The Road Traveled
A Christian based podcast geared to men to be able to take the bible and make it applicable to each man's life on the road he travels.
The Road Traveled
Ep 5: The Greatest Love Affair: God and His Church
What makes a marriage last? And what does God's relationship with the church teach us about our own marriages? In this heart-to-heart conversation, Aaron and Allen explore "the greatest love affair" – the profound love God has for His church and how it serves as the divine blueprint for our most intimate relationships.
Drawing from 1 Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 5, we unpack the challenging standard set before husbands: to love their wives as Christ loved the church. It's a sacrificial, unconditional love that few of us fully grasp. Through personal stories and confessions, we acknowledge our own shortcomings in showing sufficient gratitude and attention in our marriages – even after 40+ years together.
The discussion takes an insightful turn when we examine how relationships require intentional nurturing. Remember the excitement of dating, when you couldn't wait to talk to that special someone? We challenge listeners to approach both their marriage and their relationship with God with that same hunger and passion. Are you still "dating" your spouse after all these years? Are you pursuing God with the same enthusiasm you had as a new believer?
We share wisdom from a couple married 62 years who revealed their simple secret: "Make the other one feel special." The husband still says "thank you" after every meal and "I love you" every night before bed – consistent expressions of gratitude that mirror what our relationship with God should include.
Whether you're married, single, or somewhere in between, this episode offers profound insights about communication, gratitude, and the transformative power of agape love. Join us for a conversation that will challenge you to examine your relationships through the lens of the greatest love story ever told.
Welcome to The Road Travel, a Christian podcast for Minute, where real faith meets real life. Through honest conversations and personal stories, we help you apply God's word to your everyday journey by sharing the road we've traveled. Whether you're walking through talent, change, or calling, this is your road. And you don't have to travel it alone. Now let's take the next step with your hosts, Aaron Degler and Alan Hugator.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back. Thanks for taking a little time to join us. I'm your host, Aaron Degler, along with my co-host Alan Hugator. We're just here to spend a little time with you today to talk about each week. We just spend a little time on some different topics. You know, as a couple men, we we realize there's a lot of things in our lives that we want to share that we have have had challenges with as we the years keep tacking on. We're not as young as we used to, so we have some knowledge, some wisdom, and some struggles that we still have today that we just get together and we we share those with each other. We share those with each of you. And most importantly, how we take the verses in the Bible, the things in the Bible, how what God's done in our life, and how we share those experiences and those thoughts with you, and how we're still learning those things ourselves. So we kind of share with you, but it's also through sharing our struggles and the things we see as a challenge that we share. And then hopefully you gain some insight and some knowledge from the things that we share that you can apply into your everyday life. So we're just gonna have a conversation today, a little bit about the greatest love affair. Sounds kind of scandalous.
SPEAKER_03:Well, sure. But when you speak of God, and we've spoken of this before, that you know I'd lose. No, there it is. We speak of God, we speak of agape love and his love, God is love. So we're gonna talk a little bit about God or Jesus in the church today. And to get us started, I would like to read a little scripture to get us started here today. If you will, I'll I'll be reading from 1 Corinthians 13 and 4, and this is in the NIV. Speaking of love here, it says, Love is patient and love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Again I say, God is love, and He is all of these things right here. And when we talk of God in the church, let's talk about what is a church. We talked about what is God, let's talk about what is the church. I know they had assemblies, they had temples and synagogues and things like that before the coming of Jesus, but the way I understand the church is developed from the followers of Jesus is what started developing the church, as we call it. It's not the building, it's no denomination. Denomination's not even in this Bible. Nowhere do I see that term. But it is the followers and believers in Jesus Christ that makes up the church. That means they believe in Jesus, they love Jesus, and all the other things that wrapped up, and that's why God holds them so highly. That's his children that truly believe in him. And so there's a great love there. God loves all of us. Can you love one child more than the other one? No, but you can sure respect them for what they do. And you can respect, he respects the church. He expects us to respect the church. And so that love is even magnitude multiplied, if you will, with the church.
SPEAKER_01:And and we define the church as where two or more gather. Yes. So shall I be. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:In so look here in Matthew 18 and 20, it says, For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. So when me and you come together and we're speaking of this Bible and of God and Jesus, he is with us. I feel like he's with us right in here today as we are videoing this and audio and putting this together. He is here with us because we're speaking of him. We're here in his name. We're here in the name of Jesus today. And so what scripture says he will do. When God makes promises, and this is full of God's promises, and he don't break his promises. I've broken some before, but he don't. So he's with us. And so when any of y'all get together, and I say this all the time when me and some of the guys get together, or just this morning, me and one of my employees that's been with me a long time, we got together, we said, Are we having church this morning? Because we're talking about Jesus. And we both agreed, yes. This is a type of church. A gathering, assembly, put it that way. It's not a type of church or a denomination. Matter of fact, he goes to a different denominational church than I would attend. It's okay. We both believe in Jesus Christ. It don't matter, in my opinion. What matters is you believe. But yes, God has a strong love. And to me, he will protect his. And when we get into Revelation sometime, we will talk about how he protects his church at the end of days. And who will he call home? We won't go into that right now. We're just talking about his love for the church.
