Falling in love – a growing fondness, a heightened desire, an attraction that somehow is getting stronger by the second. The sparks are flying, the heart is fluttering, and your thoughts are consumed with making sure the feelings are reciprocated.
Being in love - the mutual feeling of wanting to spend every moment together, a yearning to hold each other like it’s both the beginning of a lifetime and the last day on this side of eternity. It’s when their quirks and idiosyncrasies make you laugh. Nothing bothers you and the things you are deeply insecure about make you even more suitable in their eyes. Being in love is what often leads to two people getting married and committing to a life together in front of their loved ones.
All marriages start with a vow to be there for one another through sickness and health until death do they part. A promise that these lovesick newlyweds say is unbreakable.
The 2024 Census gives us a crude statistic that clearly contradicts the vows of America’s dearly beloveds…
16.7% of adult women got married in 2024; 7.1% of women got divorced. For every 2.3 weddings, there was 1 divorce.
How can this be?
Are people intentionally deceiving one another at the altar? Or do they just have a quick memory and forget the “for better or for worse” part of the ceremony?
Thankfully for our country’s nuclear families and lovestruck betrothed couples, these questions are not rhetorical. There is a cancer in our hearts that we can identify, eradicate, and replace with actual love
Modern day western culture tells us that love is about being true to oneself, doing what makes you happy, and achieving high sexual satisfaction.
This understanding of love is simply wrong.
We’ve allowed our egocentric world to mold our definition. The society we inhale everyday tells us that love is to do what makes you happy.. to chase the feeling of being in love.
To stop the epidemic of families being broken by divorce, we have to rewind the relationship back to the altar. Let’s backtrack from “we just fell out of love” to “I do”.
An altar is a place for sacrificial offering.
At its most ancient form, an altar is a raised structure where the best of your animals can be tied to and slain as an offering to God. You then ask God for the animal to be a sufficient payment for your sins.
In its most pure form, it is Jesus of Nazareth having the power and ability to live any way that made Him the most happy, yet choosing instead to sacrifice Himself and be slain on a cross-shaped altar. Praying that HE is a sufficient payment for our sins.
In the most relatable form, the altar is where two people stand before God and commit to a life of sacrifice together. Where only death could bring them apart.
The key of the altar is the sacrifice.
Using the most pure form of the altar, we can see that a true sacrifice is a decision to choose others above yourself. Jesus’s sacrifice of His own body was because His love for humanity was greater than His love for Himself.
When we go to the altar in marriage we are committing to a life of sacrifice where we choose to love our spouse instead of love ourselves.
Eventually, being in love wears down to a memory. The sparks aren’t there. The quirks that used to be cute and funny are now the ultimate irritant that turns your mood from good to bad.
These are the moments where the covenant that took place at the altar on your wedding day is tested. You said you would love them until death, not until you fell out of love.
True Love isn’t what we see in fairy tales. Love is choosing them over you in the worst moments. It’s when their attitude towards you is undeserving and malicious and you love them anyway. With a pure heart you turn the other cheek instead of retaliating.
It’s not getting frustrated when they don’t meet your expectations. It’s forgiving what seems unforgivable. It’s the relentless pursuit of out serving the other. There are countless reasons to choose yourself.
The problem…. they all revolve around you and your desires, which is the opposite of sacrifice..
If you want to be in love and then fall out of love, chase the feelings, go after what makes you happy, but if you want to experience a deep, dense, rich love, choose to sacrifice your desires and put your spouse before yourself.
Jesus chose you by sacrificing Himself. He calls you to represent Him to the world. We can’t present him again to the world if we don’t reflect Him in our marriage.
19th century writer, Robert “The Great Agnostic” Ingersoll says,
“I would rather live and love where death is King than have eternal life where love is not.”
What I would have urged for Mr. Ingersoll and what I hope for all of us, is that we live with a love that imitates the King of Death. Through this, we will have a rich and abundant life now and in eternity.
1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
