Invite Jesus Into Your Marriage

The night I met my husband, Danny Lotz, I was 17 years old
and had just graduated from high school. Danny had been raised in a
strong Christian home by a father who was a pastor of a small church in
New York City.

Danny had received Jesus Christ as a young boy at his
dad’s church and had taken a strong, uncompromising stand for his faith
since then. He was a young girl’s dream, and 15 months later we were
married in the same mountain chapel where my parents had married 23
years earlier.

We moved into a small house, and at 18 years of age, when
my friends were well into their college studies and planning their
careers, I was grocery shopping, cooking, mopping and decorating, as
well as working part time. It was wonderful!

Ten years later, we moved to a city where Danny practiced
dentistry full time. By then, we had three children, and I did volunteer
work and taught a weekly Bible class that was attended by 500 women.

Without my noticing it, the busyness had overtaken me, and
I awoke one morning to the realization that I was in a marriage in
which the love had run out! I will never forget the panicked, trapped
feeling I had as I knelt in prayer, desperately pleading with the Lord
for help.

If you feel trapped in a marriage where the love has run
out, praise God! There is hope for you just as there was hope for me.
The first step in starting over is to invite Jesus into your marriage.

Jesus Was Invited to a Wedding

John has given us glorious eyewitness testimony of the
identity of Jesus Christ. Yet that identity was limited by Jesus’
humanity, which was like a house of curtains, veiling His deity.
However, when He performed miracles or taught the truth, it was as
though the curtains parted and the glory streamed through.

What a simple yet profound blessing it is to know that the
first time the “curtains” parted and Jesus’ glory was revealed was in a
home as He celebrated a wedding! At the very start of His public
ministry, the One who formed man and breathed His own life into him, the
Son of God, was invited to a wedding. And He accepted the invitation!
(See John 2:1-2.)

If you need a miracle in your marriage, invite Jesus into
the relationship. You will be blessed by the knowledge that He is there
when unexpected problems and crises arise.

Jesus Was Informed of the Crisis

During the first century, when Israel was under Roman
occupation, there was little cause for celebration. A wedding created an
exception in that oppressive atmosphere.

It was to such a celebration in Cana of Galilee that
Jesus, His disciples and His mother were invited. And it was during such
a festive occasion that a crisis occurred—the wine ran out (see John
2:3).

In that culture and time, running out of wine would cause
the newlyweds such humiliation that they would never be able to lift
their heads in public again. This was a marriage in trouble almost from
the moment it began.

Has the “wine”—that spirited, sparkling liquid that
symbolizes passionate, affectionate love—run out of your marriage? The
loss of love can occur gradually, similar to the way I expect that the
wine ran out at the wedding in Cana—one glass at a time until it was
gone.

When Mary learned of the crisis, she  immediately informed Jesus, “
‘They have no more wine’” (John 2:3, NIV). The crisis was stated simply,
without explanations or suggestions about how He might fix the problem.

Although kind and respectful, Jesus’ response to Mary
gives the impression that He doesn’t intend to do anything about the
problem (see John 2:4). Sometimes Jesus’ answer addresses not only the
specific need we have brought to His attention but also something
deeper.

Apparently Mary wanted to solve the problem for the young
couple, but she also had a hidden agenda (see John 2:4). She thought
this wedding celebration would be a wonderful place for Jesus to begin
letting people know who He was.

Are there hidden agendas in your prayers? Are you praying
for God to save your marriage to avoid being humiliated or rendered
financially devastated by divorce, instead of striving to glorify Him?
Jesus understands the feelings associated with our trials, but
glorifying God should be our bottom-line agenda.

Mary may not have known and understood everything, but she
knew Jesus cared. And she knew that in order for Him to have the
freedom to make a difference, she would have to place total control of
the situation in His hands.

Jesus Was Invested With Full Authority

After speaking with Jesus, Mary called the servants and
instructed them: “ ‘Do whatever He tells you’” (John 2:5). She was
confident Jesus could make a difference in the crisis.

Have you placed your marriage and your situation under His
authority? Maybe one reason He has allowed you to be in your present
crisis is to bring you to the point of complete submission to His will.

I believe that’s what happened in my life. I remember
getting up early one morning, slipping down on my knees and tearfully
asking God once more how I could fix my relationship with Danny.

