Week 12 · A marriage God can use
Fruit That Remains
Read together: John 15:12-17
Also read: 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 · Acts 18:24-26
God does not grow fruit in a marriage only for that marriage. He is building something that will outlast you and feed other people.
The heart of it
Jesus says He chose and ordained us that we should bring forth fruit, and that our fruit should remain. Remain — outlast the moment, outlast us. A marriage that has been through God's hands becomes useful: a table someone eats at, a couple who can sit with a couple in trouble, a home where a young person sees what this can look like.
Paul says God comforts us in all our tribulation so that we may be able to comfort those in any trouble. The hardest parts of your marriage, once God has healed them, become the parts that help someone else. Nothing you have been through together is wasted.
Aquila and Priscilla show up in Acts as a couple who taught, hosted, traveled, and risked, together. They are named as a pair almost every time. That is a real ambition for a Christian marriage: not merely surviving, but being useful to God as one.
What to notice
- The fruit is appointed by Christ's choosing, not produced by our ambition.
- He calls them friends, not servants, because He told them what the Father was doing.
- Comfort received is described as equipment for comforting others.
- Priscilla and Aquila are named together, working together.
Talk together
- 1Looking back over these twenty-four weeks, what has God changed in us?
- 2What part of our story has God healed enough that it could help someone else?
- 3Who could we invite to our table this month?
- 4Is there a couple or a young person God is nudging us toward?
- 5What is our rhythm from here — what will we do weekly now that this study is finished? Decide tonight.
Your own journal
Answer these on your own during the week. They are yours; you are never required to read them out loud.
1. What fruit has God grown in me over these weeks that was not there before?
2. What is still unfinished in me, and what am I asking God for next?
3. Whose life could our marriage help? Write a name.
4. What do I want to be true of us in five years?
5. Write a prayer offering your marriage to God for His use, and then read it to your spouse.
This week's challenge
Invite one person or couple into your home this month, and set the date now for the next thing the two of you will study or do together.
"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."
John 15:16
Pray together
Thank God for what He has grown, and offer your home to Him for someone else's good.