SPEAKER_02:And like you said, when we refer to church, we really refer to those groups of believers, followers. When we say church, most of us probably automatically think of a church building when we say we're going to church. But just like you said, there's this morning, right now, we're having church. This ain't no church building. There's no church building. And people listening, whether in their vehicles, in their house, walking, running, in the gym, it's still church. Where two or more gathered, so shall he be. And because he has that agape love. And one of the things we really want to share is, you know, the greatest love affair is that he had for his church, for his people. And he loved the church so much that he gave his only begotten son. That agape love, knowing all the things that Jesus was going to have to go through in his life and the end days and on the cross. And he still sent Jesus down here on this earth to die for our sins, knowing what kind of pain and anguish he was going to go through. He experienced all those things as man would to die on the cross for our sins. And he loved him with that kind of love. He loved us with that kind of love. And that's the the greatest love affair. And how do we on earth have that love affair? It says, you know, in Ephesians 5, 25, when we talk about man and women, husband and wife, it says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up to her to make her holy cleanness, her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blamelessness, blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself. When we look how God loved the church. And men supposed to love our wives as God loved the church. And how they loved the church. What type of love?
SPEAKER_03:Be careful here now. Get us all in trouble. It's a mighty high challenge. I've never been able to understand the kind of love that God give a man and a woman to come together in a marriage. I understand a little bit about God's love. I understand as a father and as a child with my parents, the love they'd have for me, like I love my children. So I can understand a little bit about God's love for me, for all of us. But the kind of love for to bring two individuals, a lot of times from different settings, different raisins, and bring them together, and that love to develop. I mean, I know we love some of our friends that develops through friendships and trust. But a man and a wife, that is something special. It's a special kind of love that I don't see it named that kind of love in here. So that's how special it is. It has to be real special with my wife to put up with me. But that love is hard to describe. How he can get that to happen. It's nothing's impossible. Lord, but that is a special kind of love. And it's abused, it's not as sacred as it should be. I don't want to say it's worse today than ever, because I don't know. But I can see how it's taken real lightly today in a lot of things in marriage. I've performed some marriages and through that celebration ceremony, I've tried to emphasize it. They are making a covenant between themselves and with God. When you made your vows to your wife, you promised her that you'd love her and respect her and do all the things, whatever your vows said that you hadn't made or read. And her in return when she said hers to you. She also is promising to God, like she promised to you, those vows. Because God is what married that couple. I didn't. I'm licensed in the state of Texas. I said, repeat after me. I helped them perform the ceremony, but I had nothing to do with their joint love and marriage. And God does. And I want to make sure they understand if you break this promise to this wife, you're breaking a promise to God also. And I never had it explained to me before we got married that way. But I think that's real important that people that are getting married understand that. Well, you did if you didn't get along or got divorced from her or treated her badly, put it that way, whether you got divorced or not. If you didn't do the things that you promised that you would do at that time, that's the way I describe it to them before they're married.
SPEAKER_02:And you know, I just and love is an interesting thing because I always challenge anybody to, if they're married, if they're in love, or if they've ever been in love, when was the exact moment you fell in love with that person? The exact moment. And so many times probably you can't pinpoint that exact moment that you fell in love. It's a series of things over time that have created that love. But it was again a relationship. It was communication, it was spending time together. Those things that God loves the church and he wants a relationship with us. That's how we create love. That's how we create love for him, is we create that relationship. And our relationships in, you know, dating or or marriage are the same way. Just as he said, you know, we should man should love women as he does his his own self. It you know, would we treat ourselves, look in the mirror, and call he call ourselves names and emotionally abuse ourselves? Would we hit ourselves? Would we take our anger out on ourselves? We wouldn't do that things. But yet we would do that to our wife. And there again, then we're not living up, we're breaking that promise to God.
SPEAKER_03:For something to grow strong, it has to be nourished. Just like an infant, young anything. Young in love. Yes, we fell in love, got married. We were still young in love. And she watches this, she's gonna say it's different, but when we develop that through the years, it matures, it grows, it gets stronger. Same way with God, the more time you spend with Him, it's gonna develop, it's gonna get stronger. You nourish it with the Word, the truth. Your studies, your time spent with Him when you're in prayer. That's how you grow with God. Same way as your love is growing with your wife through the years, you grow that with God. Can either one get off track? Sure. Some even wreck when they get off track. But it can have its weak moments. We have weak moments with our fa uh and our walk with the Lord. He accepts us back. Because he's got a gopy love, he's there, he's merciful. But is it as both of them? It takes a lot of as you said, to togetherness, spending time together, letting this relationship build.
