Truth Be Told

I'm coming to the close of my personal daily devotions in 1 John, 2 John and 3 John and wanted to post some of the common themes that emerged as prominent in my mind as I have been studying and meditating on these letters in the last few months.  There are three that are foremost in my thinking, and all three gained that place of prominence in my mind because of several verses in particular, although the themes were common throughout.

Theme number one: Jesus is Lord and Christ, the Son of God.

"We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us."  1 John 4:13-15

"Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."  1 John 5:5

The Gospel of Christ according to John also provides much textual support of the connection between the man Jesus and the link to Christ, Lord and God ("My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.  I and the Father are one." John 10:29-30, for example).

Theme number two: We know love and truth because we know the Son.

"...because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:  Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love." 2 John 2-3

"It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth.  I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." 3 John 3-4

"But you have an annointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.  I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.  Who is the liar?  It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ...Dear friends, if our  hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands, and do what pleases him.  And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us."  1 John 2:20-22a; 3:21-23

Theme number three: Resist false teaching that opposes the love and truth known through the Son.

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." 1 John 4:1-3

"Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.  Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work." 2 John 9-11

"Dear friends, do not imitate what is evil but what is good.  Anyone who does what is good is from God.  Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God."  3 John 11

It would do all who call on the name of Christ to think carefully on these and spend some time reinforcing these truths each day as we live each day knowing truth and love because of the work of the Holy Spirit who shined the light of truth in our hearts so that we might know Jesus as both Lord and Christ and empowers us to study the Word of Truth to show ourselves approved and recognize deception and false teaching.  God doesn't need us to defend Him as He was and is and ever will be God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit regardless any earthly circumstance, but there are those who will seek to lead others away from the Truth and so we can be about lifting up Love and Truth as it is only legitimate - through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Bookends of Worship

I work in structural steel fabrication and so on my desk are bookends made of sections of large thickness angle. We have similar angle bookends elsewhere in the office, on opposite ends of catalogs and code reference materials.  These bookends are weighty objects that bound a group of books so that they remain in order and upright.  Without solid bookends, the grouping will fall apart.

In reading through the book of 1 John I noticed some powerful bookends that are worth looking at carefully.  The book begins with the following:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life - the life was manifested, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father was manifested to us - that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

And ends with the following:

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen.

If we look at these two statements we see some striking ideas.  First that there is one thing that is true.  Second that our choice is between two things that are known.  Third that our confidence and love is bound by two poles.

There is one thing that is true, and that one thing is God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  Truth is often defined in terms of correspondence; that truth is that which corresponds to reality.  In the opening lines of 1 John we have a description on what has been since the beginning and which has been seen, that has been heard, that has been touched.  We do not believe in something imagined in the minds of men with no physical manifestation in based in reality.  We believe in something manifested physically in our time and space and history - Jesus the Christ.  We remember that the child was born, the Son was given.  He, the Word of Life, walked among us and was seen, heard and touched.  He was crucified, died and was buried having been touched.  He rose again and appeared to many witnesses, for forty days walking, eating, talking and being touched.  The Son of God was handled.  Idols were fashioned by men as objects of worship, and remain today, being fashioned by men in the factories of our minds - oftentimes as the works of our hands.  We are told at the beginning of 1 John to follow the truth of what man has handled that was given by God, and likewise are told at the end of 1 John to not follow the lie of what man has handled that is fashioned by his own hand.  Do follow that which is true, do not follow that which is a lie.  These are the two poles that bind our love - the positive pole of the truth and the life, the love of God in which we abide and find our redemption; that Jesus is Lord and Christ - and the negative pole of lies and death, that we can be God and fashion for ourselves the objects of our worship.  There is but one way to life everlasting, and it does not flow through the hands of men.  Our love and confidence is in that which is testified to in heaven by the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit and on earth by the Spirit, the water and the blood.  This Jesus is both Lord and Christ and we have life if we abide in Him.

