The Love Dare by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick poses a 40-day challenge for couples to watch God move mightily in their marriage. It is a guide filled with practical steps to love your spouse in more fulfilling ways.

Love is only as vibrant, strong, and restorative as its source, and therefore dramatic revolution for marriage must come from God.

Many people enter into marriage with a myriad of expectations and assumptions that are often rooted in a poor understanding of what love really is. Only with a firm grasp of this word will we be able to genuinely care for our spouse. Even those marriages that feel hopeless are revived as we learn to love as God does.

Truth motivates dares, and as we ground ourselves in what God’s Word says, we will be able to rise to the challenges over the 40-day period. However, it will require a measure of spiritual tenacity and refusal to love from our own strength in order to do so. That God will enable and empower us to demonstrate the depths of His love is our only hope of seeing change in our hearts and, Lord willing, in the hearts of our spouse.

In this summary, you will learn:

  • the real meaning of love;
  • how to apply the biblical definition of love to your marriage; and
  • ways to find hope for transformation in even the bleakest of marriages.

Love must have a strong foundation, and that foundation is Christ.

Love drives us. It keeps us going, and when it is missing, the relationship suffers. We have to understand how the Bible defines love. One of the chief descriptions of love is its patience. To be patient in the way we love others is to respond with more caution. Those who are hasty to react frequently repel others. Patience is profound because it shows how different Christian love is from the rest of the world. When love is patient, our feelings do not rule over our words, and as we listen instead of reacting, we create a calm environment. Let us be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

In addition to patience, kindness also evidences authentic love by promoting good actions toward another person. The recipe for kindness consists of four things: initiative, gentleness, helpfulness, and willingness. Initiative anticipates needs and seeks to meet them even before being asked. Gentleness strives to act with humility by speaking with a mild tone. Helpfulness is not hesitant to any task, no matter how menial it might be, because it lightens another person’s load. Willingness says “yes” to others’ requests rather than persisting in the hardness of our own heart. The Good Samaritan reminds us that we ought to demonstrate kindness to strangers. How much more should we seek to convey kindness toward our spouse! Let us enjoy finding ways to bless our spouse with kindness.

Marriage troubles surface when we are the center of our own world. Obsession with self always gets in the way of loving others well because there is no room for godly thinking. This attitude burdens our spouse. Marriage reveals our idolization of self like nothing else. Because we tend to worship ourselves, we have to learn to reorder what is important to us. Though we may have forgotten, our wedding vows promised to promote the other person’s needs over our own. Returning to these words would allow us to live a lot more joyfully. Let us stop focusing on ourselves and start learning to do what is best for our partner.

Love should engage our mind. That time and busyness hinder us from thinking about our spouse does not mean we can neglect them. We have to pay attention if we want to keep them at the top of our minds. Men and women think differently. In order to love better, we have to work harder to communicate and understand the other gender. One way to do that is by collecting our thoughts before saying them aloud. Let us strive to think about our spouse and tell them that they are on our mind.

Love markets the positive, focuses on a gentle approach, and rejoices at the fortune of others.

Authentic love is polite in all its dealings with others. When we can avoid doing what annoys our spouse, we should. Through our endeavors to esteem each other, we will transform into people who draw our spouse to us. When women demonstrate a high level of admiration for their husbands, their husbands will want to be around them. Similarly, when a man shows how much he cherishes and values his wife, she will desire his presence.

Some people might not know how to be polite. Others are so self-involved that how they treat others does not matter to them. We have the opportunity to show courtesy to our spouse, so let us take it.

We do not want to be moody. Approaching our relationships with a bad temper does not foster an atmosphere for love to grow. People tend to get upset because of stress. It may come from relationships or circumstances, from a lack of something vital to overall health or from overindulging to some degree. Because there are so many reasons to be in a constant state of stress, we have to learn how to take life at the right speed. People also get upset because they are selfish instead of loving. What makes love so amazing is that as we live it out, we become less irritated and less self-centered. Let us keep our priorities straight.

Negativity comes naturally to us. However, we do not have to continue in criticism by nitpicking what bothers us about our spouse. Love invests more time delighting in those character qualities we find precious about them. When we remind ourselves of what we admire about them, we will respond more positively. No one is perfect, and we have to stop focusing on their flaws. Instead, we operate with gracious assumptions. Encourage the constructive attributes of your spouse in love rather than resurfacing their less commendable qualities.

Jealousy is not always a bad thing. It is favorable when it is rooted in love. We should feel jealous when a spouse betrays us for a different lover. God has this kind of passionate zeal for His people, and He wants us to share that fervor by keeping Him first. The other side of jealousy is built on an inflated ego. When other people get something we want, it triggers selfishness. It is far better to be our spouse’s supporters instead of their competitors. When either partner prospers, both should rejoice because their success benefits both of them…

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