SPEAKER_02:And and and as you're talking about that in Young Love, I was I was thinking about, you know, how do we act when we're dating? When we're trying to win her over. You know, in in your day it might have been, well, my day too, writing letters. Now it's texting, you know, you might text them all the time, or but you know, might if you write letters or you have to pick up a phone back in the day, a landline, and you know, I'm always, you know, how do you know what generation somebody's signing? You ask them how they answer the phone. You and I would hold two fingers up and answer the phone. Kids today would would, you know, hold an iPhone. But how how do we act when we were dating? We wanted their attention, we tried to impress them, we tried to, we wanted to talk to her. Oh, I can't wait to tell her this. I can't wait to share this news with her. I can't, oh, I want to take her out on a date. So what are you saying? Spend time with them. Yeah, because what do we do after 30 years of marriage sometimes? I'm just used to that. That's just, you know. Do we date our spouse after 30 years, 50 years, 60 years of marriage as we did before we got married? Do we still have that same passion? And that's how with our relationship with God, as he loves the church, do we still have the same passion as a Christian after all these years that we did when we were newly saved? And like, oh, I can't wait to take in all he has to offer. And are we still that passionate? And I and I think sometimes the answer is no. Think just as the way it is in our relationships. Over time, they're gonna be there. They're always gonna be there, not going anywhere. I don't want to have that conversation. That's when we left alone. I want to go hang out with somebody else. I want to go do something else. We don't have the same interest anymore. And things start to change. Maybe we should treat it, and then that maybe that's the challenge is we treat our relationships, our marriages, with that same hunger and that we did when we were dating. And what would that do to our marriage if we spent the time dating our wife?
SPEAKER_03:What would it do for your relationship with God if you spent the time with Him?
SPEAKER_05:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:Same way when I don't read and I don't pray like I should, and I don't read as much scripture, I don't feel quite as close. Same way when I don't spend time with my wife, or we don't have a date night or whatever, we may not feel quite as close. The love's still there. But the closeness, the relationship, the word may not feel quite as close. Down deep it is, but the relationship we have to stay the same in both. It's real important what you're what you're saying. But both of them have to be nurtured and you have to communicate. I said it, dear, I know I failed in communication. But communication, communicating with the Lord through prayer. You know, you choose how you communicate with your wife, that's everybody's personal way of doing it. Through him, there's only one way to really communicate with the Lord, and that's through prayer. You talk to him, he'll answer. May not be in your time, but it'll be in his time.
SPEAKER_02:And and I mean, and and that's the challenge is, you know, sometimes as men, we're not real good communicators. You know, and when it comes to communication, there's you know, there's different types of love and how we communicate. I think it's called the love languages, how we communicate with our spouse. And we all have different love languages. There's five different ones, but the interesting thing is we typically communicate in the way we communicate to that other person in the way that we would like to be communicated to. And then we get mad because they're not communicating like that, or they get mad because we're not communicating. And the problem isn't sometimes the other person, sometimes the problem is us. Because so sometimes the problem is never God. Right. The problem's us. We're not communicating in the manner that we need to be. Because if my love language is service, you know, if if my wife does a lot of things for me, but all she did is keep giving me presents over and over and over. That's gifts. That's the love language gifts. Well, I think I get so irritated. All I want is her for do something for me. I don't want any gifts, I don't care about that. And she's like, I give you all these gifts. Why are you getting upset at me? Well, because I want service, I don't want gifts. So when we when we learn each other's love language, how do we communicate best? Then we can start getting in line. And so the same thing is true for us. How do we best communicate with God? How does he want us to communicate? Well, he's not listening to me. Well, you're not communicating with him. You know, you're not doing how you're not communicating the way the Bible tells us communicating and creating that relationship. But yet we get frustrated sometimes, so he's not listening. He's not talking to me.
SPEAKER_03:He'll answer your prayers.
SPEAKER_04:May not be in your time. And sometimes what's the answer to those prayers? Not what you want to hear, kind of like some of the conversations at home.
SPEAKER_03:She doesn't always say she don't always say exactly what I want to hear either. And God is always listening. We know that. We are comfortable with that. Our prayer may not be as important as we think it is. We may be asking for the wrong things of what we're needing at that time, in his opinion, and his is right. I try to give a lot of praise in my prayers and gratitude. And it seems like I get more answers that way than when I'm straight up just asking for something.
