Journey to Surrender

I was reminded this morning by way of our Pastor’s sermon how important it is to know that God loves us.

Sure, you’ve heard it a thousand times, “God loves you.”

But if you knew it, I mean really understood the extent of it, the unfailing, unending, unstoppable and deeply passionate nature of it, it would change EVERYTHING. It would change the way you pray, the way you work, the way you serve, and the way you relate to others. Everything. If the reality of God’s love struck your heart at its core, you’d be ruined for a “normal” Christian life.

I think King David got it. Read the Psalms and you’ll see the love of God everywhere. The apostle Paul got it, too. Maybe he got it more than any human ever did. In Ephesians 3 he prayed that you would:

...know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Eph 3:19

He admits up front that it’s not possible to really know this love to it’s fullest extent, yet he prays that we would. He makes the bold statement that fully knowing the love of Christ is how we attain the fullness of God. Whoa! He makes it clear that this is a life-long pursuit, and that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t really know at all.

This little word “know” here is so much more than our meager English translation. The Greek word ginosko means much more than simply to have an idea in your head or to give mental ascent to a notion. No! Ginosko means to know by experience, to feel and to understand. Strongs Concordance explains it as “Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.” Now that is real knowing!

Paul uses that same word, in the prayer from the first chapter of Ephesians.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Eph 1:17

So why all this talk about knowing the love of God in a marriage blog? Skip a few pages over in your Bible to Ephesians 5 and you’ll see the reason. I think Paul was laying the groundwork in the love of Christ in order to come to this very point.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Eph 5:25

How can a husband ever expect to love his wife in the same way Christ loves us unless he knows how Christ loves us? Impossible. The love of God is no subtle side point in the discussion of marriage; it is at its very core! Men you need “wisdom and revelation” to really know in an experiential and personal way “how high, how deep and how wide” this love of Christ is.

Husbands, passionately pursue the knowledge of the love of God. Study it. Meditate on it. Read about it. Prayerfully consider it. Ask for revelation on it. Go after it like your marriage depends on it, because it does more than you even know. The good news is that the kind of knowing we are talking about comes by way of supernatural revelation by  the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God loves to brag on the love of God. He’s longing to have you “know” it. Just ask. It’s a prayer that is eagerly answered.

And then, as you gain each new bit of additional understanding of the love of Christ, turn and lavish that very same kind of love on your wife. God himself is the source of love that husbands are called to bestow on their wives, because God is love. It’s not something you can whip up on your own, so go to the source and get some. Get some more. And then go back and get more again. Never stop.

Men, get yourself wrecked by the love of God, and let it transform the way you love your wife.  You've got to KNOW so she can KNOW.