The challenge is to take up the truth and abide in Christ daily, not in ourselves - in so doing we will know what love is, we will be confident in that which we know that has been revealed to us, we can be faithful to do all things as unto the Lord and glorify Him in all things which is our act of worship (in all things all day long) in living in accordance with the purpose for which we were created and brings true meaning in our lives.

Beginning the New Year in Love

It seems only fitting to begin the year by writing of the Love of God.  Appropriate in the first place because I have been studying through 1 John for some time and am now reading through the whole book daily to soak in things I may not have seen in a verse by verse study.  Secondly, it is fitting because God has so chosen to bless my wife and I with our fifth child (due late May or early June 2012).  Children are such a blessing, and I say without hesitation that I have learned more about God's Love for me through parenthood and the love I have for each of my children.

Having said that, and with love as the backdrop for kicking off 2012, let me begin by getting right into 1 John and talk about the bookends of chapter 4- God is love.  In verse 8 of chapter 4, John writes, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."  Verse 16b states just as explicitly, "God is love."  Between these bookends is the description and explanation of these bookends.  First, in verse 10 we are told what love is - namely, "not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."  So we see that love IS sacrifice.  God is love, because God is sacrifice.  God is three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the Son is an atoning sacrifice once for all.  Therefore God is love.  How do we know this apart from the words in some book that is thousands of years old?  Verse 9, "God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."  God is love, and He demonstrates that love among us in time and space as a part of human history forever recorded and attested by Biblical and extra-biblical sources alike.

Love is inextricably tied to sacrifice.  We only know what love is because Christ Jesus laid down his life for us (Chapter 3 verse 16).  So any talk we may have about love that is devoid of an acknowledgment of sacrifice is no love at all.  It may well be a good description of temporary happiness, of physical pleasure or the promise thereof, of getting or being able to use something for one's own ends, but it will not be love.  So, what do we make of things like "irreconcilable differences" as a reason for divorce?  The only conclusion is that there was no love in the first place.  This is a very difficult statement to hear, but think it through.  If the only way we know love is through a demonstration of sacrifice, if we are told clearly that love is God sending His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of man, and that because we know this concerning love we ought to love one another just the same (chapter 4 verse 11) then there logically can be no differences that rise to the level of being irreconcilable.  Jesus Himself taught that divorce was the result of a refusal to forgive, a point at which one party was no longer willing to sacrifice for another.

Apart from the example of marriage, we are also instructed to love our brother in the same way God loved us and demonstrated that love.  We are told in scripture that the world will know His people by the love we have for one another.  We must not misunderstand the gravity of the word love as it applies to our relationships.  Loving God and loving one another.  In chapter 4 and 19-21 we see that the demonstration that we love the God we cannot see with our eyes is by how we love those we can see and interact with physically each and every day.  If we do not love one another - through sacrifice - we do not truly know what love is or love God.

There are two points that are critical in my mind that should serve as a challenge to us all in the new year.  First, we must not, we can not, attempt to separate sacrifice from love.  We must not try, as some have done, to present love as a tacit or celebration of anything and everything under the sun as if love is tantamount to acceptance of all behavior, that all is OK since the goal of man is to be happy in how we each choose to live our lives.  If love itself is God's sending of His Son to die as atonement for our sins, and if we only know love because of the demonstration of Christ's sacrifice for our sins through crucifixion, then we dare not be so cavalier with our understanding and universal application of the term.  Second, we must strive to continually reaffirm our love for God by preaching to ourselves the Gospel and to love one another by sacrificing of ourselves for the sake of the Gospel and by preaching it to others through our words and deeds.  Perhaps if we all as believers set out to accomplish this in 2012, the year will be marked with an increased awareness that the Church is set apart from the world and its members are easily seen as markedly different in that they love one another and therefore love their God and can then successfully preach to others the love of God available to all.

Happy New Year, and may it be one of great love for God an one another.  

What's Love....Got To Do With It?

