By Bill Arbuckle
Love is essential to marriage. It’s also one of the fruits of the Spirit. A life-long love requires God’s help to stay together when the feelings fade.
Getting Started
- Watch today’s Marriage Meditation video.
- Read today’s Marriage Meditation devotion.
- Share today’s question with your spouse.
Today’s Video
Today’s Devotion
Scripture reading:
Galatians 5:22-23 — “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.”
Meditation: The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 that love endures all things. When it comes to enduring love, Zelmyra and Herbert Fisher set the record for the longest marriage. When Mr. Fisher died in 2008 (at 105 years old!), the couple had been married 87 years.
What makes a marriage last a lifetime?
In a word, love.
The Bible has much to say about love. Love comes from God. God calls us to live a life of love. And love is one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Love is essential to marriage. But it’s easy to think of love in romantic terms. Love is a feeling; and feelings come and go. That’s why a life-long love requires a firm commitment that keeps you and your spouse together when the feelings fade. A love like that is only possible when we let the Holy Spirit work in us and teach us how to love our spouse the way God loves us. So, what does it take to grow a love that lasts a lifetime?
The keys to lasting love
What does a lasting love look like? 1 Corinthians 13 describes it this way:
- Patient.
- Kind.
- Not envious.
- Not boastful.
- Not arrogant.
- Not rude.
- Not selfish.
- Not irritable or resentful.
- Finds no joy in injustice.
- Happy with truth.
- Bears all things.
- Believes all things.
- Hopes all things.
- Endures all things.
- Never ends.
No matter how much you love your spouse, that’s a lot to live up to! How can you do it? Because love is one of the fruits of the Spirit, we can trust that the Holy Spirit will empower us to love our spouses — even when we don’t feel like doing it.
When you’re struggling, He invites you to ask for help. We must rely on God to help us love our spouse the way He loves us.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. Help me to love my spouse with a love that never ends. When I struggle, remind me that you have the grace and strength I need.
To receive Marriage Meditation videos and devotional for couples, text “MARRIAGE” to 72000.
Today’s Question
1 Corinthians 13 shows us how to love our spouse. Based on the list of love characteristics (see above), what one area can you work on this week?
More Resources
© 2020 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. Originally published on FocusOnTheFamily.com. https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/marriage-meditation-the-fruit-of-the-spirit-is-love/
McGregor Family Ministries 