Words of Affirmation

Biblically, there are five ways God expresses his love for us. And these are the five ways that we are to express love to our spouse (and others). In this post we'll unpackage God's first expression of love.

1. Words of Affirmation

In Matthew 3:16-17 we read: As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

In this passage God expresses his love for Jesus through words of affirmation. He says: Hey everyone! Listen up! Jesus is my Son and I love him! He makes me so happy!

One of our family’s favorite Christmas movies is Will Ferrel’s 2003 movie called ELF. In the movie, when Buddy the Elf falls in love with his new co-worker, Jovie, he bursts into his dad’s board room spinning and shouting to everyone in the room “I’m in love! I’m in love! And I don’t care who knows it!”

Well that’s what God is doing for Jesus in Matthew 3. God’s love for Jesus wells up in his heart until it overflows from his lips in the form of kinds words. In a declaration of love he proudly tells the world: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Solomon was a pro at using words of affirmation in marriage. Here's some of the kind words he spoke to his young bride recorded in Song of Solomon...

• You are beautiful my darling. 
• You have captured my heart. 
• Your love delights me. 
• Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women. 

Following Solomon's lead, something I like to tell my wife is “Honey, you make that dress look good.” I don’t compliment the dress because a dress can’t give me a thank you kiss. But my wife can, so I tell her that she makes the dress look good, not the other way around. Following Solomon's lead my wife tell me "Mike, you're such a hard worker." And I love it when she says stuff like that! 

Proverbs 12:25 says “Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.” When is the last time you shared a kind word with your spouse? 

First Corinthians 13:4 says “…love is kind”. Therefore, to communicate love verbally we have to speak kind words. From God’s example we learn that kind words are one meaningful way to express love to our spouse (and others). So if this isn’t something you’re already practicing, why not start today? 

If you don’t know where to begin, why not begin where God began with Jesus? Guys, just start telling your sweetheart “You’re my wife. I love you! You make me so happy!” Ladies, just start telling your husband “You’re my husband. I love you! I’m so glad I married you!”

Keep the Tank Full

To have a healthy and happy marriage, it's important to learn how to keep your spouse's love tank full. 

Christian author Gary Chapman, in his book The Five Love Languages writes "...inside your spouse is an ‘emotional tank’ that is waiting to be filled with love. At the heart of mankind’s existence is the desire to be intimate and loved by another. And God designed marriage to meet this need for intimacy and love. That being the case, keeping your spouse’s emotional love tank full is as important to a marriage as maintaining the proper oil level is to an automobile. Running your marriage on an empty love tank may be even more costly than running your car without oil."

So how do we do it? 

Well, Jesus gives us some insight in Mark 12:29-31 when he said: The most important commandment is this…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

From these verses it's clear that we're to love God and love others, but what does biblical love look like? Fortunately, God hasn't left us hanging. The Bible lays out at least five ways that God expresses his love for us - and these in turn are the five ways that we are to love each other.

Here are five biblical expressions of love that we'll unpackage in the following posts. 

1. Words of Affirmation
Matthew 3:16-17 says: As soon as Jesus was baptized...a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” God showed Jesus he loved him by speaking kindly to him. 

2. Quality Time
Genesis 3:8-9 reveals that God took time daily to walk and talk with Adam and Eve. God showed Adam and Eve he loved them by spending time with them.

3. Gift Giving
Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." God has shown us how much he loves us by giving us the gift of eternal life (through faith in his Son Jesus).

4. Acts of Service
John 13:4-5 says, "Jesus took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him." Jesus showed his love for his disciples by serving them, and then instructed them to follow his example.

5. Physical Touch
In Mark 10:16 Jesus took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them. When Jesus' disciples assumed Jesus was too important to bother with children, Jesus showed his love for the children with appropriate, loving touch. 

These are five ways that God loves us and five great ways that we can express love to our spouse.

Identify Your Spouse's Positive Characteristics

God's Word gives us five steps to cultivating a winning attitude in marriage (and in life). Here's step two:

2. Identify your spouse’s positive characteristics 

Take a look with me at 2 Peter 3:1, “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.” You see, it goes totally against our sinful nature to be positive and focus on the good - which is why the apostle Peter wrote to stimulate wholesome thinking. This blog post is my attempt to stimulate wholesome thinking about your spouse. It doesn’t come natural so we’ve got to work on it. How do we do that?

The answer is found in Philippians 4:8 which says “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”  

Below is a link to a worksheet based off Philippians 4:8 that will help you identify your spouse's positive character qualities. Regardless of whether your marriage is in a good or bad season,  go ahead and fill this out. Ask God to bring to your mind all the positive things about your spouse, and then write them down. If you can’t think of anything, then enlist the help of your children (if you have any). Say to them: Would you tell me the things you like about your father/mother, the things you appreciate and admire? This will help you to identify your spouse’s positive character qualities AND will help stimulate wholesome thinking about your spouse (instead of negative thinking).

Click here to view/download the worksheet.

Acknowledge My Negative Thinking

God's Word gives us five steps to cultivating a winning attitude in marriage (and in life). Here's step one:

1. Acknowledge my negative thinking

If we want our marriage to be healthy, we must recognize that our negative thinking must change. You see, our thinking guides our behavior. If we think negatively, we’ll behave in destructive ways. But if we think positively, our actions will be positive as well. As Proverbs 23:7 says “...for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he...”

We are never more negative than when we complain. But Philippians 2:14 says “Do everything without complaining...” And notice the context. Philippians 2:5 says “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Then a couple verses later it says “Do everything without complaining.” That is, Jesus wasn’t a complainer so neither should we be!

How do you know if you’re a complainer? Well, when you get arrive home from work and your spouse says "How was work?" what does that sound like? When you and your spouse leave a friends house, what does it sound like in the car on the way home? When you report on how the day went with the kids, what does that sound like? 

I had a friend growing up that was always complaining about something. We crossed paths once or twice a week and I’d ask “How’s it going?” but I quickly learned that was the wrong question to be asking. The response was always a complaint about how bad things were. It was so depressing. So when I saw this person I started just saying “Hey” to avoid the flood of complaining that would come if I asked “How’s it going?” (So if you’re spouse says “Hey” instead of “How’s it going?” watch out! You might be a complainer! ;)

Isn’t it true that no one wants to be around a complainer? Well this is true in marriage too. This is why Solomon wrote in Proverbs 21:19, “It’s better to live alone in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.” This is true of a complaining husband as well. So if your spouse seems to prefer solitude over your company, it might be because you’re a negative person who is always complaining.

You know - the truth is that there’s good and bad in just about every situation. And as a discipline we’ve got to train ourselves to focus on the good. Let me illustrate how I do this with my staff...

Each Monday morning the staff at New Day meet to evaluate Sunday. We ask four questions: What went right? What went wrong? What was missing? What was confusing? And the reason I set the meeting up to begin with “What went right?” is because I want my staff to learn to focus on the good.

And this is what we need to discipline ourselves to do in marriage. We’ve got to learn to look first to what’s right in our spouse, not what’s wrong. Isn't that what we want our spouse to do for us?