Spiritual Love: How to Build Deep Friendships and Marriage Under God

By Gary DeLashmutt and Dennis McCallum

Your spiritual health depends on your ability to build spiritual friendships. Jesus' new commandment is that we love one another as he loved us. In Spiritual Love, the authors show you how you can use biblical principles to form successful, deep friendships.

And no relationship is more important than marriage. In the second section of the book the authors consider marriage readiness. If you can check off these nine readiness markers, and your partner can do the same, your marriage is virtually guaranteed to succeed!

This guide to relationships and marriage readiness has a long proven record of success under its previous title, Spiritual Relationships that Last. Now completely rewritten and updated, it's better than ever.

Watch out for the lies so many believe about marriage:

• Romantic feelings are the best test for choosing a mate.
• Living together is a good compatibility check.
• As long as you're both Christians, you should be fine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Paradigm Publishing
• Release date: Sep 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9798988558613

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

In 1982, our eldership became aware of an unexpected, growing problem in our church. By this time our community had grown to more than 1500 people. Initially a group of Ohio State students, half of them were now in their careers. Marriages formed at a whirlwind pace. One year we estimated that 200 couples got married—several every week!

Then came the surprise. Year by year, more and more marriages became seriously distressed. Even though some marriages were already five or ten years old, divorce was unknown in our church. The only divorces we had ever seen were couples who came into the church already married but the marriage so far gone we couldn’t save them.

But this was different. Leaders and workers were asking for counseling and revealing profound disappointment and despair in their marriages. Then came the first threats of divorce.

Surveying the scene, the elders decided to bring together the information we had on marriages and we discovered that as many as a third of our marriages were in trouble. Only a third were strong. The other third were ambiguous in some way.

Looking at the list of names, we could see a pattern. The distressed marriages involved people who were immature when they married. Many married against advice given at the time. So their dysfunctionality went back before marriage into their single lives. Selfishness, inability to relate successfully with roommates, lack of self control, and failure to develop ministry were splattered all up and down this list.

We set up a study including several categories that applied to each person on the list before he or she married. These included ratings for relational success, ministry development, solidity in fellowship involvement, victory over discrediting sin (including avoidance of sexual sin during dating), spiritual age, and physical age at the time they married.

Using the firsthand knowledge we and our one hundred or so home church leaders had from working with people over the past decade, were able to rate people under each of these variables. We were also able to rate the quality of their marriages to date. In cases where knowledge was lacking, we interviewed the couples themselves.

After several months of research and interviews, the study was complete. Analyzing the results, we concluded that couples who had been ready for marriage did well. Of all the several hundred marriages we studied, we couldn’t find a single one where both spouses had developed the readiness markers in this book, but also had a distressed marriage. At the same time, people in the distressed marriages were woefully lacking in key markers at the time of marriage.

This finding was hot! We realized we needed to disseminate our findings urgently to the remaining five to seven hundred singles angling toward marriage. We were convinced that if we could teach singles how to get ready for marriage, we would see a significant increase in marriage quality. The resulting study guide we wrote was the first draft of this book. In the years since, in-house marriages have done better and better whenever people took the markers seriously. We now believe that people who establish these markers can be virtually certain that they can handle the challenges of marriage.

At the same time, the material here on friendship building (the first part of the book) has born abundant fruit in our community. Today, thousands of believers in our city spend time meeting weekly for times of sharing, study, and prayer, all with the goal of deepening their spiritual relationships. God has used this material to undergird our entire community. Even young people with little idea how to build a quality friendship have used material like that in this book to learn this vitally important skill.

This book comes in two sections. The first section discusses how to build friendships. The second section details marriage readiness, including other pieces you will need to be fully ready for a victorious marriage and family.

We hope you enjoy.

1

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL LOVE?

More Important Than Anything

For Bible believing Christians, one thing stands supreme at the center of our faith and practice: building love relationships. Jesus underscored this when he said that the most important laws in the Bible are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and he added that this was incomplete unless we also love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39 NASB). Then he added, On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets (v. 40 NASB). So according to Jesus, love relationships, both with God and fellow humans, are the be-all and end-all in a true Christian lifestyle.

Not all instructions are alike. Some are far more important than others. Jesus is teaching here that loving God and others is more important than other things. He later referred to the weightier portions of the law (Matthew 23:23), that are more important to follow closely. When we teach what the Bible teaches, we need to also emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. Otherwise, we will be advancing a picture quite far from that given in the scriptures.

At the last supper Jesus said, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. He added, By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35 NASB). So this kind of love must be visible to the watching world, not just an inner attitude or feeling. His modifier, even as I have loved you, takes his call to a very high level. Nothing less than complete self sacrifice will answer this commission.

Paul taught the same thing, insisting that even people with fanatical faith, amazing knowledge, or fantastic spiritual gifting were nothing apart from real spiritual love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). In another place he calls Christians to, Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law… love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8, 10 NASB).

Again in Galatians 5 he says, For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, You shall love your neighbor as yourself (v. 14 NASB). He even argues that faith working through love is the only thing that matters (Galatians 5:6). Commenting on this same verse, John Wesley said, Any kind of ‘holiness’ that doesn’t result in faith working through love is from the Devil."

Peter follows the same pattern, saying, Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart (1 Peter 1:22 NASB). The key modifying words here show that Peter is emphasizing the importance of this imperative.

The word sincere means authentic, or not hypocritical. Faking love is ruled out. The word fervently means earnestly, resolutely, or intensely. Also, our love should be from the heart, suggesting it comes from deep within and is not superficial. Or, if a variant reading is right, this last phrase means love that is pure, that is, not self-serving or manipulative.

