righteousness to us because that’s why he went is that we would be covered by his righteousness so that we can live in eternity with God. Have reconciliation. Yeah, we’d be reconciled. So the story of the gospel is one of forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation. What a powerful purpose. That’s so significant to all of us. And that’s what gets – we get to play out in our marriage pretty much every day.

When we have strife, when we have issues, when we have conflict, when we have disagreements, we’re playing out that forgiveness and reconciliation. The gospel gets played out in our life. And so we got to know what it is. We got to understand the cost that was paid so that we’ll have a correct perspective of our own position toward our spouse. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. It’s a major thing because without recognizing it, we tend to get prideful. We think like, oh,

I shouldn’t be hurt this way. I shouldn’t be treated this way. In reality, this, we don’t deserve much more than death and judgment, but God gave us so much more than that, giving us a good example, just like we talked about last time, an example in Christ of how we are to walk it out towards each other. He forgave us, we can forgive. What an incredible act of love that He did for us, that even while we were still sinners, He died for us. Like He gave us that gift of salvation.

Yeah, I want to read that scripture actually. It’s that 1 Peter 2, 24. It’s not the one you just said, “‘In himself bore our sins in his body, on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.'” So I just got to ask you, husbands, wives, if we were to die to sin, if your spouse was to die to their sin,

and live to righteousness. Is that going to benefit your marriage? Yes. So if we walk this out, if we look at what Christ did on the cross, that he bore our sins on a tree, that we can die to our sin and live to righteousness without what Christ did. There is no doing that. There is just living to sin, which is death. But because of what he did, we can die to our sin and we can live to righteousness and that his wounds actually heal us. We were actually talking about this the other night, healing.

It’s something that we got to put that in our hearts. And the reason it was so impactful that Jesus was the one who went to the cross and was able to pull all this off for us was because he was 100 % God and 100 % man. He was both. was perfect. so earlier when we were reading the account of his ⁓ crucifixion, I always go back to that

of him that was so perfect that he didn’t deserve it and it just crushes me because I’m like no I don’t want that to be like that I’m like you know I think of people like Peter like no God you’re not gonna do it like that like there’s a better way because we know that he is so perfect that he doesn’t deserve what’s going on what’s what’s playing out here but what a beautiful picture of selflessness and love that he portrayed in doing this

This is where the idea of sacrificial love comes from. It’s from the cross. It’s from what Jesus did. Nothing else. He did it regardless of whether or not anyone would accept him as his Lord and Savior. As Lord and Savior. He acted first. That’s what the Bible teaches us that yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Yeah, he didn’t take a vote first. Like, let me do it based off of how many I’m gonna… Yeah, which of you guys are gonna, you know, love me first and then I’ll go die for you. No, he…

He did it first. And because he took that initiation, like people are still talking about it 2000 years later. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty impactful. Well, and was being taught God was God was revealing it to the people of Israel for thousands of years before. saying, here’s what’s coming. ⁓ The power of that kind of love, it transforms those who believe in it. Doesn’t it? Drawing them closer to God, making them have different desires, different wants, ⁓ changing the way we think.

the way we love, that’s what the sacrificial love of Christ does. It transforms us. What He did transforms us. 1 Peter 4.16 says, so we have come to know… John, sorry. what did say? 1 Peter. I’m sorry. 1 John 4.16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. I know this isn’t like titled a marriage verse.

Okay, but there’s so much that we can apply from the wisdom and truth in this verse ⁓ to help us in our marriage journey. Wouldn’t you say like this, to be able to believe in love and in what God has done for us and to abide in Him and to abide in love. Like, how does that impact a marriage? Well, we’ve seen, we’ve experienced this and everyone that’s listening is going to realize this real quick. When we’re not abiding, when I’m not in the Word of God, when I’m not

when I’m not pursuing the Lord, I for sure am affected in my attitude, in my shortness of, you know, in my frustration, in my way of thinking. I’m definitely affected. But when I am abiding in Christ, I’m more patient, I’m more kind. All the fruits of the Spirit start to be displayed in me. And that’s the point that toward each other, that we get to benefit from the fruits of the Spirit from each other.

