I Would Die For You

It is well established that the Old Testament is a shadow of God’s great promise and plan for mankind and that he had promised came into fulfilment in the New Testament. However the Old Testament is not redundant with regard to how we are to live our lives. Just because the new covenant has come which is better with regard to the promises and the fulfilment of those promises, it doesn’t mean we still can’t glean something from it. The Apostle Paul tells us that ALL Scripture is inspired by God for correction, instruction, reproof. There for the Old Testament definitely still has a lot of lessons for us with regards to the life we live in Christ.

In the book of Genesis we see the first marriage between Adam and Eve. The relationship is great and going on well until we see the Devil through the serpent enter the picture. He beguiles her, playing on her desire to be more than she is, to be like God. She doesn’t realise that she is already like God. In the end, she takes the fruit God had commanded them not to eat. Not only does she eat it, she gives it to her husband as well. When God calls Adam and ask him what happened, Adam lays the blame for the whole fiasco on Eve, even though he also eat the fruit in spite of the fact that God gave the commandment to him. As a result of their disobedience, God curses them and ejects them from the Garden of Eden. However, he makes a promise to them that Christ would come to save them from the effects of their sin.

Several prophets like Isaiah prophesied about the coming of the Messiah, the one who would save his people from their sin. When Jesus finally came, he said that he had come to take away the sins of the world. He came not to impute people sins on them but that as long as they believed on him and in him, he would not only save them from the effects of their sin but from sin itself. In the end, he hung on a cross to fulfil the word earlier spoken that cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. He took your sins and my sins on the cross and subsumed and erased them in himself. He did condemn anyone who came to him but he accepted all men as they are as long as they would allow him to make them.

Myles Munroe says that if you want to know how a thing is supposed to work, then you need to read the manual from the manufacturer. In the life of Christ we find a great pointer with regards to marriage. There are several new-fangled ideas about marriage. I must confess that I am amused by those who think that new ideas about ancient customs are the best. To best understand marriage we need to look at the relationship Christ has with the Church. We understand that marriage is a mystery and is similar to the relationship Christ has with us, his body. The first thing we see is that unlike Adam who blamed his wife for his failings and therefore died alongside her, Christ does not impute our sins on us and took them upon himself and died for the Church. He took our punishment, our pain, our exclusion and separation from God on himself and made everything right between us and God. Unlike Adam who did not seek the mercy of God but rather decided to take the path of blaming, Jesus took upon himself the role of mediator between God and men thereby bringing peace between both.

There are so many things we can learn from the life of Christ and the relationship between him and the Church as it pertains to marriage. Like Christ, a husband should “die” for his wife; protect her, as much as lies within his power keep her from hurt, pain and shame. He should not only be a mediator between her and God but also between her and men in that he has a role to play when she falls out with friends or others. Like Christ expects and believes the best about us, knowing that we can be more than we presently are, so the husband should be. Equality in marriage is all about being your own person and standing alone. If equality is what a wife seeks then she shouldn’t be surprised when as the first sign of trouble, the man takes off and leaves her to fend all by herself. You can’t be equal and expect help or support when trouble comes.

The Apostle Paul said men were to love their wives while wives were to respect their husbands. It wasn’t that he didn’t want wives to love their husbands or husbands to respect their wives but he understood that respect is what a man needs most while love is what a woman wants the most.  This is seen in our relationship with Christ. He showed his love by dying for us while we show our respect by first acknowledging him as Lord. When we model our marriages on the relationship Jesus has with his Church, we will have storms and trials but I believe we will come through them.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

There's Really Something About Marriage

I once came across a blog post where the writer was talking about her experience at a wedding she recently attended. According to the writer, the pastor who officiated the wedding ceremony kept making reference in both his remarks and sermon to how great marriage was. According to her, he made her feel less of a person because she wasn't either married or with a significant other who she was thinking of marrying. The way she saw it, there was nothing wrong with being single and she didn't particularly like being put under pressure to get married as she didn't think that being married was any more special than being single. From the comments made to the post, most people seemed to have that view. Personally, I think they miss the point.

In the book of Genesis, after God created the Heavens and the Earth and he had made man, he looked at the man and declared that it was not good for the man to be alone. He brought all the animals to Adam so he could name them all but amongst the animals, there was none that Adam could relate to or with even after he had named them because there was none like himself. So God made the woman who was like the man. Therefore God made the woman for the sake of relationship, communion, agreement and help. If you've read enough of the Bible, you will understand that the scriptures contain some very funny mathematics equations when it comes to marriage. For example it tells us that one plus one gives us one. It also tells us that while one will chase a thousand, two will chase ten thousand. Even the Apostle Paul tells us that there is a mystery about marriage. According to him, the unity in marriage between a man and a woman is like the unity in the Godhead itself. In Genesis, we see the unity of the Godhead where they declare to themselves that they should make man in their own image and after their likeness. We even understand that that marriage is a hounourable institution.

The question then is, is being married better than being single with regards to living a full and fulfilling life with regards to finding your purpose and doing it? No. I do not believe that being married is better than being single. It's a choice. The Apostle Paul even said it was better to remain single and serve God with a focus that would not be distracted by a husband. However, do I believe there is something special about marriage? Absolutely. I do believe that marriage is a special institution ordained by God that he takes great pleasure in. This is especially true when that marriage produces children who are then taught God's ways by their parents.

I believe one of the great things about marriage is that it teaches us about caring deeply and wanting to please someone other than ourselves. We have to come out of our selfish zones and bend over backwards to express the love of God to this person we are bound to. Also, we have the powerful opportunity in our marriages to model the love and unity of the Godhead and that, I think is something pretty special.Therefore rather than denigrating marriage or thinking that it doesn't matter or that there is nothing special about it, I honestly believe it is something we as Christians should look forward to as it gives us a peculiar opportunity to show people the Christ that lives in us.