Peter repeats the call later in the same book: Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another (1 Peter 4:8 NASB). Here, he uses a different word for fervent, but adds the expression, above all which means more important than anything else.

The Apostle John taught that if people don’t love others in the body of Christ, they can’t love God either (1 John 4:20). He argues that anyone who lacks love doesn’t know God (4:8).

Just from this brief survey, it’s clear that the importance of love in biblical teaching cannot be exaggerated. It’s the most important thing to have in your life—so important that lacking love cancels out any other good thing you have, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

Live a Life of Joy

Most people of the world (and some Christians, too) think things like money, fame, power, or sex will make them happy. They give these things the center place in their lives—a place God made only for spiritual love. When people put something else in the center, the result is a life of frustration and increasing greed (thirst for more). Their lives are punctuated by fleeting highs and longer lows, along with a chronic low-grade sense that there must be more.

As Bible believing Christians, we know what that more is—joy. When Jesus said, This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, he added, These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full (John 15:11-12 NASB). So if you want true joy in your life, you have to learn how to love this way. Nothing else will substitute.

The way of Jesus is the way of love—and not just any love. He is clear, it must be as I have loved you. Then he goes on to explain that laying down your life for your friends is the purest mark of true spiritual love. This is sacrificial love. Learn this, and you can live in the joy of the lord every day.

Before You Can Love

This book explores ways you can learn to love at the highest level. Love like this doesn’t come naturally; it’s only available to those indwelled with God’s Holy Spirit. John says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7 NASB). He’s not saying non-Christians can’t love at all. Rather, they can’t love at the level Jesus loved us.

Even when we have God’s Spirit, deep love has to be learned in the flux of actual relationships. Real spiritual love relationships are costly but enjoyable. Your life will stabilize and your soul will rise in newfound joy if you learn how to love at the level Jesus describes.

First, we need to examine the components of biblical love common to all spiritual relationships. Then, we’ll look at some practical ways you can gain the relational skills needed to take love to the next level. By following these steps, you should be able to develop successful relationships—moving from casual friendships to close, intimate friendships—even to marriage.

2

LEARNING TO LOVE

Nobody is born a sacrificial lover. We come into this world as love takers. From the time we’re babies and probably gradually getting worse as we age, the word selfish perfectly describes fallen people. And self can’t change self at the core. Any outward changes we make in our lives by our own power will be quite superficial when it comes to our selfish core. Like the Whack-A-Mole game, beating down sin in one area just makes it pop up in another. Nothing is really changing at the center. Only an influx of power from God can reach and transform our dark inner core.

First Step

Loving others as Jesus loved us is supernatural love. You will never be able love this way unless God infuses you with that ability. You have to receive the gift of new birth and be indwelled by God’s spirit before you can experience spiritual love.

John explains, As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name (John 1:12 NASB). To receive Christ you turn to God and ask him to apply Jesus’ death and resurrection to you. You come in faith, simply asking God to forgive your sins and to enter your life by sending his Holy Spirit to live within you. If you have never done this, even if you belong to a church, you need to do it now. You cannot move forward without surrendering your life to Jesus.

Second Step

Carefully consider these statements from Jesus:

John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (NASB)

John 15:9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. (NASB)

John 17:26 I have made Your name [God, the Father] known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." (NASB)

You can see from these statements that Jesus isn’t asking us to generate sacrificial love from within. Instead, he sees love coming from God into us as we make it our business to abide (remain or dwell) in him. Paul says the same thing:

The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:5 NASB)

So spiritual love isn’t something we squeeze up from within. Instead, we must go to God and receive his infusion of love. That love from God will, in turn, overflow to others. It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a growth process, where God moulds your character to conform you to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

It’s also a learning process, as you gradually come to reject many beliefs and values from earlier in your life and adopt God’s view instead. Walking Christians learn to come to God every day to receive his supply of spiritual power and love for that day. They also learn to continually abide in God’s presence throughout the day. This practiced consciousness of God’s presence is called walking according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:16).¹

John’s Explanation

In his first epistle, the apostle John gives an awesome explanation of how this infusion of God’s love works. He explains: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7 NASB).

The goal is clear. But he agrees with Jesus and Paul that we have to first go to God to receive his love. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sins (1 John 4:10).

Too many Christians are under a performance bondage where they think it’s up to them to overcome their cold hearts and generate a fervent love for God and others. But you see John saying something different: Not that we loved God, but that He loved us.

As mentioned earlier, every human is profoundly damaged as a result of the fall that happened when humanity threw off God’s authority (Genesis 3). Now we are self-centered. Fallen people always put self in the center—we try to arrange things based on whatever we think will be best for ourselves. As a result, we are incapable of true, self-giving love. Whenever we give out, it’s only because we believe we will receive back. It won’t be easy to see ourselves changed from love takers to love givers.

It’s easy to project similar selfishness onto God. One of the hardest things for any Christian to completely comprehend is the nature and depth of God’s love—it’s so different from our love. Yet believing how deep his love is becomes the key. John explains, We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16 NASB).

Believers have to learn how to come before God, open their hearts to him and his word, and receive his love. This is a direct person-to-person encounter. Begin by believing what he says, as John put it, We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. We tend to measure our performance and our sins in an effort to give God a reason to love us. This is wrong, and shows that we have not comprehended God’s love.

To receive God’s love in a life-changing way you must learn to wait in his presence, reviewing all the