4. Marriage Devotional: Giving Love

Marriage Devotional: Giving Love

Author: Gary Chapman

Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in 

honoring each other. (Romans 12:10)

    The desire for romantic love is deeply rooted in our psychological makeup. Almost every popular magazine has at least one article on keeping love alive. So why is it that so few couples seem to have found the secret to a lasting love after the wedding? I‵m convinced it‵s because we concentrate on "getting love" rather than "giving love."

    As long as you focus on what your spouse should be doing for you, you‵ll come across as condemning and critical. How about a different approaching that says, "What can I do to help you? How can I make your life easier? How can I be a better spouse?" In Romans 12, Paul writes that when we love each other, we should "take delight in honoring each other." Giving to the one we love does not have to be a chore; if our affection is genuine, giving and serving can be a joy. Giving love will keep your relationship alive.

    Father, help me to concentrate on giving love today. May I focus less on what my spouse can give me, and more on what I can give to him or her. Thanks for being the ultimate example of selfless, giving love.

3. A Quote from A. W. Tozer (5)

 Download Link

2. Devotional: Wait on the Lord

Wait on the Lord

Author: C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

(Audio Link)

Wait on the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)

    It may seem an easy thing to wait, but it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns not without years of teaching. Marching and quick-marching are much easier to God’s warriors than standing still.

    There are hours of perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desirous to serve the Lord, knows not what part to take. Then what shall it do? Vex itself by despair? Fly back in cowardice, turn to the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption?

    No, but simply wait. Wait in prayer, however. Call upon God, and spread the case before him; tell him your difficulty, and plead his promise of aid. But wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in him. Believe that if he keep you tarrying even till midnight, yet he will come at the right time.

    Wait in quiet patience, and accept the case as it is, and put it as it stands, simply and with your whole heart, without any self-will, into the hand of your covenant God, saying, “Now, Lord, not my will, but thine be done. I know not what to do; I am brought to extremities, but I will wait until thou shalt cleave the floods, or drive back my foes. I will wait, if thou keep me many a day, for my heart is fixed upon thee alone, O God, and my spirit waiteth for thee in the full conviction that thou wilt yet be my joy and my salvation, my refuge and my strong tower.”

1. Hymn: The Love of God

Hymn: The Love of God

Author: Frederick M. Lehman (1868-1953)

(Vocal)

(Music)

(Sheet Music)

1. The love of God is greater far
    Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
    It goes beyond the highest star,
    And reaches to the lowest hell.
    The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
    God gave His Son to win;
    His erring child He reconciled,
    And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure–

The saints, and angels' song.

2. When hoary time shall pass away,
    And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall;
    When men who here refuse to pray,
    On rocks and hills and mountains call;
    God's love, so sure, shall still endure,
    All measureless and strong;
    Redeeming grace to Adam's race–
    The saints' and angels' song.

3. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
    And were the skies of parchment made;
    Were ev'ry stalk on earth a quill,
    And ev'ry man a scribe by trade;
    To write the love of God, above
    Would drain the ocean dry;
    Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
    Tho‵ stretched from sky to sky.