A man once came to me and said, \u201cMy marriage is falling apart. My wife says she doesn\u2019t have feelings for me anymore, and my feelings for her are pretty much dead too. I guess it\u2019s over, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n
He was startled by my immediate response.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s not over. Read the Song of Solomon and do exactly what it says, and throw in 1 Peter 3:7 for good measure, and you will save your marriage. Not only will you save your marriage, it will become great, far better than what you ever imagined possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat,\u201d he responded with a tone of incredulity. \u201cJust read those Bible passages and do what they say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, read and obey, dude, read and obey! And all will be well,\u201d I declared with prophet-level confidence.<\/p>\n
Still looking skeptical, he said, \u201cBut don\u2019t we need some marriage counseling or something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may need counseling,\u201d I said, \u201cif you are especially stubborn and want to take the long, painful route to repairing your marriage. Good Christian counseling can be an immense blessing and sometimes is the only way forward. But it sounds to me like you have an emergency on your hands, so I’m giving you the shortest and fastest route to heal your relationship with your wife. Counseling takes a long time, meeting after meeting after meeting, with both of you sharing feelings, feelings, feelings, and potentially making one another mad, mad, mad (exaggeration for effect). But if you want to bypass all of that and just git \u2018er done, brother, read what the Bible says about marriage and obey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm,\u201d he said with a hesitant tone of rebellion, \u201cjust obey? <\/i>That <\/i>sounds to me like mindless legalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s because you\u2019re a spiritual wimp,\u201d I fired back, but with a smile to lighten the blow. \u201cObedience isn\u2019t legalism, unless you believe God is an arbitrary control freak who hates you. But if you believe God is on your side, a God of tender love who has only your best interest at heart, well, then, in that case, obedience is the most intelligent course you can take.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obedience is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0legalism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cBut we don’t love each other anymore,\u201d he said, as if he knew what he was talking about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, then,\u201d I explained, \u201chere\u2019s the first act of obedience you should engage in: stop saying that, and never, ever, say it again. Not<\/i> loving your wife is not<\/i> an option according to Ephesians 5:25, and according to your marriage vows. So do not express those sentiments, not one more time, ever again. And in their place, begin expressing, on a regular basis, that you love your wife. Tell her, tell yourself, tell your children, your buddies. Talk her up, not down. Tell her how amazing she is, how beautiful she is, how blessed and happy you are to be her husband.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what if it\u2019s not true?\u201d He was trying to wiggle loose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not true, then expressing it will be the first step of obedience in making it true! In fact, let me tell you a secret that has been lost by our feelings-obsessed culture: feelings follow actions wherever actions lead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?! Really?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, really! Guaranteed! Countless couples in our emotionally egocentric culture get divorced because they follow their feelings. But here\u2019s the thing: feelings are often stupid and cannot be trusted. What you can<\/i> trust is the application of sound principles, which, when applied, produce good feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m just suppose to act contrary to my feelings?\u201d He said this as if it was the silliest thing he\u2019d ever heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I stated with absolute firmness. \u201cIf your feelings are telling you to end your marriage, defy your feelings and call them what they are\u2014stupid, weak, selfish feelings\u2014and act out a different picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds\u2026 um\u2026 crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, what\u2019s crazy is that you would consider ending your marriage because of your feelings. What I’m telling you is that if you really want to heal your marriage, actions are the fastest way to do that. Good, sensitive, beautiful actions toward you wife will literally create a new relational dynamic between the two of you. That\u2019s not crazy, dude, that\u2019s what total sanity looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this article isn\u2019t actually about marriage. It\u2019s about the power of obedience to God\u2019s word. Marriage is just one example of many areas of life concerning which God has something to say. My point is that obedient action to the inherently good principles of God\u2019s word will invariably produce positive new realities in a person\u2019s life. If that sounds like \u201clegalism\u201d to you, that\u2019s either because you have a terrible misconception of God\u2019s character or because you need to start at ground zero and be born again.<\/p>\n
Obedience is not<\/i> legalism.<\/p>\n
And legalism is most emphatically not<\/i> obedience.<\/p>\n