Yeah, and when we’re abiding in God and we’re abiding in His Word and we’re spending that quality time investing into understanding it and knowing it and walking it out and obeying it, we come to understand what true love is. And that is what transforms a marriage. When you truly understand what love is and you can only do that if you know God. And I want to just point out the action that Jesus did, that He did it before. He didn’t wait for…

the other person, he didn’t wait for us to change before he took that action. And this is one amazing practical that we can pull from this is this is how we should operate in our marriages that husbands, would ⁓ pursue your wife and show her love and forgiveness before she changes, before she does what you think she should do. Wives, you should do the same. The actions of love.

Sacrificial love is to act first, to love first, not wait. I won’t love you. I’m not going to give you what I should give you, what’s right until you do XYZ. Now you’re making it sound really easy, but we all know that going first and taking that initiation and displaying sacrificial love, it’s not an easy thing to do. But when we believe in God, when we believe in Jesus,

His Holy Spirit empowers us and like you were talking about the fruits of the Spirit and they become displayed in us and through us. That is when we see just an outpouring of sacrificial love within marriage. And I think that that becomes very powerful to the security of our marriage, the way we feel affirmed by each other. That’s the impact that I’ve seen between you and I. Yeah, and it keeps happening and we keep learning. I just wanted to share a little bit of early on in our marriage.

I know we’ve shared this in various places, definitely in our books. But it was like a pivot point for us in our marriage. And this is a bit of our marriage testimony. Maybe start back at the beginning just so they have a little bit of… Yeah, so we’re married in the first handful of years. We’re struggling. We’re getting more more angry and bitter at each other, at God. It started with intimacy issues that then amplified because neither one of us were being fulfilled in the ways that we…

thought or hoped or it had expected. And so then it was just one thing after another, whether it was finances or friendships or jobs, whatever it was. There was a lot of sin involved and we just, was snowballing over these four years, right when we got married and getting to a point where it’s like, well, I don’t know if I have the energy to keep going. And we both had that feeling inside.

maybe didn’t discuss it verbally, we both felt it. like, oh, I don’t know if this is going to work. And I just remember being at church one morning and God really speaking to me. Again, I didn’t hear him audibly, but he was just, you know what he did? He reminded me, I don’t even know what the pastor was talking about, but I remember being reminded of the scripture of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And God showed me through what Christ was doing, how I am to walk.

It was really awesome. so I’m just going to read Mark 14, 36. says, and he said, so Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, it’s just before he’s about to go to the cross. And he says, and he’s praying. And he says, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And the cup he’s talking about, and this is what God was showing me, is the cup of wrath, this cup of judgment, this cup of the suffering that Jesus is about to take. Jesus prayed three times.

that the cup would pass him, that God would remove this cup. Essentially saying, Lord, if there’s another way, Father, if there’s another way, let that happen. says, but not my will, but your will be done. So in his flesh, he was realizing what was about to take place. I’m about to go to the cross, even though he agreed with it, even though he was obeying the Father, even though he was a part of the plan all along. I feel like this part shows his humanness and his, you know, we talked about 100 % man, 100 % God.

This shows that part of him that was made of flesh. And it’s beautiful because he goes to the Father with his request and then surrenders to the Father’s will. he prays it three times that he would not have to suffer for his bride. You know, we just read from the Husband After God book, the bride that would spit on him and mock him and put the crown of thorns on him, that those that he’s dying for would do these things to him.

And not just in that moment, but really if you step outside of time, it’s for all of time, the way people treat him. And so the Holy Spirit was asking me in this moment, in the quiet of my heart.

that he’s asked me, he’s like, are you wanting to give up on your marriage? Are you praying that I would take this cup from you or do you want my will? And I’m like, oh man, I want your will. And he asked me, he’s like, are you going to love your bride like Christ loved his bride, that he’s going to go and take his cross even if they deny him, even if they don’t give him what he deserves, which is the honor and the respect and the glory. And he asked me that.

