Series: Love Glue
Message: Glue Stick: Apply With Care
Preacher: Japhet De Oliveira
Reflection: Mike Speegle
Live Wonder: Zan Long
Live Adventure: Zan Long
Live Beyond: Brandon Kharns
Live Purpose: Vanessa Rivera
Editor: Becky De Oliveira

Refresh: Begin with prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.

Read: Ephesians 5:21-33 in the New International Version (NIV). Note 1–3 insights or questions. 

Reflect: There’s an old saying: “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” It’s an expression used in relation to someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole. We are all guilty of that at times; we get sucked into the details, the words, the nuances, the “deeper” meaning—and miss the big or the whole picture.

Let’s just do another quick run through this passage and note how many times Paul refers to Jesus. “Out of reverence for Christ . . . as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior . . . as the church submits to Christ . . . just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy . . . no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church . . .” (Ephesians 5:21-29, NIV).

It seems like Paul want us to remember that this is more about how we see Jesus, how we respond to Him in our relationships than it is about who is doing what (or not doing it enough) to whom. So often in his letters Paul tries to draw his readers back to Jesus: who He is and what that means for those who call themselves His followers.

That’s something we all need to be brought back to regularly; that this is all about Jesus and how we respond to Him ( (Paul uses the word reverence).

Tomorrow we’ll wrap up this week by look at a forgotten “tree” in this passage. Today, let’s not miss the forest.

Recalibrate: It’s easy to get sucked into the details: our schedules, our finances, our work. Maybe today is a good time to stop, look, and listen. See if there’s anything we’re missing because of the trees. Where do you have a tendency to focus on the trees more than the forest?

Respond: Pray for space to hear God’s voice in the forest.

Research: Read the article The Silent Marriage Killer.

Remember: “Be willing to obey each other. Do this because you respect Christ” (Ephesians 5:21, ICB).

Mike Speegle is the lead pastor for New Hope, an exciting, young, multi-ethnic Adventist Church in Fulton, Maryland. Mike became a follower of Jesus and an Adventist in his early 20s. Pacific Union College was the first Adventist school he ever attended; he met his wife Lorie there. Mike has pastored for 30+ years, served in the Ministerial Association of the General Conference, and has written a book, Big Questions, as well as a number of articles.

Make a game of putting a puzzle back together. Preferably one of those timber puzzles where one piece fits in one spot. Watch as your little one moves the piece around to get it to finally fit in the hole. Your child may have done this puzzle a few times and know exactly how to put the piece into place. Let’s know our place in Jesus. Know that there is space just for us and that while we may struggle to fit sometimes, we have faith that in Jesus’s name we will find our place.

Make a list of all the people you think are pretty awesome. The people that you respect the most. Have they ever asked you to do something? What was it and what did you do? Did you do it joyfully? When someone we think is awesome asks us to do something, that thing becomes awesome too—even if the thing you got asked to do actually isn’t that great. Like Lebron James asking you to pick up trash. Maybe you could throw it in the trash can like the can is a basketball hoop!

The servant in our story for this week was asked to do something great—and we don’t even know his name. He was happy to do as Abraham had asked in the best possible way. He asked for God’s help. You can do the same.

So far we’ve been talking about a lot of boyfriend/girlfriend and marriage stuff. It’s worthwhile to start thinking about that now, but it may not be all that useful to you at this stage of life. You’re a ways away from wanting to marry someone. Hopefully. What does apply to you now is deciding whether you will trust God enough to follow Him. After all, this relationship talk is based around the idea that you should be trusting God first. Learning to trust God is definitely something you can do now, and if you invest the time and energy to do that now it will completely change your life. Want an awesome marriage someday? Get to know God now. Want a happy life? Get to know God now.

If you need some help to ramp up your relationship with God, find someone you trust who has a good relationship with God and learn from them. This is really the best way. We call it discipleship, because it’s pretty much the same thing that Jesus did with His twelve disciples. Seriously, give it a try. You won’t regret it.

So let’s focus back on this passage. In the Bible, the wife represents the church (us) and the husband represents Christ. While Paul is talking about an actual marriage, he compares it to the way Christ loves us. In the end, the text describes how, in a marriage, the two become one. As we connect to Christ, we became one with Him. It’s an act of love. This week, I encourage you to connect to two people who are married. Ask them about what they have learned in their journey of marriage, including how their views of God have changed.

Zan Long is GRC director for faith development groups. She lives in Sydney, Australia, and serves at her local church in nearby Kellyville.
Brandon Kharns is the family life pastor at Placerville Seventh-day Adventist church in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California near Lake Tahoe. 
Vanessa Rivera is a therapist in a community mental health center in Denver, CO, and serves as the lead elder for Live Purpose at Boulder Church.