Scripture reading: Ephesians 5:22–23

How’s Your Love Life?

A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

 

Hardly a week passes but I am not confronted by a marriage in crisis. Some husband and wife are not getting along. Often unmet expectations are threatening to tear the marriage apart. It seems that only a few couples ever discover the joys and blessings that God intended. For every single person I meet who wishes they were married, I meet three or four married persons who wish they weren’t! Why?

One of the primary culprits is the media. Our culture has defined “love” based more on what comes out of Hollywood than what comes out of Heaven! Our expectations are based more on what we see displayed on the screen and in the tabloids than what we see in the Bible. The songs we listen to and the movies and sitcoms we watch have deeply impacted our understanding of what love is sup- posed to be. We have been brainwashed!

In his book Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships, Chip Ingram outlines Hollywood’s formula for loving relationships.

 

1. Find the right
2. Fall in
3. Fix your hopes and dreams on this person for your future fulfillment.
4. If failure occurs, repeat steps 1, 2, and

 

I’d like to be able to say that Christians see through the shallowness, selfishness and downright hedonism of this worldly formula and choose to build their relationships God’s way. Alas. We spend more time watching TV and reading People Magazine than we do reading God’s Word. Therefore, we have bought into a formula for love that is not only flawed but downright destructive to human relation- ships. The Hollywood method is a recipe for social chaos that leads ultimately to isolation and loneliness.

One of the best things we can do to save marriage is to ditch Hollywood’s lies and misinformation and get back to the Word of God. Whether you are single or married, God’s plan for lasting, loving relationships is what our world desperately needs.

 

1. Instead of looking for the right person, become the right person.
2. Instead of falling in love, walk in love.
3. Instead of fixing your hopes and dreams on another person, fix your hope on God and seek to please him through this relationship.
4. If failure occurs, repeat steps 1, 2, and 3.

 

 

 

 

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy.

If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.—Socrates

 

 

 

point to ponder • Are my views on love and marriage influenced more by Hollywood or by the Word of God?

 

prayer focus • For any marriage you know to be in crisis.