And then he said, he’s like, and has your wife ever done anything more unforgiving than you’ve done to my son Jesus? And it was really deeply convicting. And it actually changed everything in my heart. was like, I’m going to love my wife regardless. I’m going to surrender to the will of God. going say not my will be done, but yours. Though my marriage in this moment doesn’t look, feel, seem the way I want it to be, the way I think I deserve, which by the way, I

I know what I deserve and I don’t deserve you, but I got you. That’s awesome. And he really, that moment after church, walked up to you and friends of ours were like talking to us and they can tell something was going on. I just started crying and just… I hadn’t even understood what was going on yet because you were so emotional. And so, yeah, right off the church service, we met with these friends and you started to explain what God was doing in that service.

how he was speaking to you. And it was really powerful for me as his wife because literally driving to church that Sunday, we, without talking about it, we talked about it afterwards, but we both were like to the end of ourselves, to the end of our marriage. And we, I mean, I thought we were going to be talking about the reality of divorce and what’s coming because it just felt so empty and hopeless and devastating. And yet in a moment,

a moment of belief because the Lord showed something to you and you believed him and it changed everything. And it’s been perfect ever since. It’s been hard but it’s been good because of that belief. I just want to like stress this point of belief because you believed him in that moment of what he was sharing with you and the impact in your heart then translated to me. And then I got the choice of saying, am I going to follow this man who believes

God and is willing to follow him no matter what and also not go anywhere. Essentially that’s what you were saying to me that day was, I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I’m going to learn how to love change. Yeah, I’m going to learn how to love you. That was impactful to me. And so this is the practical is that we love our spouse with that same sacrificial love. That’s the goal is to practice that though it’s difficult.

though it may feel impossible at times, not because your spouse has earned it, but out of obedience to Christ and out of your promise that you’ve made to them. Yeah. That’s what a covenant is. You made a promise to your spouse to love them. And when you have that as your foundation for love, you’re going to be able to endure any hardship, any struggle, any circumstance, just like Christ endured the cross for you. It’s huge. As you are reading

the verse in Mark, I started to think about how often our prayers stop halfway. So we relate to Christ in the whole, you remove this cup from me? But we skip out on the second part because it’s hard, you guys. But I whatever your will is. Yeah. But I think that just as an encouragement for you listening today, if we can reach that second part of the prayer and really dig down deep in surrender and humble ourselves and ask God along with, will you remove XYZ or whatever’s happening in our marriage?

So that we can move forward. Also pray, not what I will, but what you will. And petition Him for His will to be done, not our own. And that really strips the pride and encourages the opportunity for us to walk in humility. It’s true. So, we’re called to love like Christ. And how did He love? John 14, 6 says, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. So our encouragement to you guys today is to, like we said before, abide in the Word and spend time cultivating an intimacy with Christ, to know Him, to know the way, to know the truth. this is the, like I already mentioned, the beauty of belief is to watch how He transforms you as an individual and then your marriage. And like we said, we love the gospel.

And so we like to share it. So believing like what he’s the only way that you’re the life believing in him is the only way to be reconciled with God and knowing him and loving him and allowing him to transform you by his sacrificial love helps you to do the same for your spouse. And really like to have true reconciliation in your marriage is to is to really know what reconciliation is to know about that transforming love that we get from God.

And as we do this, ⁓ what are some things that we’ve experienced? ⁓ I know you talked about that one pivotal moment in our marriage, but just over time, I mean, we’ve been married for almost 19 years. As we pursue a relationship with Jesus and get in His word, what things have transformed us individually, but also as a couple as we move forward? Well, the Holy Spirit being a person of God, like He being God, working in us, ⁓ He has transformed our thinking, our behaviors.

He convicts us of sin in our hearts. And this has been a big thing because often these struggles that we have are sin toward each other, towards ourselves. would say communication is a huge one. Just the way that we’ve communicated and ⁓ me being more respectful, you being more tender and just seeing the back and forth of meeting each other where we need to be. Yeah, and it’s something that’s taken time because sometimes we, especially me, I have a thick head.

And sometimes it’s hard to get stuff into my heart mind. But God’s been working on us. And that’s what the Holy Spirit’s here for. And when we keep our minds, like abiding in Christ, keep our minds on the Word of God, it happens much quicker. When we’re humble, we’ll say, not my will be done, but your will be done. It happens much quicker. Making me more tender ⁓ towards you. Because I’m kind of like a stoic, hard bull sometimes. ⁓ I’ll say this, like the ability to even say, I’m sorry.