I read this morning in the paper that December is the month where the greatest number of proposals for marriage occur.  Many would think that February and Valentine's Day would be the number one month for proposals, but according to the article and a quoted professional proposal planner December is five to six times more active in terms of interest in her services.  A jewelry businessman also stated that diamond engagement ring purchases were 50 to 60 percent higher in the month of December due to the expressed intent to propose marriage.

Now many would say without thinking that two people are in love and with Christmas, the winter wonderland some experience, the gift giving, family gatherings and the like that it is just a natural time to pop the question.  What I thought about, however, was deeper than the location, time of year or method of proposal.  From whence did love come?  We speak about love quite a bit - in music, with regard to foods we find particularly appealing, vehicles or new electronic gadgets we purchase and utilize and others.  We say we love many things, and in point of fact before proposing there has usually been an exchange of the very phrase "I love you" on numerous occasions.  But i'm not even talking about the statement of love, or the idea that love is a part of our every day lives.  What i'm concerned with is where did the whole concept of love come from in the first place.  We must preface the entire question with the understanding that love is a term that connotes more than just physical intimacy.  When we speak of love and marriage there is an implicit understanding of forever, of something that lasts, of giving of ourselves to another, of sacrificing for someone else.  Where did that come from?

It is hard to see from an evolutionary standpoint how it would ever have arisen.  For furthering a society, procreation is a requisite, and for safety it is well appreciated that gathering in groups is better for survival than going it alone.  It seems quite counter-intuitive to hold to a belief that the flourishing of human existence is maximized by sacrificing and suffering with another. It seems much more reasonable to hold to some sort of physical intimacy with whomever one chooses to be the best mate and more of a communal sense of responsibility toward rearing children.  No one particular set of parents, a group of adults all sharing in the responsibility of making each child the best possible specimen for the next generation of more advanced evolutionary bi-products.  Complex sociological concerns are not really the point of the post, but do bring light on the importance of the question.  If love as a complex set of emotions that drive human behavior away from the most beneficial evolutionary circumstances then it should be cast away lest humanity be passed over by another more capable of discarding such unnecessary notions.

Unless of course love is the ultimate expression of human existence.  What if love is actually the pinnacle of humanity, the core of what really makes human beings what they are?  As it turns out, my personal devotions for this month have me in the book of 1 John.  In the fourth chapter, and verse 4 it reads, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God."  Wait, love comes from God?  The source of the pinnacle of humanity was imparted to us from our Creator?  Yes, it seems the only way to understand what love is, why it is so important when it seems to contradict human flourishing it to understand that it comes from God.  Not only do we find in 1 John the source of love, we also see what it is to love (an example for our benefit and use in copying behavior that expresses love).  See here chapter 3 and verse 16, "This is how we know what love is: Christ Jesus laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."  So here we have an action and an imperative.  Christ died for us, therefore we ought to lay our lives down for others.

This is repeated in Chapter 4 verses 7-12, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

More tomorrow on 1 John and love, but I hope we will all be spurred on to think carefully and deeply about what it means to love, the origin of love in human existence, and how we ought to display love in our own individual lives each day.  Knowing God and atoning sacrifice are central here, as clearly read in the last verses, which will be a great topic for tomorrow...

Paying the Price

It was reported in the news cycle a short while ago that the British Embassy in Iran came under fire, and similarities were drawn as memories were taken back to the capture of American embassy workers years ago.  Those captured embassy workers were held captive for over a year.  I thought about this recently as I was asked if I felt that biblical texts concerning a ransom being paid should be taken literally.  It we are supposed to take that sort of idea literally, then to whom was the ransom paid?  In other words, to whom was God Himself beholden?