SPEAKER_02:I think that isn't that when we usually communicate the most? Is when we hey grateful. And when we're grateful, right? Well, I think we communicate most is when we're in need. Oh, right. Sure. We you know, you know, hey, honey, can you run and do this, Aaron for me? Hey, can you go do this? Hey, can you do that? And our communications probably, if we really look at our relationships, aren't so often. I just appreciate all you're doing for me. I just couldn't get everything done. I appreciate you taking the time to make supper. I appreciate you going to work today. I appreciate you spending time with all of us tonight after supper. I I appreciate us going out on a date. It's usually the communication of what we need or what we're expecting. And and and just like you said, in those moments of gratitude, when you share with in prayer time, is when you find the most answers. Because maybe you're looking for the answers, well, he hadn't done this, he hadn't done this, and you go, wait a minute. But he's done this in my life, he's fixed this for me, he's repaired this relationship, he's made me look at this way a little different. Wow. He answered prayers I didn't even know I was asking for. But it comes in those times of gratitude, and and I think that's when we really when we start being grateful for our for our wives, tell them, you know, you know, I always like to ask couples that have been married for a long time. I always ask like to ask them what what the secret is to marriage. I don't think there's just one secret, but I always like to say, what's what's the one secret to a long marriage? And I asked this couple, this lady that had been married 62 years, her and her husband have been married. I said, What's the secret? She said, make the other one feel special. And I thought about that and I thought, wow, don't we all want to be felt? Don't we all want to be made to feel special? And I thought about that when we're given gratitude. Aren't we making the other person feel special for doing those things for us? Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And what if we give that gratitude to God? And in those moments realize, wow, is that what praising God is?
SPEAKER_03:When you truly praise him, you're being grateful. So the prayers of gratitude. Yeah, I feel guilty asking for anything, but I feel like I've been blessed. So I feel guilty in asking. But there are some things that you need to ask for.
SPEAKER_01:It says asking you shall receive. Sure.
SPEAKER_03:If you got the faith, we'll get into that deeper too. But you gotta have the faith.
SPEAKER_05:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. You know. I'm not gonna speak a whole lot on marriage because you're the expert there, but my wife's endured me for 41, nearly 42 years. And then sometimes you look and you go, just why? Did you always do it right over 42 years? Did me? Yeah. No. You don't believe me? Ask her. But she still loves you. Apparently. She stayed. I always said that me and her, we were real good with contracts. We never brought a contract. We signed the marriage license and we stayed with our contract.
SPEAKER_05:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:But what we've touched on is exactly right. I have never given her enough praise for what she has done. I've given her more credit that she don't know about, but I've never told her. And it's good to tell God. It's good to tell your friends and all your loved ones, your children, you know, and praise them. Everybody likes to hear praise.
SPEAKER_02:And that was, you know, that was in the same lady I spoke with, she came back a week later and she said, you know, you asked me about what the secret is, and I said, yes. And she said, well, I was thinking about it. And she said he also, after 62 years, every time we get done lunch or supper, he I fix him lunch and supper, he says, Thank you. 62 years. Every night before we go to bed, he says, I love you. After 62 years, he still says, says those. And so that so that was interesting to me that after all those years, he was still given gratitude. And for me, it was a challenge to me. I realized that I wasn't given enough gratitude to my wife. And so there's things that she does for me that I just kind of am taking for granted. That she always, you know, has, you know, I always joke because I'll take something off in the morning, and by that night, or the next morning, I'll be back in my drawer. And I'm like, I thought I just wore this. And I never say thank you for doing those things. So it was a challenge to me to be more, have that more gratitude, and also to be thankful to God for those things in my life that I've taken for granted. And and and the small and simple things, well, that's just part of it. But and I think you're right, in those in those gratitude moments, we find our answers of how much he does love us. Right. Which is in the challenge of have that love.
SPEAKER_03:And that's what he loves about his church.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's the greatest love affair.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And the greatest example to us in our relationships and as husbands and wives. How we should treat each other, and and it's just an example. And for us to be better, challenged to can we live up to that love affair.
SPEAKER_03:Right. So the question is to everyone out there, how can they improve theirs, their relationship with God, their relationship when they're married? If they're married.
SPEAKER_02:That in your relationship.
SPEAKER_01:We've covered a lot of them.
SPEAKER_03:When my wife sees this, she'll tell me three or four more things that you can add to the list to work on. Showing me as we go to the Lord in word of prayer. Lord, we pause at this time to be grateful. Be grateful that you've given us this life. Be grateful that to you, Lord, that for not only what all you've done, but you're willing to sacrifice even more for us. Your mercy. Is undescribable. Lord, we thank you for this country we live in. We thank you for this opportunity. And we live in a free country to where we can have church and worship you without persecution. Lord, we come to you today in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for joining us, and we'll look forward to seeing you right here next time as we have a little conversation, we visit and we share things that from our lives to you.
SPEAKER_00:You've been listening to The Road Travel, where real faith meets real life. Remember, every step matters, even the hard ones. So keep walking your road with courage, conviction, and Christ leading the way. Until next time, your hosts, Aaron and Alan, say, we'll see you down the road.