hey there lovely.

April 8th, 2018

John Piper’s inspiration for his book, The Pleasures of God, came from one sentence out of Henry Scougal’s book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man:  

The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.

You can’t measure one’s soul by someone’s ability to love or willingness. People love evil things that aren’t worthy or excellent. Also, people can give half-hearted will to things, which does not show worth or excellence. However, the object of someone’s love and affections can show worth or excellence, depending on the value of that particular object itself.

For a Christian, when our substantial delight, pleasures, and affections are well-placed in God, the excellency of our souls are revealed. In other words, the identity of our souls are revealed through our delight, pleasures, and affections in God.

Other notes:

Psalm 63:1-8 reminded me of this song, Downpour by XAUCA:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

As part of continuing my education in the field of accounting, I am taking a class called Estate and Gift Taxation. Once again, I found another fascinating aspect of the material I learn.

In a marriage, when a spouse dies first, this decedent is permitted to leave an unlimited amount of assets to the surviving spouse without incurring any estate tax. This action is termed in estate tax terms as the unlimited marital deduction, and is only allowed for married couples.The theory behind the unlimited marital deduction is that a married couple should be treated as a single economic unit for estate tax purposes. 

WHY?

Why would legal and tax matters treat married couples as one unit? Could it be because spouses are considered one couple, instead of two people? Surely, there has to be more logic than that. I believe the Bible can help us find the answer and history to this.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”... So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:18, 21-24.

Jesus also quotes the same:

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. Mark 10:6-9.

Scripture reveals a mysterious phenomena for me.

When two people marry, they become one flesh. 

It’s apparent that the couple becomes one through sex, where their flesh fit together and become one. However, I believe their lives in a spiritual sense become one also; the couple commits themselves to each other under a spiritual (and legally contractual) covenant, meaning it is invisible, that binds themselves as one unit, one family until death. It has been held true since the creation of Adam + Eve, in which God ordained to never be severed since the beginning of creation. Although we show marriage to be a tangible act through rings, weddings, and sex, there is more intangible things at work - the invisible commitment to hold fast to each other, to be one.