My short answer is an emphatic yes, a ransom was literally paid.  I can say that with confidence and still completely deny that God was beholden to anyone.  How can I say that without contradicting myself?  I'm so glad you asked.

ransom - 1. the redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person, or captured goods, etc. for a price.  2. the sum or price paid or demanded.  3. a means of deliverance or rescue from punishment for sin, esp. the payment of a redemptive fine.  4. to redeem from captivity, bondage, detention, etc. by paying a demanded price.  5. to release or restore on receipt of a ransom.  6. to deliver or redeem from punishment for sin.


The reason that there is no contradiction with holding to a literal ransom is that the idea that we are held hostage by another party and that the only thing God can do is pay them off for our release is not accurate and is not the only usage of the term ransom, and therefore simply does not apply.  What is clear from scripture is that sin leads to death.  God tells Adam and Eve in the Garden that in the day they eat of the fruit they will surely die.  We are told explicitly that the wages of sin is death.  We are told that all men, all women are sinners, whose hearts are desperately wicked, incapable of any good thing, that we are all of us slaves to sin.  We are told that God's wrath is against all those who sin.

What is explicitly clear in scripture is that we have a gravely serious problem, namely that we are deserving to have the wrath of God levied against us (and rightfully so by our volitional disobedience and life contrary to the purpose for which we were created) as those who are slaves to sin.  We are enemies of God and can do nothing about it ourselves.  God's Justice and Holiness demands that this wrong be made right.  To suggest that God simply overlooks our acts is to deny His perfect Justice and Holiness.  But isn't God supposed to be Loving and Gracious and Merciful?

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance - now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:15)


One would rightly read the above passage and ask, "For what reason?"  When Christ came as high priest o the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle taht is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation.  He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.  The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.  How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:11-14).  Jesus died, His body broken, His blood shed to deliver, rescue, redeem us from the punishment of sin we deserve.  Death is the wages of sin, and death was the price to redeem.  Christ paid that price, and therefore was literally a ransom for us so that we might have the spirit of sonship, an eternal inheritance.  The bible describes what we already know, that there is no greater love than if one lay down his life for another; especially if the life is laid down for those who are enemies.  God is Love.

To say that Christ was not a ransom because God couldn't remain God while being required to pay someone else off to buy us back is foolishness because it is a complete misunderstanding and misreading of the clear and explicit teaching of scripture.  To deny that Christ died, or that His blood was shed for efficacious reasons is to diminish His Grace and Love as well as His Righteousness, Justice and Holiness.  Is the situation exactly like a hostage situation, no, but Christ literally gave His life as a ransom just the same.  In short, where the Bible is clear and explicit we need not seek after some other meaning.  It is enough to acknowledge the fullness of the Truth, not suppress it, and be forever grateful and determined to live a life wholly committed to glorifying God who is perfectly Holy, Just, Righteous, Gracious, Merciful and Loving based on His Sovereignty and how much He loved us while we were yet in our sins.  

True Love

Imagine two young people, been in church their whole lives, one a pastor's daughter and the other a deacon's son who pursue each other and finally get married who now have four children and fifteen grandchildren.  What would you say about that couple and their beginning?  Super couple with a great background and off to a solid start?  No chance of divorce with those two?  Perfect example of how Christian families should begin and will work out if done right?  Well, Norm Wakefield from Spirit of Elijah Ministries described his relationship with his wife (and her relationship with him) as idolatrous, and testified to the first 10 years being a "train wreck".  I suspect this is the case far more often than most believers will even admit, for fear of letting out the awful truth that we who profess Christ as our Savior mess things up sometimes too.

Do we really think about Love in terms of Christ's love for us?  I mean really think about it that way.  A brief review of scripture shows with certainty that He loved us BEFORE we did anything to deserve it.  Do we really love people before they do things we want, or give us things we desire?  How about it husbands, do we love our wives, serve them, bring them flowers, write them little love text messages throughout the day, buy them gifts for no reason, without any expectation of physical intimacy later on?  How about it fathers, do we spend time with our children, read books, play sports, work projects, have devotions, without any expectation of obedience or verbal approval of our parenting as a result?  Do we love our families, giving of all we are, without any expectation of something in return - or do we love them like a football team, spending time and cheering them on as long as they are winning for the entertainment we derive from the investment?  Sobering to think we are all creating for ourselves idols and carving them with precision every day.

