Restoration of Love

true love can be restored

Real love is rare. And once that love is gone, resurrecting it by willing it into being again is just as fruitless as willing it into being was in the first place. The reason is that true love is outside of our direct control. That is what makes it so very powerful. We can resist it but we can neither create it nor fake it.

With this understanding comes the belief that when love departs, the marriage has passed the point of no return. This is to say that the stability of the family turns on the whim of this thing called love-over which we have no control. This is simply not the case. We are created beings and we have been created to be at peace and to enjoy the lift that God has given. Our families and our happiness do not rest upon any whim.

God never intended us to pretend either. Nor does He intend us to simply endure. His intention is to restore the love that was lost or to create a new, deeper love. God knows, as we do, that it is only true love that will restore the marriage because it is love alone that makes a marriage wonderful.

With the power of the living God, there is never a point of no return in a marriage because He is able to restore the original love. He is love,1 so when His presence returns His love returns as well. And nowhere is the presence of God more evident than when it manifests itself in the resurrection of a dead love or the creation of a new one.

In order to cause the return of a lost love, one must first look at where it went and why. As we have seen, sin inhibits the presence of God because God dwells only with those who keep His word:2

If a man love me, he will keep my
words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.3

And again:

He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth [agápe] Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself [make Myself known] to him.4

When we sin, we breach scripture and limit the very Source of agápe because we relinquish His presence. This is especially true if our sins are relational sins directly against love, such as judgment and unforgiveness.

The Sin of JudgmentDo not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.5

The Sin of Unforgiveness…if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.6

Forgiveness is the knife that cuts away the stuff that kills love. The closer you make the cut, the more you love.

One cannot forgive and remain critical at the same time.

Every friendship, every familial bond and every romantic bond is a kind of love. And these two scriptures tell us that unforgiveness and criticism should not be a part of any relationship, including love. They are adulterations of love. They inhibit the presence of God,7 God is the only source of agape8 and supernatural agape empowers the other three loves.

Perhaps the most evident result of relational sin is emotional separation.

Emotional Separation

Emotions are, of course, dynamic and powerful. That is, they change with changing situations and they alter the very nature of the people experiencing them. Sometimes emotional reactions are so powerful the person who feels them does not fully understand why they occurred or how they could have altered him or her the way they did. Many people believe that we are in control of our emotions, but sometimes emotions are in control of us. Emotions can be gentle and carry us to lovely heights or they can be controlling and relentless.

Relational sin such as unforgiveness or flirtation causes emotional separation in the person who commits the sin. The other party who senses the emotional separation may feel prompted to respond in kind. This can create an emotional separation without a word said.

Emotional separation can result from alcohol. Alcohol dulls inhibitions and in doing so facilitates criticism. The residual effects of alcohol are numerous and complex and can remain long after the overt sensation of alcohol has disappeared.

All marriages have times of emotional separation when love is diminished and all marriages have periods of emotional unity as well. But when the emotional separation is deep and prolonged, the marriage may not survive because the very core of marriage is the relationship and the core of the relationship is love. Emotional separation is the opening slice of the wedge that drives spouses apart and relational sin is the sledge hammer that strikes that wedge.

The only real cure for emotional separation is the restoration of love, because love is emotional unity.9† When the bond of love is strong, the deepest emotions can become gentle giants. Only love can create this bond. Indeed, love is the bond. So, in order to re-create true emotional unity, one must re-acquire true love.

But how can true love be re-acquired? One cannot simply will true love into existence because true love is outside of ourselves. Love is outside of ourselves because God is love and God is outside of ourselves.

In order to re-acquire love, we must re-acquire the presence of God in both spouses. The presence of God must be re-acquired because God is agápe10 and agápe empowers all of the human loves, including eros.11 The presence of God is acquired by the eradication of relational sin.12 Love is re-acquired through righteousness.

Two Ways to Restore a Marriage

There are two ways to restore a marriage. One way is the world’s way and the other way is God’s way. The world’s way is to solve the controversies by discussing them, airing them, unraveling them, assigning fault where appropriate and teaching the parties how to relate-as if the parties never knew how to relate.

God’s way is to dissolve the controversies and re-create the love that was lost through the eradication of sin (primarily relational sin). A large part of relational sin is the process used in the way of the world to restore love: reiterating past sin, reliving pain, venting, assigning blame (responsibility) and generally going over the past and examining it. Scripture is diametrically opposed to the way of the world.

The essential difference between the two is that in the world’s way, we figure out the problem and fix it by changing behavior. In the scriptural way we admit that we can’t really fix anything. All we can do is abstain from sin. So, we abstain from sin and God fixes it. In the world’s way it is we who do it. In God’s way, it is God who does it. This is the same concept that differentiates the Old and New Testaments.

The World’s Way

The world’s way analyzes the problem, gives the parties an opportunity to vent and state their case. They give their reasons, make their explanations, and tell what they want to see from the other spouse. This is a good thing to the extent that the statements are edifying and the other spouse hears them. This is called reproof. But in the amoral context of the worldly counselor, real biblical reproof is rare and there is little delineation between edifying reproof and destructive criticism.

