Monday, May 10, 2010

The Marriage Filter

The television commercials for buying the more effective filters for your house make you want to go out and get a lifetime supply! Especially when they show you all the microscopic things that you are breathing in every day. Weird creatures and all kinds of molds that infest your home and children must be stopped!

You can literally breath easier just knowing those filters are in place. After awhile you take them for granted and no longer worry about not being protected. All you have to do is to remember to change them and they'll do the rest.

I like filters.

The reality is we all need filters. We also all have filters. Not the external kind but the ones that cover our hearts. No one is born without a filter. We read and respond to life based on the filter that lets things in and out. The Bible is pretty clear that there is no middle ground on this one. We either see life through the filter of God and his word or we process it through our own eyes.

What's that got to do with my marriage? As Christians this relationship is the place where the weird creatures and ugly molds spores have got to be cleansed through the filter of Christ. How I listen to and respond to my spouse should come through that grid. It should be second nature for the purity of Jesus to be seen and anything that is harmful to be kept out.

It's so hard to remember that when I'm feeling legitimately misused or abused. When life is not cooperating and I'm having trouble breathing. I want to pass this problem on to someone else and thus cleanse myself.

If I would but recall the fact that the filter of Jesus never needs changing. Nothing comes to me that doesn't first come through him. He will use all things to further cleanse me and thus have more purity come out of me.

How's this for a marriage filter? "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Ephesians 4:30

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