Because like in the beginning of our marriage, we had some conversations about what just, yeah, just what that looked like for us. you’ve definitely softened over the years. Again, for me personally, freedom from pornography, which was a part of the issues that we were having in the beginning of our marriage. just again, abiding in Christ and following Him and Him freeing me from that and freeing our marriage from that. And yeah.

ability to lead my family closer to Christ. These are things that God’s been doing to me. I would say to add to communication with me would be ⁓ just dealing with my emotions and learning how to handle them, especially like anger, because it just really gets in me and then I throw it out there. And I think I’ve hurt you in a lot of ways.

with my anger and so seeing Christ transform that part of me and I’m still working on me in handling those emotions I think has been really impactful for our relationship. ⁓ Him teaching me how to walk in submission to your role as my husband. So the transforming love, the sacrificial love of Christ has been the pivotal transforming

agent in our own marriage. And this is what this episode is about, is that you would recognize that and if you haven’t been a biting in Christ, that you run toward Him and experience that so that He can start working in you. Yeah. The requirement here is that there’s confession and there’s prayer. And these two things, these elements of the Christian walk and the Christian faith is ⁓

It’s hard to not keep using the same word, but it is transformative. It is because when the Holy Spirit convicts your heart and you recognize it and you’re able to confess it and then pray and ask God to begin that transformation process, you’re handing over the thing that once held you captive and you realize that Christ has freed us. He’s freed all of us. ⁓ And James even says, confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.

Like there’s so many things in our life that we never confess, we keep it to ourselves, we hide it and we don’t ever find healing. It just kind of sits there as infesters. But God wants us to be healed. Yeah, and we’ve experienced the same kind of intimacy that we’re talking about in our relationship with God with each other. So being able to confess, you know, when the Holy Spirit puts something on your heart like, hey, I recognize that I’ve hurt you in this area or I’ve done this. Being able to confess it, repent and pray.

for each other, that also has transformed our marriage relationship. It’s become stronger. We’re more trustworthy. I think our love is affirmed in those moments of vulnerability. for sure. ⁓ So if we want to thrive in our marriage to experience, who doesn’t want this? To experience joy and love and security, we’ve got to first put our faith in the one who sacrificed everything for us, Jesus Christ.

His death on the cross, His resurrection is so that we would die to sin and have new life in Him. And that’s the – new life, that resurrection power, that sacrificial love that Christ showed to us will begin to permeate our marriages and it’s going to pour out of us. Like it comes up often with our kids and our other relationships. And so it’s something that it’s got to be a main focus, a main –

highlight what our marriages are about. ⁓ We’ve said this in previous episodes and I don’t know how many times we’ve talked about this, but your ⁓ interaction with God, your relationship with him is not contingent on your spouse. So you don’t have to wait for your spouse to be doing the right thing or your spouse to be praying or your spouse to be confessing for you to be able to take that initiative and move forward and experience true transformation. You could be doing it individually. ⁓

in your walk with God, you should be. And all the more, if your spouse is an unbeliever, the impact you have and the influence you have in their life by doing that. And by doing that, you’re going to be following in the footsteps of Christ because sacrificial love is initiating. It’s not waiting for the other person to be what you want them to be. It’s doing it out of obedience to God. And that’s what we’re talking about. So we’ve got a bunch of scriptures here. want to read them? Yeah. Luke 923.

And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. So again, ⁓ I don’t want to label this as a marriage verse, but so much of scripture can be applied to how we operate. Well, we practice our, I think we practice our Christianity with each other. Yeah, absolutely. practice our following Christ with each other. So Aaron, what does it mean to take up your daily cross with Christ, but also as a husband?

You know, marriage. This means you’re not living life for yourself. that’s, you’re dead. You’re dying to yourself. That old man’s gone. So when you take up your cross, you’re no longer living for yourself, but living for Christ. You’re following him. Jesus says, take your cross and follow me. You’re committed to living for God and his purposes, like Christ did. Christ said, I did not come to do my will, but to do the will of the Father, to say what God wants me to say. ⁓

His purpose, our purpose is to share the gospel and the light and the love that he has for not just your wife and your kids, but everyone, your neighbors, that that is what your life is marked by. It’s like carrying the torch and continuing to share what Christ shared. It’s true sacrificial love. I’m sacrificing my own individuality. I’m sacrificing my own, ⁓ me over here by myself and I’m saying, I’m going to put that aside and I’m going to come over here to be one with you.

