Quotes about Love

Approached in the right way, marriage can cause us to reevaluate our dependency on other humans for our spiritual nourishment, and direct us to nurture our relationship with God instead. No human being can love us the way we long to be loved; it is just not possible for another human to reach and alleviate the spiritual ache that God has placed in all of us.

The Bible views us as recipients of God's perfect love, already charged with an important life mission (seeking first the kingdom of God), and thus the decision to marry, though crucial, won't define us. Nor will who we marry define us.

We must not enter marriage to be fulfilled, emotionally satisfied, or romantically charged, but rather to become more like Jesus Christ.

I'd get bored with myself if I was married to me, so it only makes sense that Lisa might occasionally be bored—or at least grow weary—of living with me. But God delights in both of us. God appreciates our quirks and understands our hearts' good intentions even when they might be masked by incredibly stupid behavior.

Rejecting the notion that God creates one person just for us doesn't discount the reality that God can lead us toward someone and help us make a wise choice when we seek Him in prayer.

It is this strict side of the ascetic's life that is perhaps the least understood, not only by our culture, but also by other Christians. Especially among evangelicals, who champion salvation by grace through faith, a strict faith can seem perilously close to legalism; and in some cases, it might be. For healthy ascetics, however, strictness is a cherished method of expressing love for God.

We're not married in a carefree garden of Eden; we're married in the midst of many responsibilities that compete for our energy.

We must never be naïve enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the fall... The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the fall: marriage."

A good marriage isn't something you find; it's something you make.

The church must not teach the submission of wives apart from the sacrificial love and servanthood required of husbands.

Love is not an emotion; it's a policy and a commitment that we choose to keep in the harshest of circumstances. It's something that can be learned and that we can grow in. Biblical love is not based on the worthiness of the person being loved—none of us deserves Christ's sacrifice—but on the worthiness of the One who calls us to love: "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

This is the reality of the human heart, the inevitability of two sinful people pledging to live together, with all their faults, for the rest of their lives.