“I’m really hoping to marry a man that does not have the capacity to love me”. –No one ever
“I’d like to be married to a woman that is so ruled by herself that she is unable to love me with any purity or sincerity”. –No one ever.
I’ve counseled a fair share of starry eyed young people that are convinced that they are in love. A sad portion of these are often believers infatuated with an unbeliever. Never once have they said something similar to the above quotes. Yet, if I’m reading the Scriptures correctly that is exactly what they are signing up for if they unite themselves to an unbeliever.
Common Grace
I want to balk at my own statement. It sounds like I’m saying that unbelievers have no capacity to love. That if you marry an unbeliever then you are confined to a loveless existence.
We’ve all likely got a partially skewed view of what true love is, but even still I’m confident that at least in some regards unbelievers are able to love. Because of common grace even the most God-hating and gospel-hardened mother can in a very real sense love her child. So also, a man whose heart is set at enmity towards God can have a heart of peace towards his wife.
These men and women are borrowing from God’s grace. They are drinking from a fountain that they despise—often without even knowledge of where their solid marriage comes from.
So, don’t hear me wrongly. You can marry an unbeliever that is able at least in some sense of the word love you deeply.
God’s Word On Love
1 Peter 1:22-25 helps us to see that loving one another deeply from the heart is only possible when we have “purified our souls by obedience to the truth” and it happens “since you have been born again”.
God’s Word is clear; the love that you so deeply desire in a spouse only comes from having been born again. Such a love with a believer is according to their redeemed nature. Sparks of that love in the life of an unbeliever is actually going against their unredeemed nature.
One reason that you do not want to marry an unbeliever is because he/she does not have the capacity to love you as they ought.
Would you rather be married to a man that has the Holy Spirit working within him, moving and shaping every fiber of his being to make him a more loving man, or would you rather have a man that is opposed to the Spirit who is relying completely on common grace—a grace that could be removed in one instant?
Would you rather be married to a woman that has the word of God deeply implanted in her soul, a word that is transforming her mind and her heart, and causing her to grow in her love for your, or would you rather have a woman that does not have the anchor of God’s Word, a woman whose center could shift at any given moment?
If you are a believer and you have tasted that the Lord is good. You don’t want to be united to someone that hasn’t tasted the Lord’s goodness.