Christ did for us. So this is another verse that goes right along with it, John 15-13, greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life for his friends. So picking up your cross daily and then laying down your life. This is the life of the Christian. I we understand the message. Yeah, it’s the life of the Christian. It really is. We put on Christ. That’s what we’re told to do. And Christ loved

Even to death. He loved us to death, which is awesome. ⁓ We have the opportunity in marriage every single day to lay down our lives for our best friend. That we don’t sacrifice them for ourselves. We do the opposite. We sacrifice ourselves for them. So how do we do this? Well, it can’t be done living for yourself. It just can’t. Being consumed with the hard day you had in front of you and what you want or what you’re pursuing.

You must be willing to lay it all down to consider your spouse’s day. How can you serve them and remind them and affirm them and love them and put aside what you’re feeling and what you want to, well, actually, what does my wife need? What does my husband need right now? How can I love them right now? It’s a hard thing at times. And it doesn’t mean we’re going to do it perfectly. But when you recognize it, you’re like, you know what? I need to set that aside for a bit.

because I’m kind of being selfish right now. And it’s done without expectation. So the point isn’t that you’re waiting for one day your spouse to return the favor. It’s not a favor basis ⁓ transaction. Sacrificial love, transforming love, takes the initiative and continues day in and day out. But I will say this, just like Christ going the cross, regardless of it, anyone believed in him. He died for all men that whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

And what he did on the cross does cause men to believe in him. And so the same can happen to you. Like you, may not be sacrificially loving your spouse to get something from them, but that kind of love is going to cause something to happen. Yeah. Cause the times that you love me with sincerity and kindness and you go out of your way, the very first thing I want to do is return it. I want to show you the same kind. It’s like,

I don’t know using the word infectious is the right one, it is. That’s a good one. is impactful like that. Daily loving each other requires thoughtfulness, kindness and intentionality. The same way Christ was motivated in his actions of love toward us, we can consider what does our spouse need of us today? That’s a good question to ask ourselves. What does my spouse need? Try and figure out if you can even fulfill it. Sometimes you can, but a lot of times you can’t.

Okay, we got a quote from the Marriage After God book. We’re putting a quote from our book in every episode. This one says, a marriage after God is one where the husband and wife have recognized that their spiritual maturity is infinitely more important than monetary comfort and personal gratification. Therefore, a marriage after God inevitably involves sacrifice. It’s true. All right. So we’re also going to answer some of the discussion questions from

the husband after God and wife after God devotionals. So what do you think Jesus means when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him? I think it means just that is so the cross is the instrument of death. We’re called to die to ourselves. And so what he’s asking us to do is, following his footsteps. If he went to the cross for us, then and put aside his flesh, then we should be doing the same. And it’s a daily occurrence. It’s a daily, ⁓

sacrificing of ourselves. And it’s something that we have to continually be working on. Here’s a question. What were three ways in which Jesus was a great example for how you should love your spouse? That’s so good. Okay. You could answer this in a variety of ways. ⁓ When I think about how last, I think it was last week or the week before we talked about him washing the disciples’ feet.

And we talked about our experience with that. I’ve heard other people’s experience with that. We have a friend that on their wedding day, they washed each other’s feet in front of everyone, which is so crazy and beautiful. I think that we can do that for each other. think speaking truth. for sure. Jesus spoke truth and love to his disciples. Even the hard things. So making sure that we speak truth to each other. There’s this encounter that I absolutely love ⁓ after Jesus ⁓ is resurrected.

and he meets Peter on the beach with some fish and they have a little cookout and he just reconciles. Yeah, Peter and he affirms his love to Peter. I think that Jesus knows us and he knows what we need and he meets us and he meets those needs. And so I think that in marriage we can consider each other’s needs, be very present, provide good food. I was just thinking that I was like food.

