LOVE AND CHERISH

by Rev Leslie Lim, MMS Country Director for Vietnam. He and his wife, Linda, have been serving together as missionaries for more than eight years.

As children growing up, we were familiar with fairy tales of how a prince would win the hand of his beloved princess in marriage and how they would then walk into the sunset in the horizon and live happily ever after! Who would not dream of this, fantasise at the romance? “But I do know one and one is two. And if this one could be with you, what a wonderful world this would be!” (Don’t Know Much About History by Sam Cooke, 1959)

And then, many of us, if not all, kind of wake up to reality the day after our wedding!

Well, that’s when the rubber hits the road: The chaotic conditions of our fallen world collide our lives, causing serious turbulence. There will be the commotion of working life and managing of monies, wealth, and health. The perils of the Fall bring our hopes crashing down and turn life into a roller coaster.

These perils of the Fall challenge the content of our wedding vow: “to love and to cherish”. Our real-world experiences drive the married couple towards failing to fulfil their wedding vows.

The coming together of two persons to become one was designed and introduced to mankind in Genesis. Marriage is ordained and instituted by the Creator Himself. The marriage union foreshadows the mystery of Christ’s love for His Church.

A PICTURE GOD HAS FOR US – A GOSPEL TO THE WORLD

Marriage depicts a pictorial word of the relationship between Christ and the Church. A healthy family is our greatest witness to a lost world.

“This is because the traditional (wedding) ceremony involves the making of a covenant. The whole idea of covenant is deeply rooted in biblical Christianity. The Bible teaches that our very redemption is based on a covenant. Much could be said here about the character of the biblical covenants, but one vital facet is that none of them is a private matter. Every covenant is undertaken in the presence of witnesses. This is why we invite guests to our weddings. It is so they will witness our vows—and hold us accountable to keep them. It is one thing for a man to whisper expressions of love to a woman when no one will hear, but it is quite another thing for him to stand up in a church, in front of parents, friends, ecclesiastical or civil authorities, and God Himself, and there make promises to love and cherish her. Wedding vows are sacred promises made in the presence of witnesses who will remember them.” (R.C. Sproul)

A healthy marriage is a means to help Christians have a strong evangelism opportunity.

The commitment and faithfulness made by a man to his woman is a picture of how Christ is tied to His Wife and remains committed and faithful to His Bride till the end of the age. The Bible tells us that marriage points to the final marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom, with His Bride, the Church. From this perspective, a healthy marriage is a means to help Christians have a strong evangelism opportunity. A faithful Christian marriage preaches the gospel with godly kingdom values to the world that is falling apart. Faithfulness is a foreign word in this age. Our commitment to our spouse is a way, “we preach the gospel at all times, [and] if necessary, use words.”

After our wedding day and onwards, it is not romantic love that will pull us through thick and thin but our vows before the Almighty. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we take up the courage to fight on whatever comes our way to keep true to our vows: “for better, for worse … and to love and to cherish.”

In the age of infidelity, how do we keep loving and cherishing our spouse?

If you ask me, it is the word Respect. To Love, Respect, and Cherish is a much more balanced picture of what should be shared between a husband and wife.

The Bible clearly tells men ought to love their wives. Why? Because it is not natural for men to love. It is natural for men to give respect. Men can show their wives respect all day long, every day; but, selfless love is not hard-wired into the male species.

In the same way, respect does not come easily from female counterparts. In our culture, we have grown up with the idea that all respect has to be earned. Just as the Bible tells men to love their wives unconditionally, it tells wives to respect their husbands unconditionally. The Bible does not teach wife to “respect your husband” if he loves her well, provides well, or leads his family well. It says to respect him. It is my suspicion that suspect, love comes naturally to womenfolk. Even when they are angry with their husbands ,they still have the ability to show love by serving their husbands (in cooking, cleaning, etc.).

Respect… is a different story. Not only do we struggle to show respect during angry or hurting times, but we feel justified in throwing disrespect, like rotten eggs that are thrown all over digital media!

Cherishing our spouse will go hand in hand with loving and respecting them. When one thinks of the word Cherish, what really comes to mind? The MerriamWebster dictionary defines the word “cherish” in the following ways: to hold dear, feel or show affection for, to keep or cultivate with care and affection, to entertain or harbour in the mind deeply and resolutely.

Cherishing someone we love is similar, but much deeper. The people we cherish are those we kind of want to protect and give our best care to. When we cherish someone, we put them first and we give them the best we have to offer. The ones we cherish are the ones we enjoy serving.

We are called to go out to make disciples of all nations. It is something like going out to find a wife in a certain place, to love and cherish her for the sake of the Kingdom. It is a sacrificial love to go and make disciples, preparing the bride for our Lord Jesus and then to be presented before our Father God when the time comes.

We are merely following the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, who loves us so much so that He came from heaven to earth to redeem us from the slavery of sin and death. We go out “to plunder hell and to populate heaven.” The Lord cherishes us so much that He counted it as a joy even when He had to serve us by His sacrificial death on the Cross. We too count it a joy in the midst of trying to love and cherish our disciples whom the Lord has given us to help them grow to full maturity in Christ.

Our Groom had done so much for His Bride, to love us and cherish us, now what have we done for Him?