{"id":405,"date":"2014-07-28T14:26:37","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T18:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/?p=405"},"modified":"2014-07-28T14:26:37","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T18:26:37","slug":"love-or-lust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/love-or-lust\/","title":{"rendered":"Love or Lust?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I performed a wedding this past weekend.\u00a0 I don\u2019t do many of them personally, but when I do I try to think back to the beginning of Diana and I\u2019s relationship.\u00a0 She and I have always had a special relationship in my mind.\u00a0 We started dating at the end of 2003 and we were married in the beginning of 2005 (March 19th<\/sup> specifically).\u00a0 Like most other people, she and I had dated other people before we met each other.\u00a0 I consider the two of us to be genuinely blessed (at least me) in the fact God has brought us together, and kept us together through some very trying times.\u00a0 And as I was preparing for the wedding ceremony, I thought back over not only Diana and I\u2019s relationship, but also about the other couples that I had performed the wedding ceremony for them.\u00a0 Where were they?\u00a0 How was their marriage doing?\u00a0 Then a question popped into my mind, why do some relationships last and others end? People who are far smarter than I am, and who have been married longer than I have, have written many books on this subject.\u00a0 And one theme that I have kept seeing in the books is this, does the couple truly love each other or lust for one another?\u00a0 I know that sounds odd, and I\u2019m not just talking about lust in a sexual way, but I am coming to believe that the writers are on to something.<\/p>\n

A person far smarter than I am once defined the difference between love and lust as this, \u201cit is love when you seek to give yourself to the other person, it is lust when you seek to get something for yourself from the other person.\u201d\u00a0 Simply put, love gives and lust seeks.\u00a0 Obviously we can see the sexual intimacy side of this, but I wonder if the vast majority of marriages have a lust problem?\u00a0 How many married couples got married or remain married based on what they get out of the relationship?\u00a0 Paul wrote about what true love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13 when he said things such as, \u201clove is patient, kind, it is not rude, isn\u2019t resentful, keeps no records of wrongs. . .\u201d The most popular verse in the Bible also demonstrates true love when it says, \u201cFor God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. . .\u201d\u00a0 Paul wrote in Ephesians 5, \u201chusbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it<\/b> (bold-mine).\u201d\u00a0 True love sacrifices my needs for my spouse\u2019s wants.\u00a0 But lust is all about placing your wants above your spouse\u2019s needs.\u00a0 Hopefully you see how this is not just in the dating world, but also in the married world.\u00a0 The only answer we have is to follow Christ\u2019s sacrificial model.\u00a0 The key to a happy, healthy marriage is to truly love your spouse.\u00a0 I encourage you to sit down this week with your spouse or the person you are dating and ask the question, is our relationship based on love or lust, and then have an open, honest conversation.<\/p>\n

By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I performed a wedding this past weekend.\u00a0 I don\u2019t do many of them personally, but when I do I try to think back to the beginning of Diana and I\u2019s relationship.\u00a0 She and I have always had a special relationship … Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60,205,279,113,9],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westlakebaptist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}