Bible Text: Selected Scripture | Preacher: Pastor Joe Ricchuiti | Series: God’s Design for Marriage

Recap of 6/30/13:

1.  Marriage Killer #4: Not recognizing or progressing through the stages of a relationship. Relationships are not static, they change in predictable stages.

-Stage 1, Infatuation – tendency to see only the good in another person, to hide flaws, to please the other person without thought of return, gladly  expending enormous amounts of energy on the relationship.

-Stage 2, Reality – beginning to see the other person’s faults, personality weaknesses and to let ours be seen.  It should occur during courtship.  Married couples have an obligation to get through this phase if they have not previously, singles have the option to reevaluate the relationship.

-Stage 3, Adjustment – Couples are committed to resolving their differences.  Acts of love are done because they are the right thing to do, not necessarily because one feels like doing them.  Forgiveness, reconciliation, sacrifice, and conflict resolution are common. (Tirabassi)

2.  Marriage Killer #5 -a fantasy view of love – viewing love as primarily a feeling (the concept of “romantic love”) rather that a commitment to another person, to their highest good.  God does give intense emotional feelings but they are the result of love, not the basis for love.  The problem with this view is that if a person doesn’t “feel” love, they assume that they have fallen out of love. (Meredith, Thomas).

3.  C. S. Lewis’ description of love for God is a good illustration of this kind of committed love in marriage.  “Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God’s love for man and man’s love for God.  About the second of these two, people are often worried.  They are told they ought to love God.  They cannot find any such feeling in themselves.  What are they to do?  The answer is the same as before.  Act as if you did.  Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings.  Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’  When you have found the answer, go and do it.  Christian love either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will.”