People get married and vow to live each other until death parts them. They fall in love, but after a short while they fall out of love and the marriage ends in divorce.
Love fails because love alone is not all that’s needed for a good and successful marriage. Now, I know that this may sound contradictory to what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:8, where Paul says love never fails, but this type of godly and unconditional love must have knowledge, understanding, and wisdom as well.
Love is a feeling and feelings are fleeting.
Love is not enough to maintain a healthy marriage. The kind of love that’s needed in Marriage is not based on feelings and emotions, but rather on the free will sacrifice of the Son of God. God is love, and if I say that I love someone, and I don’t have the knowledge of God, then I’m lying. If I don’t know God, then I don’t know love, and my marriage will be destroyed for lack of knowledge, not love. God knows your spouse better than you do, so if you reject God’s knowledge then you’ll never know your spouse like you should.
The Proverbs of Solomon are all about knowledge, understanding, and wisdom…not love.
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7
Knowledge, or knowing, is first. If you don’t know the person you’re marrying, then you’re in trouble. If you reject knowledge, then you’ll never understand, and when you don’t understand your spouse, frustration sets in, and you say and do things you’ll regret later on. Yes, you said that you loved him / her at first, but now you’re frustrated and your love is all about your feelings, and you lack wisdom because you rejected knowledge and understanding.
In the Bible, God advises husbands to build their marriages upon knowledge of their wives. Your love for God is based upon your knowledge of Him. You can’t simply say that you love God and live any way you choose. You must know His ways and His thoughts. The same applies to your wife. God knows His wife (the church), He understands her, and He knows that she is the weaker vessel.
“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”
1 Peter 3:7
A husband’s love for his wife is expressed to her by his knowledge of her innermost and intimate thoughts and feelings. How many times have husbands said, “God, I just don’t understand this woman!” Well, the reason we don’t understand is because understanding comes from knowledge, and the reason we say and do the wrong things is because we lack the knowledge that brings understanding and ultimately gives us wisdom.
If you refuse to dwell with your spouse according to knowledge, then you rejected the knowledge of God, which in essence is the same as rejecting His love.