Intro to Joint Accomplishment and Mutual Giving

I would like for you to spend about 20 minutes checking out this introduction prior to your date/discussion time with your spouse using the LOVE (Speak) section of the Week 13 installment of our 52 Week Plan.

Would you look up some of these verses of Scripture and consider the following thoughts?

Joint Accomplishment – “I need you”; “Each of us is important, but how much more could we accomplish by working together?”

Amos 3:3
Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?

Ephesians 4:16
He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Enemy of Joint Accomplishment is self-reliance, which says “I don’t need you.”

Mutual Giving – “I love you”; “Even if you stop giving to me, I will do my best to continue loving you unconditionally”; “When both of us are loving the other selflessly, our love will grow stronger and more beautiful as years go by.”

John 13:1
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Ephesians 5:21

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

 WARNING:  Your human love is not enough to accomplish the goal Jesus described for us in giving and receiving love.  He came to give us an “abundant life”.  His love for you (John 17:23, John 3:16), accepted by you (John 1:12), is to be revealed through you (Galatians 5:22, John 13:34,35).  You are not alone or powerless.   You are loved and gifted and a unique creation of God.  (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Check this out:  Paul wrote – 1 Timothy 1:5: The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.

Enemy of Mutual Giving is Selfishness – “You must meet my desires and needs as I dictate.”

Mutual Giving is God’s goal for every marriage.  He wants us to love our spouse without conditions especially when the other is not meeting our needs well.  Perhaps giving him/her the benefit of the doubt or choosing to trust God to meet our needs during the time our spouse is not would be a great way to practice running to our loving God in faith as Jesus told us in Matthew 11:28-30 and as Peter stated in I Peter 5:7.

In Luke 6:35, Jesus said, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

I know your spouse is not your enemy, but the gist of the verse is to love those who don’t love you, and if Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and to love others as He loves us (John 13:34-35), then He must be telling us to love our spouse even when he/she is acting like an enemy or not loving us well. 

What are we communicating to our children and other on-lookers, when our “love train” gets derailed by small obstacles?  What if it takes us days or weeks to get back to loving again?  This is way too common and communicates selfishness, insecurity, unresolved pain, and self-reliance rather than the pure, powerful love of Jesus. 

My prayer and hope for you and your spouse is that your “love train” stays on track.  God designed families to produce a “godly seed” as revealed in Malachi 2:15: 

 Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth.

My firm belief is that the more our marriage reflects the love of God…really, the greater chances our children have of holding out for the real love relationships God offers. Then our children, and others observing our marriage, will not fall for the cheap “knock-offs” this world and the enemy so often put in our shopping cart … really.