Obedience is the love-motivated process of acting in accordance with God\u2019s word because you believe that you are living under His favor and that He only has your best interest at heart. Obedience is trust, fueled by love, in action.<\/p>\n
Legalism, by contrast, is the anxious effort to earn God\u2019s favor because you believe, at least on an emotional level, that God\u2019s love is conditional and therefore that He holds you at a distance until you prove yourself worthy. It is a form of religious narcissism, a way of keeping self as one\u2019s center while projecting the illusion of serving God.<\/p>\n
Once you come to Jesus in response to His love, just as you are, receiving salvation as the free gift of His grace, the instructions in His word look like liberty and feel protective. You\u2019re like, \u201cWow, Lord, thank You for showing me the principles of life by which I can, by Your empowering grace, repair my broken relationships and flourish in every aspect of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obedience is the love-motivated process of acting in accordance with God\u2019s word because you believe that you are living under His favor and that He only has your best interest at heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Obedience, in this relational context, is voluntary, rendered from the heart. Paul says it like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cKnow ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you\u201d (Romans 6:16-17, KJV).<\/p>\n
Paul is speaking here to the person who has come to Christ in response to His grace, not to the unbeliever. To those who have not<\/i> embraced God\u2019s merciful love, the idea of obedience can only feel like externally imposed bondage. But those who know God\u2019s good character as it is revealed in Jesus make themselves voluntarily obedient to the Lord. But note Paul\u2019s specific, qualifying language: \u201cfrom the heart.\u201d In other worlds, the obedience of the grace-immersed believer springs up from deep inside. It is composed of willing, affectionate faith that is lodged in God\u2019s essential goodness.<\/p>\n
There is a direct correlation between obedience and knowing. Jesus put it like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority\u201d (John 7:17).<\/p>\n
According to Jesus, doing modifies knowing. One of the great rational fallacies of our scientific age is that knowledge consists of intellectual facts that reside outside of behavioral engagement. Scripture, rather, communicates a more holistic view of knowledge. We do not really come to know anything or anyone by mere objective thinking<\/i> without subjective doing<\/i>. In other words, one cannot truly know God by analyzing, contemplating, or intellectualizing data about God. Rather, God can only be known through what we might call experiential knowing<\/i>, by relational engagement, by full-person interaction. Anything else is at best only knowing about<\/i>\u00a0God.<\/p>\n
So Jesus basically says, Do what I\u2019m telling you and you will know, once you are on the inside of the doing, that I am telling you the truth straight from God.<\/i><\/p>\n
There are things that can only be understood from the inside. God\u2019s word testifies to its veracity by the effects, the outcomes, the results it produces when its principles are implemented. God\u2019s law looks and feels different from the inside than it does from the outside. Once you embrace its stunning vision of life as relational integrity<\/i>, God\u2019s law feels liberating rather than restricting. Obedience to God\u2019s word places you in a position of commitment to people above and beyond your feelings, and sometimes contrary to them. And then\u2014surprise, surprise\u2014you are acting in the only manner that has the power to create positive feelings between yourself and others.<\/p>\n
Whenever you are uncertain how to proceed with God, the safest course you can follow is to engage in active obedience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the case of marriage, for example, the concrete commitment of two people to one another is the only framework within which the true nature of love can be understood. If you stand on the outside quibbling about your feelings, love will gradually vanish and your commitment to the relationship will die. But if a married couple remains on the inside of absolute commitment and actively obeys God\u2019s word by engaging in beautiful actions toward one another, they will experience positive results in the form of security, trust and, yes, positive emotional feelings.<\/p>\n
Whenever you are uncertain how to proceed with God, the safest course you can follow is to engage in active obedience. Simply do what God says, and things will get better, clarity will come, problems will diminish, and quality of life will increase.<\/p>\n
The guy with stupid feelings about his marriage contacted me about a year after our conversation. \u201cI thought my marriage was over,\u201d he testified, \u201cand I thought that what you were telling me was crazy. But you sounded so sure that I thought I should follow your advice and see what might happen. I read the Song of Solomon and other Scriptures about marriage, and I just started treating my wife the way God\u2019s word says I should. And it was amazing to watch her come back alive to me! She was blown away and started treating me differently. And sure enough, just like you said, our feelings for one another started getting better and better, and now its like we\u2019re dating again. We just really love each other more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was not at all surprised, because God is good and everything He says in His word is calculated to our present and eternal flourishing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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