"A new command I give you; Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another."  (John 13:34)

There are two commitments we make in our lives that no other commitments come close to matching.  Our wedding vows are surpassed only in magnitude by our vow to make "Jesus our Lord" and submit to His rule in every area of our lives.  Both of these vows are very serious and should not be made unless they are made "unto death."  If you say "Jesus is Lord" but don't commit to that statement for an entire lifetime, Jesus will not accept it.  If at your wedding you say "I do" but are not making that commitment for your entire life, you have already betrayed your spouse.

Consider this true but scary fact:  For those of us who are disciples and are married, our marriage and how we conduct it are great barometers of our discipleship to Jesus.  In most cases I could say, "as a husband I live, so as a disciple I live."  And what kind of disciple I am almost always determines what kind of husband I will be.  The two go hand-in-hand and are completely connected.

Remember what you vowed at your baptism?  You vowed that Jesus would be "Lord" of all your life,  that you would take on the purpose of Jesus to seek and save the lost as your own purpose, and that you would live for Him from that day forward until you took your very last breath.  Now take a few moments and remember what you vowed to your spouse on the day of your wedding.  You vowed that you would love, cherish, protect, serve, listen to, be completely faithful to and care for them from that day forward until death parted you.  Both of these vows have some very important things in common:

1)      Both are vows of total commitment

2)      Both are vows of unconditional love

3)      Both are vows of total unity and oneness

4)      Both are vows for the rest of your lives

5)      Both are vows of action (to love, serve, etc)

6)      Both are vows that are very personal yet very public in nature

7)      Both are vows sealed with consummation

The foundation for both of these vows is simple - Love!  And, if you were to apply John 13:34 to your marriage, what quality of marriage would you have?  If you loved your mate in the same way Jesus loved you, what atmosphere would be present in your home?

Thankfully, there are many powerful marriage "tools" we can acquire to help each of us bring much happiness to our mate, but no tool will work to improve our marriage unless we have that deep and unshakeable foundation of love--the same love we vowed at the altar to our spouse on our wedding day.  The charge for all of us as married disciples is to look back at our Christian vows and also our wedding vows--remember them and recommit to them with the same intensity and focus that we had when we first spoke them.

Paul says in Romans, "let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, "do not commit adultery," "do not murder," "do no covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law."  (Romans 13:8-10)

When you apply this passage to your marriage, it offers some very foundational insights into how we should treat one another.  "Let no debt remain outstanding" tells us that we should never withhold anything that is due to our spouse.  And when it comes to love, that debt can never be fully repaid.  No matter how much we love our spouse,  we can never really love them enough.  The only one who was able to ever accomplish this was Jesus.  For the rest of us, we should never have the attitude that when it comes to loving our spouse,  we have arrived.  And what greater application can we make to this passage than in our marriage?  I should always feel that I owe my wife more love than I am giving her now.  How much deeper can I love her?  How many more of her needs can I meet in a more complete way?  How can I make her feel more loved by me?  Or, to quote from a popular phrase, how can I better speak her "love language"?

The simple, yet profound statement of Jesus found in Acts 20:24 is so crucial in marriage--"It is better to give than to receive."  I experience so much more joy and fulfillment in life when I give a gift or give out love to someone than when I receive a gift or love from someone.  I'm much happier in my marriage when I am giving to Heidi than when she is giving to me.  But when we are both trying to "out-give" each other in love, our relationship, you might say, reaches a state of "nirvana", a little heaven away from heaven.  And shouldn't this be the goal for all of our marriages?

Paul stated in verse 9 of this passage that of the different commandments, and he only listed a few, they are all summed up by the one rule to "love your neighbor as yourself."  The foundation of all the commandments found in the Bible is the command to love.  In marriage, there are a number of commands.  There are the commands to be faithful to each other sexually, to serve each other, to care for each other, to help each other, to submit to one another, to give respect to one another, and many, many more.  But all of these commands can be summed up by this one statement:  "Love your spouse (neighbor) as yourself."  Love must be the foundation of all the other principles of marriage.  For example, a husband can do much to provide for his wife.  He can work hard at his job, earn a solid income, allow his wife to live in a beautiful home, buy her a nice car to drive, allow her to acquire a great wardrobe, take her to nice restaurants and the finest cultural events, go on exotic vacations with her, and despite all of these "wonderful" gifts from her husband, she still could very possibly not feel loved.  "How could this possibly be," a husband might respond.  Many times the husband will feel resentful to his wife because he'll think she is simply being ungrateful and selfish.  But the problem could be very simply that the command to "love each other deeply from the heart" is not the husband's predominant goal in his marriage.  In marriage, it's all about laying the rock-solid foundation of love.

In verse 10, it states that "love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."  If all else is failing in your marriage, try love.  Contrary to what you may have heard, you cannot be guilty of loving "too much."  Try it and see.  Try it in good times and hard times, during health problems, financial problems, sexual challenges, parenting difficulties, problems stemming from the past (such as abuse) or whatever other challenge may come your way,  and never cease to keep laying the foundation of love.

All of this may sound a bit idealistic to you and not all that helpful when it comes to the day-to-day practical problems and issues within your marriage.  But without this foundation of love in your marriage, whatever you attempt to build in your marriage relationship will not last.

Husbands and wives--the charge for all of us at this hour is to return to your wedding vows.  If at all possible, go find the exact words you spoke to each other and sit down together and read them.   If you can't locate them, do your best to remember what they were and write them down.  In doing so, you will begin to once again solidify the cornerstone of your marriage foundation--love one another.

In Part 2 of this marriage series, we will discuss some practical applications of loving each other in the next article entitled: "Loving Means Learning the Levels of Marriage Communication."