Jesus in Our Family

God, in Whom I believed, gave me a family several times. At first it was my parents and relatives, who from the very first day of my life took care of me and rejoiced in life together with me.

When I became independent and almost an adult, I believed in Christ as my personal Savior and, together with this faith, received as a gift a new family called the “Church.” I had so many brothers and sisters, and even all over the world, that I have not stopped rejoicing and marveling at this to this day. And among this new kin the Lord showed me the one who later turned out to be closer than all people in the world. We became lifelong friends, and then decided to create our own family.

How many prayers were offered on this matter! How many different thoughts had to be thought through in order to make a final decision! How many conversations we had with each other before we irrevocably decided to create something in common!

I always invited Jesus into all my relationships and rejoiced that He was present in everything. But I also began to notice that my relationship with my wife had become so close and constant that, as it happened, we spent 24 hours a day together for several days in a row. I became more and more attached to this dear little person, and she responded in kind. I could no longer leave her just like that and go for hours to walk in nature, communing with my dear Savior. We now did this together, and during the walk we talked with each other. True, I set aside personal time every morning for secret prayer, shutting myself in a separate room, but this was so little compared to what it had been before the wedding.

I very much wanted to sort out this question and understand whether the Lord would be jealous of me for the one whom I had chosen. I very much did not want to lose Eternity because of strong love for my wife, and as for how it was possible not to love her, when I asked for this every day and received an answer from Heaven, I did not know.

I understood that to love my wife is right, biblical, but this placed me in a strange position. I no longer had such communion with God as before, but spoke more with my beloved.

We did not want to quarrel and sit alone in different rooms, and when we were together, we liked our communication so much that we never tired of inventing new topics for conversation and always found a common language.

Even during our friendship I understood that the time we spent together did not allow me to spend this time with the Lord, although we invited Him in prayer. And all this was so hard to glue together in my head. It always somehow seemed to me that we were being condemned for our joy in the relationship, since this prevented us from spending more time with God. But at the same time I so thanked my Savior for such a friend, and then for my wife, and was so grateful to Him for such a wonderful gift for life, that I did not even know how I would be able to live further without her.

Although my happiness was built on the true Foundation, from sturdy materials, my wife brought so much joy into my life that thanks to her I was especially happy as well. And how could one not thank Him who is the Source of love and happiness?!

It was very difficult for me to answer all these questions for myself, since I had heard many times that the Lord must always be in first place and have priority in everything. And in the light of the Message to Laodicea I completely lost peace, considering that my relationship with my wife would never allow me to come out of my lukewarm state and become hot in my relationship with Christ.

The reality was such that I drove myself to anxiety in these thoughts and loaded such a burden of guilt onto my head that I no longer knew what to do with it. Not to love my wife I considered a crime, but how to love her and not communicate with her, I did not understand.

My beloved noticed that something was wrong with me and asked what was troubling me. I decided to share my experiences with her, fearing that she would also begin to worry.

But she turned out to be more perceptive and decided to sort out this question together with me.

God is love, and when we converse with Him, He remains with us in communion, and when we begin to love each other, He is already with us in the relationship. Without Him we would not be able to tenderly care for each other, do something good, have right motives, and love from a pure heart. Everything would be permeated with selfishness and self-interest. Each would think only of themselves and would not care about the needs and happiness of the other.

In love for each other our relationship with God moved to the highest level, when we already love not in word and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth.

I began to reflect on which Spirit is leading me. All my thoughts came down to serving, loving, giving, understanding the needs of others, comparing everything with the light received, and living in the truth. And this became the norm of my life. I did not even think about why I live this way. Although I consider myself a sinner, because I see what constant struggle is going on inside me and what evil thoughts relentlessly attack my mind, I do not live in sin, but avoid it and any contact with it.

In all my work I consult in my thoughts with Christ, ask Him to help me, to bless me for success and understanding. I invite Him into any of my undertakings, and in every little thing He takes part, not leaving me.

And when I communicate with my wife, I always ask Jesus in my thoughts to prompt me what I could do for this person so that she would feel very good with me. In essence, the Lord has so strongly saturated me with Himself that it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. I live by Him and move and exist.

Probably this is some new level of relationship with Him, which I did not know before.

When I go to work, I take Jesus with me, and together with Him we labor all day, and although my work is done by my hands, I always see the Lord before me. And when there is an opportunity, I put on headphones, call my wife, and share with her my love for her, which brings her special joy and helps to solve many household tasks.

After long communication and reflection on this topic we came to the conclusion that everything we are now experiencing in mutual love is a new level of our relationship, which was previously unfamiliar to us, and now has become an unusual reality, from which we do not even want to depart.

We love each other, and our hearts do not condemn us for such a mutual attitude. We feel very good in this, and everything else enters into full harmony with the spirit of love.

If earlier I divided my time into communion with God, reading the Bible, works of faith, work, and personal time, now all this has become one single time, where in every action and in every minute the Lord is present and fills everything with Himself. I love by Him, I speak by Him, I think by Him. It was difficult for me to understand this, but when I realized it, I was amazed at how far our relationship with Him had gone. It is now closer for me to reach Heaven than to perish. And the laws of Eternal life have become part of my character, and the world is so alien that it is very strange to me why I still live in it. I do not plan to die, but I understand that we will all have to cross this boundary in order to enter Eternity with a pure heart.

1. Please read John 13:34–35; 17:21, 26; 1 John 3:18; 4:7–17; 1 Pet. 1:22; Rom. 12:9–10; 13:8–10; Matt. 18:18–20; 19:4–6; 22:37–40; 1 Thess. 4:9, Eph. 5:25–33, Gal. 2:20; Ps. 15:8 in the light of this lesson.

2. What did you understand from this topic?

3. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

4. Read Jer. 33:3: “Call to Me—and I will answer you, I will show you great and inaccessible things which you do not know.” Does this verse teach that God has something for us which we have not yet attained?

5. Do you understand how God abides in love, and we, loving, abide in Him?

6. How do you understand the verse from Rom. 13:8, where it is written that the one who loves another has fulfilled the law?

7. Should one fear one’s growth in Christ?

8. When someone says that Jesus lives in them, how can it be determined that this is so?

9. What do you think—does the Holy Spirit bring His fruit in the lives of people who love each other?

10. Is it bad for a husband to love his wife, and for a wife to love her husband, and to have special joy in these relationships?

11. Are we learning that love crowds out communion with God from life?

12. For what reason does Jesus advise us to buy from Him love in the form of the symbol of gold? (Rev. 3:18).

13. What will happen to you if you ask God for love for your neighbors and receive it?

14. Is it possible to love your neighbor from a wholly pure heart without experiencing a change in your mind?

15. When the person who loves you is silent, is he different in any way from other people?