Love

Love

Love is wonderful! Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but the message still rings in our heart how we are to love others.

Song of Solomon 2:13 Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away with me.

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Bonnie Lou and I have been married over 64 years and we are still working on making our marriage even better. Yes, it had and still has to be worked on. I remember that one of our movie stars stated that he had been married 16 times. Maybe it would have been better if he had worked on one marriage 16 times more than he did, enjoying his wife, and making that marriage work.

When Bonnie Lou and I decided to get married, I first asked her if she wanted to be married to a preacher. She said, “Yes, but I want you to stick with God and that plan the rest of our marriage.” Then I asked her, if on our honeymoon, if someone asked us to pastor a church, will you allow that to happen? Are you willing for us to quit our jobs and trust God that it will happen? Then, after a pause, she said that she knew we both want to obey Jesus and do His will.

Do you know what happened? Two weeks after we left Wells, Minnesota, we were 1200 miles into the state of Arkansas where we visited my brother, Floyd, and his new wife, Jane, in Little Rock. Then we went on to visit Melvin and Beverley Culbertson in Derick, Arkansas. Melvin took us to see another preacher, Cecil Culbreth, who shouted at me when we entered his home. He called me by my name and said, “Billy, God told me that you were coming! Will you pastor a small church in Horatio?” Our honeymoon did not last two weeks, but a year later that little church had grown from a few people to around a hundred.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I had preached all I understood about the Bible and needed to return to North Central University in Minneapolis. We continued to obey our Lord, pastoring churches in Minnesota and Arkansas, and have now been in Hawaii for the past 47 years where we pastored two churches. I am so glad that Bonnie Lou said yes to wherever I would go.

It is not always easy, but we are determined to always work on our marriage. One day, I had onion for lunch and before she took her nap she came into our office and kissed me. She said, “Oh, yuk! I forgot you had eaten onion today.” I did not get any Brownie Points on that kiss!

Love is wonderful when you have the right life mate. It is hard to believe that Bonnie Lou and I have been married over 64+ years and she is still so beautiful. Are we glad we married and kept choosing to love each other? Oh yes! We are more in love than ever.

Here are more scriptures from God’s Word on this topic of love.

Romans 5:8  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

1John 4:11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Matthew 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

Song of Solomon 1:9, I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

How do you like this one? Solomon compared his lover, with a horse. Even though my wife grew up on a farm in Alden, she would prefer that I not compare her with horses, but consider her the most beautiful of all women. She was and still is.

By Pastor Bill Ashpole                        ashpolebam@gmail.com         ashpolebam.org          

 

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