Yandian - One flesh: Gods gift of passion: love, sex & romance in marriage

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS GODLY PASSION

W HEN I met my wife, Loretta, we knew almost immediately that we were right for one another. Although we dated for a year before we were married, we really didnt know much about marriage. We thought that when two people were married, everything would come naturally, and they would just know what to do in any given situation.

Somehow I would automatically know how to be the head of the home, and she would know how to submit to my authority. Everything would just flow, and our love would get stronger and stronger. Then one day we would have kids, and by some innate knowledge we would also know how to raise them. Certainly, because God brought us together and we were living for Him, everything else would fall into place.

We were in for a big surprise!

Ignorance Is Not Bliss!

Titus 2:1-8 tells us it is necessary for the older men and women to teach the younger men and women how to conduct themselves in life, including how to be godly husbands and fathers or wives and mothers. These skills are learned we are not born with all the knowledge and wisdom we need concerning family life.

Because I was studying for the ministry, I thought our family life would be perfect. After all, we were serving the Lord, but we had one of the most miserable marriages! It never occurred to me that I had to study and meditate on what the Word of God had to say about marriage and raising children. I needed to put Gods promises into action in order to have a good marriage just the way that I acted on His promises in order to receive guidance or healing. A successful spiritual life or marriage is not maintenance free.

I finally realized how ignorant I was about marriage and family life when my wife was ready to walk out the door and I had no objection. Our marriage was a failure, and we both knew it. The only reason we did not divorce, and the only reason we have the tremendous marriage we have today, is that we both agreed to wise up. We dedicated ourselves to finding out what Gods intention for marriage was and then changing ourselves not each other to conform to His blueprint.

The result was that Loretta and I grew more in love with each other than we ever imagined we couldeven more than we imagined when we first met and fell in love. More than that, we have become the best of friends. Instead of being a painful burden, our marriage has become a refuge of love, joy and comfort.

In this book you will study some of the same foundational Scripture selections we have studied and trusted in to keep our marriage on track with God. At the same time I will be sharing the practical application of these scriptures and some good common sense that we have picked up over the years as well.

The place to begin, of course, is in the book of Genesis. Here, God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden, and we discover its original framework.

In Gods Image

The first two chapters of Genesis contain the Bibles account of creation. In these chapters the Holy Spirit tells us everything God created and when He created it. Even most unbelievers know that Genesis 1:1 reads, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

We dont know exactly when the beginning was, but it was a long time ago. Although the Bible tells us the earth is very old (Hebrews 1:10-12), we know that man was put on this earth approximately six thousand years ago. It just so happened that man was the last creature God created. He created the perfect environment for mankind before He created man.

On the sixth and final day of creation, God created all the animals, and then He created man. Even though man is an entirely different species from any other living creature, his body was formed of the dust of the earth just as the animals bodies were (Genesis 2:7). However, there were major differences between man and the other animals, the primary one being that man was made in Gods image.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Genesis 1:26).

We know that God does not have a physical, flesh-and-blood body. The Bible makes it dear that He is a Spirit (John 4:24). However, even spirit beings have form, and God is not a cloud floating around that disintegrates and rematerializes. I believe when we get to heaven and actually see Him Sitting on His throne, He will have the form of a man.

We know God has a form like our physical form from many verses of Scripture. Psalm 44:3 says, Thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance. This passage refers to Gods hand, His arm and His facial expression. In Lamentations 1:15 we read, The Lord hath trodden under and in Matthew 5:35 Jesus states that the earth is Gods footstool.

One of the most striking passages of Scripture referring to the form of God is found in Exodus 33:22-23, in which Moses asks to see Gods glory. God answers his request as follows:

And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shah see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

In the Bible, whenever the spirits of people who had died appeared, they appeared in human bodily form. For example, when the spirits of Elijah and Moses appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus (Matthew 17:3), they looked like their physical bodies had looked when they were alive on earth.

So we can see that not only was mans spirit made in the image of God, but mans body was formed from the dust of the earth to look like the form of God. As we take a closer look at Genesis 1:26-27, we see a description of both the making of mans body and the creating of his spirit. Both are formed in the image of God.

Something Out of Nothing

The Bible says in Genesis 1:26, Let us make man in our image, and in verse 27, So God created man in his own image. The words I have italicized are translated differently because they are two different Hebrew words. In verse 26, the word for is make asah, which means to manufacture something out of something. In verse 27, the word for create is bara, which means to create something out of nothing. The King James Version translates asah as made and bara as created.

Because mans body was formed from the dust of the ground, from something which already existed, his body was asah (made). But the spirit of man was bara (created). The spirit of man had no origin, and it was not made out of anything that previously existed. God created the spirit of the man.

When a person is conceived in the womb, their body comes from preexisting material, formed from the union of the sperm of the man and the egg of the woman. But their spirit is created (bara) supernaturally by God at the moment of conception. When the physical form of a human being begins, the spirit of that person is implanted into the embryo. The miracle of conception is not only in the formation of a childs body, but in the creation of a brand-new human spirit who will live forever, even after their body has perished.

The spirit of man and the form of man are what separate him from the animal kingdom. Man is the only creature God made who possesses an eternal spirit and who is created in the image of Himself. Unlike plants and animals, people have an eternal existence because they are spirit beings. Receiving Jesus merely determines that they will spend eternity in the presence of God (eternal life) rather than separated from God (eternal death).