Go to Spirit of Elijah Ministries website and look into the book "Equipped to Love" by Norm Wakefield.  The man is gifted by God to speak to relationships in real terms, identifying real loving relationships from idolatrous ones.  It will open your eyes, as his talk did mine, to the correct way to think and pray for help in experiencing God's love for us in a deeper and more intimate way, and how we can be successful in loving others and ourselves in the way God loves us.

We don't have relationship issues, or communication problems, or repressions of this or that from past situations by and large.  We have a sin problem in that we are experts in habitual creation and formation of idols from which we derive our fulfillment.  We need all the resources we can to identify ways in which we can rely completely on our God and Savior to bring fulfillment in every area of our lives.  Norm's book is a good one to add to your collection.

Real Relationships

We met again on the afternoon of November 12 to hear from Norm Wakefield of Spirit of Elijah Ministries on the topic of relationships.  Again the presentation was tremendous, and was a fresh way to look at interpersonal relationships (via the interaction between Jesus and Peter {a.k.a. Simon).

Mr. Wakefield brought out the idea that Peter wrote his letters (1 Peter and 2 Peter) from his life experience, most especially the last few weeks he spent time with Jesus before His crucifixion.  From those experiences he was able to write to the early church members in difficult situations they were experiencing - see specifically 1 Peter chapter 2 and 3.

In a nutshell (so as not to repeat material that is available through the website link above, which I would strongly recommend) Peter's concept of relationship changed when he stopped seeing Jesus as Lord consummated by power and law and began to see Jesus as Lord consummated by love and experience.  In other words, not King and ruler by political rule but Shephard who saved His sheep by laying down His own life.

My mind has been all around this concept for weeks now and to be frank what has bothered me most is the issue of obedience and devotion to the commandments of God if all is love an experience.  I mean, if every relationship is all about love then won't that make Christians pushovers, ready to be bowled over since we can't really stand up to people we are supposed to love, right?  I mean if love dominates all relationships then we couldn't tell people they are doing something wrong, engaging in wrong behavior, etc.  We'd have to just let everyone do our own thing without making them feel bad by telling them they are living wrongly, right?  Actually, no.  If we really love our Lord and love other people then we will be compelled to live rightly ourselves, constantly aware of our actions so that we never behave (in thought, word or deed) in a way that would shame the Gospel or cause any other believer to stumble [in other words live an example].  We will also love others enought to point out wrongdoing, and here's the key, only from a motivation of desiring them to know the love of Christ in their lives and only as their lives do not align with clearly commanded and modeled biblical principles.  It is out of our love for our Lord that we identify and point out behavior inconsistent with biblical principles, so that we can share the message of love with others so they might be able to know the love of God in their own lives.

It's a different perspective, and I believe the correct one.  The key is motivation.  We as believers have probably not done ourselves any favors as we tried to take the short road and just proclaim that others are living wrong and on their way to Hell out of an attitude of pride and arrogance.  How much more effective would it be if we just thought constantly of what Christ Jesus has done for us, how much we love our Lord, and as a result live a life dedicated to showing how much we love Christ and love others by sharing the love of Christ and those same areas where their lives do not align with biblical principles because we want them to know the freedom, hope and joy that comes from looking for our fulfillment in Christ alone.  I have a feeling we would have some real and close relationships that honor the Lord.  And that is our purpose in life anyway, glorifying the Lord.  He is worth the effort.

No Laughing Matter

I intended to publish a post on the content in the book I recently finished, but that will have to wait.  When reading the local newspaper this morning I came across an article that brushes on a topic I am passionate about, namely marriage.  The article, entitled Kardashian's split was quick, but it wasn't the quickest asked, in jest, if the 72-day marriage for Kim Kardashian was the shortest in celebrity history.  Apparently seventy two days won't get a celebrity into the top-10 for shortest stint as a married couple.  Seven of the shortest were listed, with the gold medal going to Robin Givens and Svetozar Marinkovic, at seven minutes.

