The fairytale movies from when I was a kid made it look so simple. First, as a woman, be beautiful, slender, and vulnerable. As a man, be gallant, chivalrous, and handsome. Next, forsake the wishes of family, sensibility, practicality, and reality. Then, trust in the heightened feelings associated with high levels of cortisol and marry quickly, before those feelings fade, maybe even after just a few days or weeks of knowing one another. Finally, live happily ever after.

The message sent to our young people, through so many popular sources of media, is one of an emotion driven, selfish platitude for relationships that are just as disposable as they are accessible. Sites like Only Fans glamorize and desensitize the sanctity of physical intimacy. Porn addictions cause viewers to see sex through a lens of self gratification and purely as a means to an end, a way to accomplish a fleeting satisfaction, that must be repeated in order to maintain. The enemy has blinded this generation. We have traded oneness with our spouse for oneness with ourselves, and in doing so, the enemy has effectively interrupted the image of Christ and the Bride that is pivotal to the purpose of marriage and all that it represents. Satan would seek to replace God with cheap imitations of all God has to offer. He made the offer to Jesus in the desert, after He had fasted for forty days, Satan offered to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if He would just bow to Satan. What Jesus understood was that disobedience to the Father for the temporary gain of anything in the world was not a trade worth making. The earth is only temporarily under Satan’s reign, and as a result, he was offering something he didn’t truly possess. Satan plays the same game today, promising us that he can fulfill us with love, peace, and oneness without obedience to the Father.

Just like the false offer of the kingdoms of earth, Satan makes false promises to us. He is incapable of offering the sort of intimacy that God has ordained to be shared between husband and wife. But, the world has sunk its teeth into fleeting and temporal satisfaction. As a result, our view of God has been contorted. The Bible tells us that God loves His children with agape love. Agape is a Greek word that is defined as, “a pure, unconditional, and sacrificial love. It’s often considered the highest form of love.” In our exchange we’ve bought a lie that love is meant to serve us. We balance relationships with scales to determine each contributing part, and if our part comes up short we move on to the next, and call it love, but we have completely missed the mark.

God is the author of love and demonstrated love in this, “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). When God demonstrated love there were no conditions. The world He came to didn’t want Him, it rejected Him, hung Him on a Roman cross, and murdered Him. If there was any shred of what’s in it for me present in Christ, there is no redemption, there is no reconciliation, there is no eternal payment made on my behalf to cover a debt I could never pay on my own. There is nothing I can offer God that He needs. The psalmist, in Psalm 147:4 states, “He determines the number of the stars, and calls them each by name.” What could I offer the One who numbers the stars? Nothing. There is nothing that I can offer Him. This is true love. The love that motivated Christ on our behalf, we who were helpless, dead in our sin, incapable of contributing, aiding, unable to repay Him in any way, was the love that the Bible says is demonstrated by the marriage covenant.

Love was designed by God to show the love of Christ for the Bride. The Bride is the Bible’s name for the church, for believers, those for who Christ died. Love is not a feeling of gratification, physical pleasure, lust, or intrigue. Love is action motivated from a heart that seeks to obey the Father, and act in accordance to His will, for His glory. Satan would have us believe that love is about our satisfaction, when really it’s only ever been about God. What satan offers is merely a cheap imitation. When love is acted out in obedience to the roles designed by God, the love of Christ is made visible to a world desperate for true love.

Today is the day of salvation. If you don’t know the love of Jesus, trust in the eternal redemption made available to you through His death and resurrection. He doesn’t need anything from you. He won’t trick and deceive you. He won’t make you promises He can’t keep. His love is an eternal, present, fortifying, peace in the midst of chaos, and is all sustaining. Trade in the cheap imitations that the world and satan have to offer and seek Christ instead today.

God bless.