He loved us through food too. Yeah, the breaking of bread together. I just think Jesus knew the kinds of needs that we would have and when we translate that to marriage, think the same applies. We can eat together, we can hang out together, we can speak truth together and affirm our love for each other. What are some examples of sacrificial love in marriage? Well,

I’d say… the thing that you don’t want to do in the moment because it feels hard, but you know the other person needs it or wants it or… I’m not just talking about sex, but sometimes that does come up. when you’re tired from the day or you’re managing a bunch of kids and this is my story I’m sharing, but you can be left feeling exhausted or left feeling like too many people have touched me or overstimulated my senses. I can’t do anything right now.

Only got six kids right now. But making time for each other and saying yes. Well, I think that’s a good point is sometimes there’s things that we want. Like I want to go do something, you want to do something. And realizing like, actually my wife needs something else right now. so I’m going to sacrifice that desire of mine for you. And so I think that’s something that happens a lot. It comes down to like,

sacrifice its time, money, resources, money. Yeah. I didn’t know that fit into this question, but sometimes there is this sacrifice when you’re budgeting, you you’re going through a season of, you you’ll ask me like, Hey, can you not make any Amazon purchases for a season? ⁓ but being able to yield to each other. the wives just now were like, don’t you go there? Don’t you even. You got to do what you got to do, but there is sacrifice and just comes down to whether you’re willing to make those commitments together and stick to them.

love each other, do the hard stuff. Where are we to find our strength and motivation to love our spouse, especially when they don’t deserve it? Only in Christ. Like that’s the only place that because in my flesh, I will fail at this. I will I will find every reason why I shouldn’t love you or follow through with XYZ. Well, the better question is, do we do we deserve it? Like it’s like the deserving like.

What is deserving of love mean? It’s not like we’re working for it and realizing that our love for each other is something beyond what we deserve in the first place, which is kind of crazy to think about. What are the things that tempt you to withhold your love from your spouse? Being offended. Being offended, holding onto…

some root of bitterness where because you did this, I’m not going to do that or even just like, ⁓ you didn’t talk to me right or how I expected you to and so then I give you the cold shoulder or I’m frustrated back. It’s so immature when I think of when I’m saying it out loud, but there are things that I’m playing, know, scenarios that have happened in our own marriage. Well, I’ve done the exact same thing. And so I would say selfishness. So like even if I’m not

offended or hurt, but like if I’m selfish, I just, not that I don’t love you on the inside, but I don’t have, I don’t want to show you love right now because of my own selfishness. think that’s something that could be a common occurrence in various ways. So for those of you listening, you can be thinking about these things. You know, what are some ways that we don’t show love to our spouse? Again, those discussion questions can be found at the end of the chapter for week ⁓ five.

There’s also a call to action that we wanted to share with you guys. Christ endured much because he loved much. Consider all that you have endured or are currently enduring in your marriage that shows your spouse that you love them. And go the extra mile to show them how much you love them tonight. Today, tonight. It’s a great call to action. Let me pray for us. Father God, we thank you so much for your sacrifice. God, that by sending your own son to die for us.

He lived a perfect life and died a sinner’s death for our sin, not his own, and was resurrected to new life, God, and that by believing in him, we can be saved. We can have eternal life. And I just thank you for that. And I just pray, Lord, that that gospel message, that that true ⁓ thing that took place so long ago would transform us as husbands, as wives, God, that our marriages would be so transformed by that sacrificial love, God, that we would be such

mighty lights in this world for you. God, I pray that we would walk in the example of our Savior, that we would love sacrificially, that we would begin to not be so selfish in our loving, and that we would love and be the initiators of love as Christ did. So God, we thank you for the example that we have in Christ. We thank you for the salvation we have in Christ. We thank you for the reconciliation we have in Christ. We pray, Lord, that

our marriages would be transformed by His love. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us for week five of this marriage devotional series we’re going through. Again, if you haven’t, check out Husband After God and Wife After God devotional so you can follow along with us. If you’re jumping into the middle of this, we just want to encourage you go back to the beginning, to the first episode, to start this devotional series off with us. Thank you so much. We look forward to having you next week.