40 Days in Love

By Michael Stine

What if you could improve your marriage in 40 days? You might think that's impossible because your spouse would never go along with you on the journey. But the truth is that improvement starts with you!

This book is a 40 day look at God's love and how it is applied to your marriage. It's great if you and your spouse want to work through the book together but it's also a great resource on your own.

This series of devotions will help you to become the type of spouse you want to be and God wants you to be. In the end that means you are someone who is lovable and worthy of love. And even if your spouse doesn't participate with you, they will notice the difference in you and you will see the effects of this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Stine
• Release date: Jan 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310452727

Michael Stine

Michael Stine is first and foremost a pastor who loves preaching the Word of God. In addition to this he has run a series of websites since 1999. Collectively the websites make up Spreading Light Ministries and the main site can be found at www.spreadinglight.com. In 2011 Mike also began teaching online with a Christian university and he teaches mostly New Testament courses.Mike holds multiple degrees in Bible related areas. He has a B.S. in Bible from Lancaster Bible College where he also majored in Christian education. At Liberty University he obtained a Master of Arts in Religion with an emphasis in theology. He then returned a few years later to obtain a Masters of Religious Education.Mike was married in July 2009 to his wife Merissa. They met in 2006 while Mike was an interim pastor at her church. They live with their two dogs and three cats.

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About this Book

40 Days in Love is modeled after the popular book The Love Dare. It uses some of the same principles and many of the same Bible passages to illustrate the points it is trying to make. It is written as a series of devotional thoughts on love that will better enable you to understand Biblical love.

While The Love Dare has an emphasis on salvation and one’s relationship with God, 40 Days in Love centers on one’s relationship with God as well as the relationship with one’s spouse. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He responded by saying that it was to love God. The second was like it, love your neighbor as yourself – in other words, love others.

For this reason, I have taken a two pronged approach to love. Our love for God is most important. It is more than just being saved. Our relationship with God is just that, a relationship. It needs to be worked on every bit as much as our marriage and relationships with others. In each devotion you’ll find something about love that will be applicable to loving your spouse and most often it will also be applicable to how you love God and others as well.

Day 1 - Love is Impossible

Ephesians 3:17-19

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Matthew 19:26

Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

The first thing that you need to know about love is that it is impossible. That is, it is impossible without God. We are naturally sinful people. We are naturally selfish. When we love of our own ability, it is because we want something in return. Breakfast in bed is often out of duty – it’s mother’s day, out of guilt – making up for the fight last night, or as a bribe – you want to buy a boat. Why is it that love is so much more prevalent while dating than married? It’s because a person is trying to win another over.

Fortunately true love is not just a pipe dream. It can be accomplished with the help of God. The first thing that one must embrace to truly love is to accept that God loves them. If you don’t feel loved, it is difficult to love others. When you accept God’s love for you, it will naturally flow out of you and to others.

Love is also sacrificial in nature. It wants what is best for other people, not ourselves. Once again, this goes against our nature. We look out for number one first and foremost. Jesus set the example of sacrificial love for us by dying on the cross. You will probably never be put in a position to die for a loved one but there will be many times when you’ll need to sacrifice your time, your money, and your preferences in order to show love to someone.

The key to love is God. It would be great if we could just set our mind on being more loving but it just doesn’t work that way. Our mind must be transformed by God. Some people see a dramatic transformation in their life when they surrender their will to God. For many others there is a gradual change from selfishness to sacrificially loving. But the first and most important step toward really loving is by asking God to make you a more loving person. This means that you have to acknowledge that you need help being a more loving husband or wife.

Without God’s help, love is impossible. With the help of God, all things are possible. This is the most important thing to remember as you try to love others.

Day 2 - Love is Jesus Christ

1 John 3:16

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Romans 5:6-8

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In the first lesson, we already mentioned that Jesus set the standard for sacrificial love. This lesson will expand upon this idea. Christians and non-Christians alike get hung up on Paul’s teachings about women being submissive to their husbands. This is not a lesson on that topic. What many fail to notice or realize is that the standard for husbands is set even higher. They are to love their wives like Christ loved the church. The verses above depict how much Jesus loved the church. It shows us that Jesus is love. Anyone who