A counselor listens, calms, reassures, and gives advice and assignments. Communication is taught and practiced if the parties are not communicating effectively. The parties try to understand how and why they arrived to the place where they find themselves. They try to understand why someone did what he did because with understanding the parties can deal with the problems; they can see that they are not impossible and they can accommodate the other party.

The world’s way treats blame and designations of responsibility as necessary for an accurate perception of reality. It assumes that with understanding and the absence of malice, the parties can move on. The world’s way tries to find out what happened and fix it. One of the underlying philosophies is “To understand all is to forgive all.” The world’s way is to effect some manner of justice and equanimity between the parties. The world’s way often addresses the most prevalent problem: communication. The parties are taught that words do injure and they do cause defensive responses and counter-accusations.

This world’s method may even include prayer, but the means for healing is an unscriptural method for dealing with the existing emotions and their dynamics and interplay. In the world’s way there is really no scriptural dynamic because scripture is not the method. God may well be acknowledged, especially if could help, but ultimately God is seen to be somewhat like we are. But He is not.

These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you…13

In the world’s way sin is relevant but not stressed because it causes guilt and more emotional entanglement. Unforgiveness and criticism are viewed as inevitable elements of the emotional injury caused by the sin of the other party. So, the most insidious relational sins have little relevance.

In order create a foundation for a relationship and to structure the work-out, the parties must be taught how to fight fair. They must be able to engage in normal communication in order to continue to exist together and they must learn how to fight properly so that they can fight without having to resort to a marriage counselor.

In the end, all that the world’s way can ever do is to encourage people to change behavior because changed behavior is beneficial. It is difficult, however, to change established behavior by doing little more that eliciting a decision to do so especially when the deepest and most powerful emotions are moving below the surface. In a troubled marriage, a change in behavior may appear to be all that is required. But it is not behavior that creates a home. It is love.

This is the world’s way. There are many forms, of course, but generally this is the approach. It is both rational and admirable, and those who use it are in complete good faith. The worlds way can create a working relationship where strife is minimized but it cannot create the original spark. Sometimes the world’s way actually works, but it works only to the extent that it results in the parties following the scriptural paradigm.

The only real cure is the return of the bond and the bond is true love. One cannot reason or behave love back into being. Love is the one thing that the world’s way cannot create and love is the one thing that will heal a marriage.

The Scriptural Way

The scriptural way is radically different. The scriptural way ignores the tangle of rights and wrongs altogether and immediately addresses the true reason for the injured relationship and the death of love and that is sin. In this regard, there may well be overlap between the world’s way and the scriptural way if the behavior that the world’s way seeks to eradicate is sin.

In each controversy there is an instigator (the one whose sin causes an emotional injury) and there is the injured party (the one who responds). Each spouse is an instigator at one time or another, and each spouse is an injured party at one time or another. The instigator is at fault for the sin that caused the injury. The injured party is at fault for the sin of taking offense and failing to forgive. Both parties are at fault.

The world’s way is all about a balance of rights and teaches that the verbal expression of anger or dissatisfaction (criticism) is a necessary part of healing. The scriptural way is precisely the opposite. The scriptural way ignores the balance of rights and condemns all criticism as sin.14†

The scriptural way is somewhat like the wife who finally stops trying to re-organize a kitchen drawer and dumps it out and starts entirely new.

The scriptural way ignores the complex arrangement of rights and grudges, passive aggressions, unspoken insults, grudges, and all the very excellent reasons to distance ourselves from someone. Rather than venting, the scriptural way forbids us to reiterate these past offenses and goes directly to the sin that underlies them. The Author of scripture is telling us that sin is not just part of the problem; it is the entire problem.

The world’s way is precisely the opposite. It addresses the symptoms of the problem, such as the arguments, the words, the pain, the self-contentedness, the failure to communicate, the lack of understanding, etc. But it does not strike at the sin because it does not really recognize sin and it certainly does not acknowledge that sin as described in scripture is true sin. In short the world’s way addresses the problem itself and believes that it can solve it, but it cannot because it is addressing the wrong problem and does not have the solution anyway.

Scripture skips all of the methods of the world and goes directly to the one and the only key that will really work. That key is love and love cannot exist in the presence of relational sin. Consider the history of the relationship.

When the parties were in love, were they angry? Where they gossiping and slandering? Were they venting? Were they resentful? Were they blaming? Where they demanding their rights? Were they speaking of one another to third parties? Were they holding grudges? Were they complaining? No. Why? Because they were in love. That is the reason why they did not do those things.

They were not in love because they did not do all of those things. It was the opposite. They didn’t do all of those things because they were in love. Love is the key, not the result. It was love that created the good behavior, not vice versa.

We all know what really happened and most of us have seen it first hand. What happened was that they were in love and after a while the imperfections of the other spouse became known and things like grudges, anger and resentments crept in, and the honeymoon ended, love went out the door and the marriage became a burden.

