3 John 1:4 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these and you'll have a better understanding of God's Word and His perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in today's Scripture.

Welcome to day 64. We're in the book of three, John, the third and final letter, the Apostle John. He also wrote the book of Revelation, which will be to you on the final day. This is a super short book of the Bible, but in it he says some powerful stuff in this one chapter book, including chapter one, verse four, which is our verse for today. I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth. And this is something I've seen. This verse out in people's house is like a declaration about their own house. I want my children personal, as parents, my children to walk in the truth. And as parents, it's our job to help children discover the truth of who Jesus is, live by His Word, and then walk in that once they leave our homes. I mean, that's the desire for every parent and that's the desire for God our Father to be able to say for us. I've got no greater desire than to see that my children, it's you and me are walking in the truth, that we're living out the word, that we're doing our best to let the Holy Spirit guide us and to proclaim the name of Jesus through our actions and through our lives and our lifestyles. So what does that look like in marriage?

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I think to be able to be walking in truth, it's first and foremost we need to be looking at ourselves, you know, not just pointing fingers at our spouse, but really, really just digging deep in our prayer life and reading the Bible and attending church and growing in the Lord, having, you know, some fellowship with other believer. I think that's huge. So that we keep walking in truth on a personal level, like individually. But also I do think that we need to be willing to again, have vulnerable conversations where if we see our spouse falling away and not prioritizing their relationship with the Lord or maybe even full on, not really walking in truth, like going down a path that is not of God, we have to be able to say something about that. But this is the caveat is our spouse. It's gonna land on deaf ears if we have not been really intentional about praising our spouse about the things they are doing, right? Because especially when someone is kinda in a path where they're not walking in truth, they're already not really listening to the right people or focusing on the right things. And they're not, you know, following a plan that God would like them to follow. It's already gonna be a hard conversation. But if you have gone out of your way as the spouse that is kind of stronger in the faith of a moment to really be kind to them and to really show them Christ' by praising the good, that they are doing, the right things they're doing, even if it's like the most minute thing, then when you do have a concern where they're maybe falling into an addiction or some kind of toxic behavior or habit or whatever it is, they're gonna listen because they know you do see the good in them. You don't think they're all bad. You're not trying to be Judgy McJudgems. Like, you're really out of care and concern. You're like, I love you too much to let you keep on going down this path. Because that's what the opposite of truth is. It's deceit. We're being deceived. We're being blinded by whatever it is the enemy's trying to convince us of. And any of us can fall prey to this. Any of us can fall into these pits. There was a great book by Beth Moore years ago called get out of that Pit. And I read it cover to cover. It was so good. And she said, there's different dynamics of pitfalling. Sometimes you walk into it, you just knowingly know, I'm gonna sin. Let's get in that pit. Sometimes you get. You get knocked into it by somebody else when innocently, like, you didn't even know these people would lead me down this road. Right. And then other times you just kind of, you know, you just kind of find yourself there and you didn't even realize it. And a lot of it is because you weren't watching where you were going. You weren't actively trying to seek the truth. And I think that we need to remember that, like, we're human beings, we can't get on autopilot. We can't do that in our marriage and assume our marriage is gonna be healthy. So we also can't do that in our faith walk. Like, we have to keep on, you know, really, really praying, really staying tuned into God and reading his word, being around people who are going to strengthen us and not lead us astray.

Yeah. Walk in the truth. And part of that, too, is just as simple as being honest with each other.

Yes.

Yes.

There should be no place for deception or secrecy of any kind in marriage. Part of having that naked marriage is having nothing to hide and just being honest. Walking in the truth, literally. Like we're going to only tell each other the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the Bible says, speak the truth in love, and we talked about that in a previous episode. Truth does not give you an excuse to be cruel or cold or harsh or insulting or overly critical. But it's an opportunity to speak the truth with tender hearted love and mercy. And so even if a difficult truth has to be said, do it tenderly. Do it humbly. Yell it, don't yell it, do it with a gentle tone.

I mean, that's not gonna get there.

Never, ever sending the wrong message. You lose whatever credibility you had with the truth the moment it becomes unloving. And so truth and love go hand in hand. Jesus was the embodiment of that, and we need to be the embodiment of that as well in our marriages. So hope that encouraged you today. Guys, we're almost to the finish line. Join us tomorrow. Day 65 will be in the book of Jude.