Growing in Integrity by Walking in Love
Ephesians 5:1-7

1. Reveal Answer
   our
   Reveal Answer
   love

The love of God is not something to see once and believe and then
move beyond to other truths or strategies for growing in Christ. The
love of God is what we feed on our whole lives long, wading ever more
deeply into this endless ocean. And that feeding, that wading, is itself
what fosters growth. We grow in Christ no further than we enjoy his
embrace of us.

(D. Ortlund, Deeper, p. 70)

The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what
Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the
Church—read on—and give his life for her (Eph. 5:25). This headship,
then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to
be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife
receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is—in her own
mere nature—least lovable.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

God is glorified greatly when we receive His gift with thanksgiving – for
the gift points back to the God who gave it – and enjoy it the way he
meant for it to be enjoyed.

(B. Patterson, in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ)

Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which
you regularly indulge in, but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that
cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward Him in
the wake of it…Repent of your small thoughts of God’s heart. Repent
and let Him love you.

(D. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly, p. 152, 170)