So, let’s get real. Is this scriptural method going to create a marriage where the honeymoon never ends? Is scripture telling us that we can live in constant effortless blissful harmony? Are we really saying that love never has to end?

Yes.

And yes again. We are talking effortless harmony and endless love. We are talking about tapping into a love so powerful that it paid the penalty for the sins of the entire world.

But does that apply to every day husband and wife love?

Yes.

Can you really feel it?

Yes.

So it proves itself? The proof is in the pudding?

Yes.

So you can try it just to see if it really works?

Yes.

Where did the bad things that destroyed love come from? Scripture tells us:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying drunkenness, carousing, and things like these…15

Certainly, sins of this nature kill relationships and they must be eradicated before love can be restored. But they are not the only sins. These sins cause condemnation, criticism and unforgiveness and these are sins as well. They also kill relationships (and perhaps more effectively). All of the sin must be eradicated.

We are not fragile victims, powerless to overcome the void of a dead relationship. We are children of the living God and we have the power of the Creator at our fingertips. We have only to tap this power by sincere obedience.

But we have to understand what we are tapping. We are not tapping into justice or into proof that we were right all along; we are not tapping into justification or vindication. We are not tapping into a self-help method or a forum where our case can be heard. We are tapping into love and that is all we are tapping into. But that love is real. It is experiential; it is present; and it is powerful.

We are tapping into real experiential, powerful supernatural love. We are tapping into a love that ignores the past and skips over everything, a love that changes people on the inside, a love that heals, a love that binds, a love that never remembers a wrong, never holds a grudge, a love that never criticizes and always accepts, a love that is new every day, a supernatural power that never ends, never fades and never fails.16 We are tapping into God Himself and the instrument that we use to tap into Him is righteousness, yielded obedience to His Word, by choosing not to sin.

Human loves are fragile. Only the supernatural love of the Creator is invulnerable and constant. But God makes neither His presence nor His supernatural love (agápe) known to the Christian who continues to sin.17 Hence, the scriptural way is simple. Eradicate sin, especially sins against love, and the presence of God returns with His agápe and that is all that is necessary.

This means the eradication of all relational sin. An aggrieved spouse cannot expect love to return to him or to her if he or she continues to commit relational sins like gossip, abuse, repeated complaining, dissatisfaction, disrespect, deceit or especially overt relational sins such as adultery or flirting. Nor can an aggrieved spouse expect love to return if he or she commits the sins of criticism and unforgiveness. Why? Because relational sins assault the love of the person against whom they are committed and they destroy the love of the person who commits them.

The relational sins of criticism and unforgiveness kill the love of the person who commits them. They are private sins and they kill in silence. No one knows when we commit these sins and we conceal them. It is for this reason that they are so destructive. A spouse can do all the right things, say all the right things and never let on that love has died-and never know why.

These sins are death.

But the sincere relinquishment of relational sin can turn love back on like water from a spigot. Try it. Cease all relational sin, all criticism and all unforgiveness, either internal or external. Cease all blame and totally accept your spouse without reservation of any kind and with all of his or her shortcomings, faults and sin. Cease all flirting, gossiping, or insulting and make a sincere and inalterable commitment not to criticize, condemn, blame or hold any resentment either inwardly or outwardly against your spouse no matter what for 7 days (or less if necessary), and commit to love your spouse to the extent of the love that God gives you, and see what happens.

Incorporating Christ’s admonition never to judge, criticize or condemn into ones daily life is immensely liberating.

Matthew 7:1 protects the relationship from harm. Intervening issues disappear and the relationship flourishes. Orientations and Histories move over and make room for Matthew 7:1. Love comes. Good love comes; right love comes. Cobwebs and off-color memories become discarded as the light of scripture shows how ugly they really are. Echoes of words that could never be recalled dissolve at the presence of Christ. Freedom happens and the pilgrim who has taken this road experiences what Christ meant when He said “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

But yielding to Matthew 7:1 does not work simply because it is Truth. It works because when we yield to scripture God comes and empowers us toward righteousness.

Matthew 7:1 is the ultimate anger management tool because when we are truly yielded there is simply no reason to get angry. There is no condemnation, no fault finding and no judgment.

Matthew 7:1 is the ultimate relationship tool. It knocks away the hardened grit and dissolves the rust.

Matthew 7:1 is the ultimate friendship tool. It takes away all the old slights and insults.

Matthew 7:1 is the ultimate lover. It takes away all the things that slow down the chemistry and it keeps it popping. Indeed, the reason why the chemistry pops in the first place is because love is a naturally occurring Matthew 7:1: total acceptance.

These scriptures are like seven magic pills to be taken every morning for a week just to see what happens. Looking at them and debating whether they really do what they claim to do does nothing. They are made to be consumed. They have to be taken each morning with a glass of total “no-matter-what” commitment before their magic can be released.

But God looks at the heart, so the time necessary for healing depends on the extent of commitment and surrender. With total commitment and complete surrender to God’s word, it is possible for healing to occur overnight, but figure on at least a week.

After that it just gets better and better.