“People may stay together, but they are not in love.” – Andy Stanley
Dwight and I were debating whether to drop the boys off at their class, get groceries, and then join them for the main service. You know how it is–there will always be something pressing that you think you need to take care of instead of going to church or your class, but we quickly decided that groceries could wait, so we hit the road for our couples class. Don’t get me wrong, we love our group family, and we do not like to miss it.
I am so glad that we were faithful to our pledge to make church our #1 priority, because Julie Caffey will be teaching the Andy Stanley group study, ‘Staying In Love!’ I have raved about Julie and her amazing approach to well-known Biblical stories, so this 4 week series should be pretty phenomenal. Dwight joked that he’s going to buy a super-sized box of Puffs Plus for me. He’s so funny. Not.
Our first lesson was on how to change the word love from a noun (something we easily do these days by loving anything and everything) to a verb in which we literally show and give love to everyone, and in this case, it is our spouses as this study is focused on marriage.
“Don’t take your cue on how a marriage should be by the world, or even your parent’s relationships because they may still be together only because they are surviving each day. Take your cue from Jesus who over 2 thousand years ago, not only gave us the foundation for family, but He charged us to love one another as He loved us.”
As Julie mentioned, most young adults do not see a healthy example of a Christian marriage. Society sure isn’t presenting healthy Christ-centered marriages, and many of their parents are–physically and mentally–worn out and only surviving day-to-day. They need to see love in action between their parents to see what a healthy marriage looks like. This can only happen if we teach them and model that love is a verb rather than a noun.
That was week one’s lesson. I’ll be jotting down my thoughts on each class and sharing them with you each week. I can’t wait for the next lesson!
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” – John 13:34
God bless you,
Rebecca
