I state clearly in Cherish that love and cherishing don’t compete; they complement each other. Growing in our understanding of what love is and how to love each other will strengthen our ability to cherish our spouse. This month marks the release of one of the most engaging and convicting marriage books I’ve ever read: Love Like You Mean It by Bob Lepine. This book focuses on love, but in a way most of us have never thought of. I was honored to write the foreword for this book and am including it here. I hope all of you will check out Bob’s incredible work.
When Lisa and I married, I had known her since she was just twelve years old (but I thought she was fourteen at the time). We had been in the same Sunday school class, we had been on church camping trips together—including a fifty-mile canoe trip—and I had mopped the floors at Herfy’s Hefty Burgers while she laughed and didn’t believe me when I insisted I usually got to cook the burgers. We sat in early morning college classes together, including an excruciatingly boring linguistics class that Lisa, of course, excelled in, and had been through the calendar several times: a day spent playing in the snow at Mt. Baker, autumn walks in the leaves surrounding Sehome Hill Arboretum, spring bonfires on Bellingham Bay; and summer evenings in our respective hometowns. We had gone to watch the state high school cross country championships (which Lisa didn’t think was a date but I did); we had been to numerous church services and Campus Christian Fellowship meetings; she had encouraged me when I was shocked and saddened and processing it by volunteering at a Keith Green memorial concert together. Put all of this together, and I had seen Lisa in just about every form of dress, climate, and activity (acceptable for Christ followers) two people could do and yet…
And yet on our wedding day she just looked so different.
Watching her walk up the aisle I wondered, how could someone so familiar be so excitingly new? It wasn’t just that she was wearing more makeup than usual (she’s not much of a makeup person, to be honest; she has a natural beauty all her own); but I had never seen her in a wedding dress, never seen her walking up a church aisle to join her hand in mine, and after a few heartfelt promises say those wonderful words “I do” kiss me on the lips.
I got a little bit of the same feeling reading Bob Lepine’s Love Like You Mean It. I’ve read so many marriage books I’ve almost become inoculated against their advice. The “Christian marriage book” has practically become a trope. But I was challenged by virtually every paragraph of Bob’s marvelous book as if I was reading a Christian marriage book for the very first time.
For instance, rarely has an author grabbed me in the first two paragraphs like Bob does here:
Nobody knows who said it first. But the statement is still true. “Everybody wants to go to heaven. But nobody wants to die.” The premise of this book is similar. Everybody wants a marriage that is filled with love. But nobody wants to die to self.
The entire book is wise, seasoned and mature. You can tell Bob (who has guest hosted the Family Life Today broadcast for decades) has spoken to many couples and heard from the church’s leading and most cherished authors because he takes the best of them and then elevates their advice to the next level. That’s what I found so amazing about this book.
Another thing that struck me is that because this book is essentially exposition (going through a Bible passage word by word), it carries a power and conviction that so many books simply lack. This isn’t a book that comes about from clever marketing gimmicks, or seeks to repackage familiar content with stylish or hip language, or that is based on Bob’s opinion of what marriages need today. He draws on a very familiar passage (1 Cor. 13:4ff) but makes it sound and feel astonishingly new—just like Lisa looked to me on our wedding day.
Most marriage books begin and end with what the author thinks is most important: communication, conflict resolution, sexual intimacy, finances, parenting, etc. Love Like You Mean It begins and ends with God’s definition of love and that’s what makes it so powerful. In the end, if we pursue love and grow in love (as God defines it) most conflicts, communication issues, sexual issues, financial concerns etc. can be addressed in an entirely new way with an entirely new power from an entirely new platform.
Even if you’ve read every marriage book published in the last twenty years, you’ll still find new inspiration, encouragement, challenge, conviction and God-breathed hope and wisdom in this fine work. That’s why I’m so delighted to recommend it to all believers who want to look at marriage and love—two very familiar words—and rediscover both of them in a an entirely new light: God’s light.
Cherish Challenge Week 2Read chapter 3 of Cherish
After reading chapter 3 of Cherish, ask your spouse how you can help set them up to succeed in the coming week (or month). Use the “ballet is woman” analogy to figure out how to showcase your spouse.
Ask each other if there is another couple (or small group) you want to invite to do this Cherish challenge with you. Sometimes, talking about it as couples instead of just as a couple helps foster new ideas. People can sign-up for this challenge at any time—there’s no deadline.
After you’ve discovered how to showcase your spouse and put it into practice, let us know how it went! Email us using the submission box here.
I’ve gotten a few messages from couples asking if they need to sign up to take part in the Cherish Challenge? I just wanted to clarify that this summer long experience is absolutely FREE!
Each weekly challenge will be posted to my social media accounts and webpage on Mondays, blogs will be uploaded to my website on Wednesdays, and Cherish Challenge email updates will be sent out on Fridays.
If you would like to receive these email updates as well as my weekly blog newsletters, please be sure to subscribe to my email list. This can be done in the sidebar to the right.
If you would like to be entered into the drawing to win some of the prizes we are giving away at the end of the summer, please submit a photo of you and your spouse (optional) and a testimony (optional) on the Cherish Challenge webpage.
You can also find any additional information about the challenge there as well: Cherish Challenge 2020