Therefore when next we go to a wedding ceremony, those of us who are single should not think that because we are not married, God loves us less or we are less spiritual. It's just that two people have decided to share their lives together to the exclusion of everyone one. (Not totally true but you get my meaning). It is something we should be happy for them for instead of grousing about how we feel excluded. We should wish them well and pray that some day, we also will have the grace to find that one person we want to give up everything for, let down the walls we have built and share a love filled life with.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

Musings On Love (Part I)

I have recently been ruminating on what love is all about and the present perceptions about love in today’s culture. I intend to spend some time talking about these perceptions and what I believe should be the correct attitude to have. They are my own views based on the Bible and you may agree or disagree with them.

From my meditations on the treatise on love in 1 Corinthians 13, it is quite clear that loving is directly linked with doing. And the feeling in today’s culture is that if you love someone and they do something wrong, you do nothing. There seems to be a general perception that if you say you love someone, then you have to condone everything they do even if you think it’s wrong. Doing otherwise would be “judging”. We live in a society where nothing is wrong or right anymore and there are seemingly no absolutes. There’s nothing like correction or repentance any more. Cheating on a wife or a husband or a boyfriend is nothing to be frowned on anymore as someone will make an excuse for you. In fact cheating is to be praised and encouraged. I recently came across the excerpt of an interview granted by the actor, Ethan Hawke. According to him, we have a childish and naïve attitude to fidelity in a relationship. He rehashed the old argument about how man is not meant to be monogamous. My understanding of what he was on about was that we should be more tolerant and understanding of people who cheat on their spouses and partners. Which leads me to the question, if you know you can’t commit to one person, why be with that person? Especially when you know that that person expects you to be with them alone?

It’s not only fidelity in relationships I’m referring to. Let me ask a question. If your teenage son or daughter came to you, scared and with tears in his or her eyes and told you that something they had done had led to the death of someone else, what would you do? After the initial shock had worn off, would you:

(a)    Hand them over to the police and let them face the fate that their foolishness deserved, or;

(b)   Would you help them cover their tracks, bury the body and if possible help them escape the country so they wouldn’t have to face a trial?

Sometime ago, I read the story of a boy who was under the age of ten who fatally wounded his younger brother. The parents of the boys tried to cover up the injuries, going onto the internet looking for ways to care for the younger son at home. In the end they had to take him to the hospital where he eventually died. The parents tried to cover up for the older brother but the authorities investigating the matter noticed the internet searches on the computers and were able to piece the events that had happened together. There was an outcry when the older brother was charged for the murder of his younger brother. People asked the District Attorney to forgive the boy. Refusing to do so, she said, “It’s not my job to forgive, it’s my job to apply the law.” Today, the statement still resonates with me as on the day I read it.

The average belief of everyone is that we should shield our loved ones from hurt and pain. But the question the DA’s answer throws up is, who then gets to fight for those we hurt? My personal belief is that apart from the fact that it’s illegal, helping your children escape the consequences of their actions shows a lack of love and respect for those hurt by their actions. And we are called to love everyone.

What if there was a third way? A better way? What if I was to say that there was nothing wrong with going to the authorities with your child and then hiring the best legal team to try and get him off? Would that not be showing greater love rather than trying to hide the offence and doing something illegal? Love will force us to confront ugly situations with a view to sorting them out. Condoning only makes us run from the situation in the hope that things will sort themselves out by themselves. And that usually doesn’t happen.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

Why Did You Get Married?

The Bible tells us in Genesis that after God had created, he Adam then went on to give a name to everything that God had created. However, after he had named everything, he couldn’t find anything out of all that God had created that was like him. He couldn’t find anything that he could establish relationship with. God saw this and said that it was not good for man to be alone. God realised that he needed something or someone like him for him to have relationship with. Even God realised that apart from himself, man need someone else to establish a connection with. He therefore proceeded to cause man to fall into a deep sleep and from the rib he removed from the man, he formed the woman.

I recently came across an opinion piece on CNN where someone opined that there was something wrong with monogamy and that a man did not have it in his nature to be monogamous. It was funny that he didn’t say men and women but just men. It seems he hasn’t learnt anything about political correctness. I must confess that I did not read the reasons he gave for his opinion because I did not consider them worth my time.

There are those who think that there is something wrong with the institution of marriage just as there are those who think that there is something wrong with faith, believing in God. In fact, there are those who think that there is something wrong with everything and everybody else but that there is nothing wrong with them. In their eyes, there are perfect. Or as close to perfect as human beings can come.

I have meditated on these things for a while and I honestly and totally believe that there is nothing wrong with marriage regardless of the empirical, scientific or statistical data that might suggest otherwise. I believe that a man was created to enjoy communion, not only with God, but also with a woman and not many women. I have come to the conclusion that the problem is not with these institutions. The problem is with us. And our nasty, terrible desires. And egos. And the feeling of being trapped. Marriage is all about expecting the best from imperfect and selfish men and women. The problem is not with the institution, the problem is with those who use it. Nothing God instituted is wrong or has a problem.

Like Myles Munroe said, the only way to know the purpose of a thing is to either ask the manufacturer or read the manual that came along with it. A lot of people think marriage is all about free sex. Other think marriage is all about having children. Others think that marriage is about making themselves happy. Others think marriage is a necessary evil, bondage, something to be endured. That’s because nowadays we have lost the essence of marriage. One of the most truthful things about marriage I have heard is that marriage is always about service. Marriage is not something you go into looking to be served. You go into marriage to serve your partner. To see that their needs are met because you love them. If you meet their needs, they will respond in love. And you'll find joy and happiness. It’s as simple as that.