Devotion for Marriages – Be an Agent of Change & healing
In the year 1998, I went with my spiritual mentor to Tibet for a prayer trip. Unfortunately, I felt very sick there due to high altitude sickness. Because of the exposure to the low amount of oxygen, I suffered an excruciating and splitting headache and threw up every meal I ate.
Regrettably, the trip was a seven-day journey, starting from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to one of the highest temple on earth at the base of Mount Everest.
As we begin to descend to Nepal after our last prayer point, I begin to feel better and slowly recovered as the altitude got lower. While reading the Bible and resting in the hotel room overlooking the tranquil snow cap mountain, I chanced upon a very thought provoking passage in Col.1:24 – “I now rejoice in my suffering for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the affliction of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.
In the beginning, I was very confused and disturbed on how Paul, through his suffering, could ‘fill up in his flesh what is lacking in the affliction of Christ’. Isn’t the suffering of Christ complete on the cross, for our forgiveness of sin, redemption, healing, etc., etc.?
As I continued meditating, understanding begin to dawn on me. Yes, the suffering of Christ was complete, sufficient to transfer righteousness and forgiveness to every believer. However, Jesus is right now at the right hand of the Father, and He cannot continue His suffering for the gospel to be preached in all nations. Instead, Jesus wants people like Paul who are willing to suffer for the gospel’s sake, and to “fill up in their flesh what is lacking in His affliction”.
But before we even think of the macro level of suffering for the great commission, we need to first think of the micro level of being an agent of change and healing for our spouse. If we have not learned to love one, how can we love many? If we cannot even lay down our rights to ‘fill up in our flesh what is lacking in the suffering of Christ’ for our spouse whom we vow before God to love and to cherish, how can we lay down our lives for others who are still strangers to us?
We are all married to an imperfect human being, to someone who is the victim of the past, to someone who suffered, in one way or another, certain levels of love deficit or emotional neglect from his/her parents. And Christ wants us to be the agent of change and healing for our spouse.
2Cor.5: 18 -20 – “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation… (vs.20) therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God was pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God”
We are given the ministry of reconciliation and hold the responsibility of being the ambassador for Christ to reconcile the world to God. First, are we willing to be a vessel of reconciliation for our spouse, to view our spouse as the victim of the past and be willing to be a vessel of healing for him/her? Our past affects our present, which in turn affects our future if it is not dealt with. If we are not willing to lay down our rights to be a vessel of healing and agent of change for our spouse, how then can we be a vessel of healing to reconcile the hurting world to God?
In Gen.28:10-17, Jacobs had a dream. In that dream, he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven and angels ascending and descending on it. In verse 17, he makes an amazing remark “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”
Jacob equates ‘house of God’ with ‘gate of heaven’. In 1Cor.6:19, Paul says that we are the house of God, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” So, by default of salvation, we are the ‘house of God’ – the question we need to ask ourselves is, are we then the gate of heaven?
A gate is something we enter to get somewhere. Thus, for our lives to be a gate of heaven, it means that through us, people enter into or touch kingdom life - God’s love, grace, compassion and mercy and all His other attributes. And we are all called to be gates of heaven to demonstrate the love of God to the world who does not know God.
Points to Ponder:
In our marriage relationship, are we the gate of heaven to our spouse for transformation and healing?
Are we willing to grow into the person we need to be so that our spouse can grow into the person God desires him/her to be?