Today’s passage is Matthew 10:34-42.
Jesus says he has come to bring division among family members because we cannot love anyone more than him.
We must take up our cross every day, and in losing our life for Jesus’ sake we find it. Whoever receives someone in Jesus’ name receives Jesus and thus the Father. Even the smallest kindness to a disciple will bring a reward in heaven.
Loving Jesus is not easy.
To love Jesus is to carry my cross every day.
It’s a lot easier to love my wife. But loving my wife is all tied up with sex and selfishness and having things go my way.
Sometimes I compromise and let things go her way, doing what she wants.
Sometimes our love seems absolutely pure, a blissful moment of complete unity of heart, mind and spirit.
In loving Jesus, it’s mostly hard because I have to give up myself all the time.
The benefits, though, are great because when, by God’s grace I do give up myself, I’m not burdened with selfishness, pride and worry.
God gave me love for my wife because I needed to love her.
After the death of my first wife and the heart-breaking affair with Mallory, I stopped loving. I closed my heart.
God opened my heart again by directing me to my wife(now).
I didn’t choose her, God did.
His mysterious will. I agreed with God to love her.
In loving my wife I have grown to love God more than I ever had.
And the more I love God, the more I love my wife.
But loving God comes first.
My application is to tell my wife, “I love you,” every day.
In telling her that, I am honoring God’s choice for me.
I am loving God first.