I opened my Bible to 1 John 4. As I meditated, God began
to give me specific instructions on what to do.

His words to me were: “You are to love Danny because I
first loved you. If you say ‘I love God,’ yet you don’t love Danny, you
are a liar. Because if you don’t love your husband, whom you have seen,
you cannot love Me, whom you have not seen. So I give you this command:
If you love Me, you must—it’s not an option—also love Danny.

“Dear Anne, love one another, for love comes from Me.
Everyone who loves has been born of Me and knows Me.”

Through His gentle words, God laid out three very basic
principles about my love for Danny:

• Love comes from God.

• Those who are able to love others, including their
spouses, are those who have been born of God.

• Those who are able to love others, even when the love
runs out, are those who not only are 
born of God but also know God.

Although God lives within me, His love for Danny is
available to me only in proportion to my knowledge of Him. God made this
clear to me by saying, “If you are not able to love Danny, it’s because
you do not know Me, because I am love.”

I realized that knowing God is more than just being born
again, just as knowing my husband is more than saying marriage vows at
the wedding altar. Knowing God involves an intimate, personal
relationship that is developed over time through prayer, Bible study,
obedience and being filled by the Holy Spirit moment-by-moment.

I knew God had given me the key for changing my
marriage—for turning water into wine. The key was not to focus on my
relationship with Danny but to focus on my relationship with God!

As I spent time with God, He would fill my life. And
because God is love, His love would also fill me. Therefore, since God
loved Danny, love for Danny would fill my life and overflow from Him,
through me, to my husband.

It would be weeks before I could say honestly that the
water had been turned into wine, but I was no longer frustrated, tense
or worried. God gave me peace and joy within as I trusted Him to infuse
my life and my marriage with His love.

When the shortage of wine first became known at the
wedding feast in Cana, it seemed that Jesus would do nothing. But Mary
knew He would act in His own time and in His own way.

I wonder what the servants were thinking as they
obediently filled those jars with water. What did they think when He
told them, “ ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the
banquet’” (John 2:8)?

What made them risk their reputation and their jobs to
carry out His instructions? It must have been something about Jesus
Himself that thrust them out on the limb of risk-taking obedience.

I can imagine all the servants, jostling for position to
get an unobstructed view of their co-worker as he made his way to the
master of the banquet with the pitcher of water. I wonder, as he began
to pour, if his hand jerked, spilling a few drops, when he saw that
although he had put water into the pitcher, wine came out?

The water had been turned into wine! And the new wine was
the best (see John 2:9-10).

It was a miracle! But it was such a quiet miracle—nothing
flashy that would have drawn attention to Jesus or announced that the
Messiah had come. Just a quiet change that saved a young bridegroom’s
honor and a newlywed couple’s marriage—and answered a mother’s prayer.

Can you imagine the thrill those servants experienced?
It’s the same thrill I’ve experienced again and again as I have climbed
down from a pulpit to a standing ovation, acutely conscious of the water
I had put into the message—the interrupted prayer time, the scattered
thoughts and the weak delivery. Yet wine had flowed out.

No one in the audience knew that water had gone in but
wine had come out. And as I outwardly lift my hand in praise to God,
inwardly I acknowledge that a quiet miracle has occurred.

And it’s the same thrill I get daily when I look at my
beloved husband and remember the water—and the wine! Though my marriage
is far from perfect, God’s love in me and through me for Danny is much
deeper, stronger and steadier than the love I had on my own.

Are you desperate for a quiet miracle in your marriage or
your ministry that would turn the water into wine? Then invite Jesus to
come in, inform Him of the problem, and invest Him with full authority.

Jesus makes change possible even when the love has run
out. He invites you to taste and enjoy the “new wine” as you thank God
from your heart  for giving
you Jesus!

Anne Graham Lotz, the second child of Billy and Ruth
Graham, is an acclaimed Bible teacher and the founder of AnGeL
Ministries. She also is the author of The Glorious Dawn of God’s
Story and The Vision of His Glory, both from Word Publishing.
Adapted from Just Give Me Jesus by Anne Graham Lotz, copyright ©
2000. Published by Word Publishing. Used by permission.