Selfishness of heart
"Our fundamental problem is not ignorance of what is right. Our problem is selfishness of heart that causes us to care more about what we want than about what is right” [Paul David Tripp, "What did you Expect?"]
In this sinful world, when a sinner man marries a sinner woman, how can they not sin against God in their marriage life? The bitter root of the sins committed by the couple is pride. In other words, the sin that the two proud sinners commit against God is disobeying God's commandments. They are arrogant and don’t keep the twofold commandment of Jesus. They don’t love God and their neighbors. Because they don’t love God, not only they don’t love their neighbors but they cannot love them as well. Their neighbor's love is sinful human love and its’ bitter root is selfishness.
The problem is that we, who have been forgiven and saved in Jesus Christ through the full grace of God and by faith in Jesus, still have selfishness, the bitter root of our sinful human love. Although we became new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), God’s love has poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), and we love God and our neighbors (Lk. 10:27), our old nature refuses to be led by the Holy Spirit. Seek the work of the flesh and love our neighbors with selfishness. Since this selfish mind makes us to give attention to what we want instead of what is right, we build relationships with our neighbors according to what we want rather than what is right in the sight of God. Among such relationships, I think the relation that manifest most selfishness outwardly is the marriage relation. The reason I think so is that God, who is the potter, purposed a man and a woman to live together in His sovereignty, so that two different man and woman can come together in the Lord. So the Spirit of God is bearing the fruit of love in those two man and woman in their marriage (Gal. 5:22). Thus, the Spirit of God gradually sanctifies the couple and makes them to love each other more and more with the love of God. In such a process of sanctification, the Holy Spirit is gradually getting rid of the selfishness of our old man that makes us to do what we want to do instead of what the Lord wants us to do (and/or what my spouse wants me to do). He does so as the Spirit first exposes our selfishness outwardly. And one of our selfishness is that the husband and the wife pursue what they want to do instead of what the Lord wants them to do and/or what our spouse wants us to do. As a result, the two selfish kingdoms, the husband's kingdom and the wife's kingdom, collide with each other, creating the bitter fruits of conflict, strife, hurt and pain. But what is amazing is that our God, who is the potter, through our sinful bitter fruit, mold us, the clay-like married couples even through our sinful bitter fruits. He enables us to confess and repent our selfish hearts, so that we can love God and love each other with selfless hearts. What is this if not the grace of God?
God is pouring His grace increasingly upon the couples who sins increasingly (Rom. 5:20). God pairs two selfish sinners, a man and a woman, and sanctifies them. God even uses conflicts, wounds, and sorrows, to mold the couples and make them to love each other with the love of God upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In particular, God has taught the couples His sacrificial love on the cross, making us to abandon our selfish hearts and love one another with Christ's selfless heart. God's purpose is to build the Kingdom of God in our families. The Lord gave us the Kingdom command, “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lk. 10:27). We must obey this commandment. All the Christian couples should build the Lord-centered family by obeying the Lord’s commandment. Therefore, I hope and pray that the Lord's church and the Kingdom of God will be firmly established on the Rock Jesus by our Lord-centered families.