True Godly Love, when it matters most, what will shine?

This is an extract from a sermon i heard, i think it is unbelievable profound, and will cause you to look at yourself closely, and make you think of your relationship with god, and your future relationship with your wife. I hope this inspires you as much as it did me.

From the book "A spectical under God"

This is about Christopher Love a welsh preacher, when in 1651 a nervous english government exsecuted him, this is a letter from his wife, the day before he was exsecuted. His relationship between him and his wife, was a love that held christ above their love and everything else.


July 14th 1651

'Quote'

Before i write a word further, i beg you not to think that your wife is now writing but rather a friend. I hope you have freely given up your wife and your children to god who has said in Jeremiah 49:11 "Leave your fatherless children i will preserve them alive and let your widow trust in me" Your maker Christopher will be my husband and a father to your children.

Oh that the lord will keep you from having one troubled thought about your family. I desire freely to give you up to your fathers hands and not only to look at it as a crown of glory for you to die for christ but as a honour for me that i should have a husband to leave, for christ.

I dare not speak to you nor have a thought within my own heart of my unspeakable loss but wholly keep my eye fixed on your inexpressable and inconcievable gain. Your leaving your children, brothers and sisters, to go on to your lord jesus, your eldest brother. You leave your friends on this earth to go to the enjoyment of the saints and angels and the spirits of just men made perfect in glory.

You leave the earth for heaven for heaven and exchange a prison, for a palace and if earthly affection should begin to arise, Christopher i hope, that a spirit of grace thats within you will quell them. Knowing that all the things here are but dross in comparrison to those things that are above. I know you will keep your eye fixed on the hope of glory, which makes your feet trample on the loss of earth.

My dear, i know god has glory for you, but also for you, it. But i am persuaded that he will sweeten the way for you to come to the enjoyment of it. When your putting on your clothes tomorrow morning, oh think, I am now putting on my wedding garments to go be with my everlasting redeemer to be married. When the messenger of death comes to you, to take you to the block, let him not seem dreadful to you. But look at him as the messenger that brings you tidings of eternal life. When you climb the scaffold think, as you told me you would; "that you are climbing aboard you firey chariot to carry you to your fathers house." And when you lay down your precious head to recieve your fathers stroke, remember what you said to me, "Though my head shall be severed from my body, yet in that moment my soul will be united with my head, the lord Jesus Christ in heaven and though it might seem something bitter, that i am leaving this life sooner than i had wanted, Mary, let us consider that it is the decree and the will of our heavenly father and it will not be long before we shall enjoy one another in heaven again."

Let us comfort one another with these things, be comforted in my dear heart, it is but a little stroke and you shall be there. Where the weary shall be at rest and where the wicket shall ceace from troubling us. Remember you may eat dinner with the bitter herbs, but you shall have a sweet supper with Christ tomorrow night.

My dear, by what i write to you, I do not intend to teach you. For all these comforts i recieve from the lord by you teaching me. I will write no more nor ever trouble you further but commit you to the arms of god with whom you and i will forever be. Fare well my dear, i shall never see your face again until we both behold the face of lord Jesus at that great day.

Love. Mary~

'End Quote'

Quoted from sermon:

This was a relationship, so centered on the things of god, that when it really came to the crux of life, thats all that showed. GUYS this won't happen when you say "I do" or when you say "will you marry me", it won't happen next week. It must happen today, by becoming the man gods wants us to be. So the women that god puts in our life will be shepparded the way he wants us to sheppard them. That is the fruit of a godly mans love for a women, that she would encourage him before his death blow.

Genuine and biblical love lasts and works only in christ when shared between two people who love him and each other.


Ben: Be bold be strong, for the lord god is ALWAYS with you.