Although published as a laughable contest and all presented in a jovial manner, my emotions ranged instead from disgust and disappointment to rage.  One might ask why anyone should get so upset about such thing.  After all, it wasn't my marriage that broke up, it's kinda fun to watch these celebrities live these things out in front of us on "reality TV", and it provides a moment of levity in the middle of things like the debt crisis, the housing market crash, international upheaval and apparently the nearing end of the world with population increases and climate change.  My response would be that I don't see how anyone could ever take profanity lightly.

Profanity, you say?  Are you sure you didn't mean something else?  No I didn't.  Very clearly and with certainty it is profanity.  That opposite of sacred is not neutrality, secular or pure amusement; the opposite of sacred is profane.  It is impossible to get a real sense of where the sacred aspect comes in from the short list of fastest break-ups, but in a related article from the associated press we can see what the newly divorced woman said in her own words about the matter.  She is quoted in the article saying the following: "Kardashian says that while she "married for love"...", ""When I probably should have ended my relationship, I didn't know how to and I didn't want to disappoint a lot of people," she writes...", ""it just didn't turn out to be the fairy tale I had so badly hoped for."  


So, she married for love, she was hoping for a fairy tale and when she discovered in the midst of the "reality show" that her relationship was not a fairy tale she didn't end it for fear of disappointing a lot of people (which are now the very people to whom she is making an apology for causing disappointment). Please know that I do not intend this space as a hammer with which to bludgeon Ms. Kardashian. She is participating in, and reinforcing and continuing the profaning of the sacredness of love and marriage which began long before her time and will continue long after her fame has fleeted.

Love and marriage can only be legitimate as they are sacred and transcend human definition.  This has to be the case as what has obliterated any sense of right and wrong with respect to marriage has been humanity arrogating to themselves the authority and autonomy to define for themselves definitions of love and marriage.  Love is a fairy tale affair laced with perfect existence and constant fulfillment of physical pleasure.  Marriage is any relationship between two entities who decide they want to engage in a committed partnership.  NO, NO, NO!!!  Isn't the problem obvious?  Whose to say those definitions apply to everyone?  Who gets to decide what the boundaries of "fulfillment", "pleasure" or "committed" really means.  After all, staying with someone for two years is surely commitment enough, isn't it?  The attempt of any human being to decide the parameters of love and marriage will fail for this very reason, the definitions are arbitrary and temporal.

Love and marriage are legitimate as they are sacred and transcendent.  Therefore they must be maintained as they are consistent.  I maintain that since the Biblical Christian worldview as a system is the only one that is non-contradictory and sufficiently explains all things, and is TRUE, that love and marriage is only legitimate as it comports with Biblical understanding.  Love is legitimate only as it is a reflection of Christ.  Marriage is only legitimate as it is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the church.  Any other understanding is not neutral or secular, it is profane.

Now, having said all that, I realize that not everyone is a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Not everyone agrees with what i've just written.  I would love a discussion on another proposed equally legitimate definition and understanding of love and marriage.  However, not everyone who performs marriage ceremonies for people who do not agree with the Biblical Christian understanding, who are themselves both disciples of Jesus, whose understanding of their individual responsibilities to love, honor and cherish one another as modeled by Christ and His relationship with the church are justices of the peace.  In other words, there are ministers who are performing marriage ceremonies for individuals by the power vested in them by the state and under the authority of God without giving due consideration to such matters, without going through counseling sessions to make sure the new couple recognize the sacredness of what they are engaging in, and committing themselves to stay with the couple to encourage and challenge them continuously to improve and stay strong through the trials and issues that will inevitably surface.  Love and marriage, these things are not trivial they are sacred and it would be will with us if we would not treat them with such disregard.