Our relationship with others must be based on love, because God who is love is the source of our life. True love is always unconditional. Therefore, when we love others, we do it irrespective of how they treat us and without expecting anything in return. God loved us first (1 John 4:11) by sacrificing His life for our sins although we rejected Him, were unfaithful to Him and killed Him. He told Hosea (Hosea 3:1), to return to his wife although she was an adulteress. God further told him to love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they were unfaithful to Him. As true followers of Christ we must be in His Spirit by being faithful to our covenant with our spouse, even when there is unfaithfulness and hurt; and bring healing to our spouse by our prayers, sacrifices and support. We must love our spouse just as Christ loves us (Eph 5:25).

Some people quote Matthew’s gospel (5:31-32) to justify divorce in case of unfaithfulness. The word in the Greek text for allowing divorce is porneia (which means incest or fornication). It referred to unlawful marriages between close relatives during Jesus’ time, which were unlawful (Leviticus 18:6-18), because they were incestuous (porneia). Note that the Greek word for adultery in verse 32 is moiceia (not porneia). The exception therefore is for unlawful marriages.

God Himself divorced Israel and yet He is still willing to reconcile her to Himself. His corrections, His judgments and His heart are always to reconcile; to seek and save that which is lost.

Sorry, I'm a little confused, please explain, "The exception is for unlawful marriages"? Does that mean for fornication?

Thanks,

Unconditional love is wonderful, but how would any of you deal with a situation like this:

The wife suspects the husband is being unfaithful, she then has a spirit of suspicion to fight with. She tries to ignore her feelings, and repents. She continues to feel something is not right.

She confronts him and he becomes angry that she would accuse him.
Now she has a spirit of guilt to deal with. She still has uneasy feelings and follows him. She has to deal with being secretive now.

She confronts him again and he becomes very angry and accuses her of things, off the wall things. She has depression to deal with now.

After three years, she finds out that he has indeed been unfaithful, with one of her minor daughters, his own child.
She now has, anger, disgust, self hate, bitterness, the thought of murder, guilt. suspicion, distrust, and five thousand other feelings that can and is to become sin.

Can or should this marriage continue? Would unconditional love apply here to her towards the husband or just to God because He is able?

I know this extreme, but it has happened. Thank God for His grace and understanding that we are flesh and incapable of being Him while we strive to be like Him; as much as we can.

If your spouse is unfaithful, (in a normal sense, like; not with your child) and you can't frolic in the floating flowers and hearts of unconditional love, is it worth becoming a liar and all that goes with it, including bitterness and sometimes self destructive thoughts towards yourself, which will ultimately take your mind off of your relationship with the Lord? Loving the unlovely is really hard.

You asked...In that scenario, not only is there physical abuse but emotional as well. A person that would do such a thing is purely evil with out conscience. In my non-professional opinion, for the wife and child to stay in the marriage would be a huge mistake...that's just common sense. Let the Lord and the law deal with that person, and seek support from a Bible believing, God fearing Church.

Two thoughts: 1) Unconditional love is by no means limited to the hearts and flowers of romantic love. Unconditional love has more to do with the day-to-day grind it out committment of dealing with all facets of building the the relationship. 2) God's will is both objective and subjective; Objectively He wills two people to marry as part of His plan; Subjectively, He allows people to marry for various reasons even though the marriage is not according to His objective will.

But, one way or the other, married people are not required to stay in abusive household situations. As a pastor buddy of mine tells abused spouses, "You need to love 'em from a distance".

SLE

How often shall someone sin against us, and we forgive them; till seven times? Christ tells us not till seven times, but till seventy times seven. And depending how one views this, some may say till seventy seven times; other´s say till four hundred ninety times. In either case, what do we do when we´ve reached the seventy eighth time, or the four hundred and ninety first time? We start over again! Our Lord Jesus Christ will always have us to consider forgiveness first before any other, and we know this; so why would we then consult mankind with what we know already from Him? As for the term "unconditional", it is an invented term that ambitious overseers use to attempt to promote Christ as some kind of product, and nothing more; but it has no place with God´s Word.

HisFollower: Please explain what you mean by promote Christ as some kind of product and nothing more. I don't understand how embracing the concept of unconditional love - which, in my opinion, is described in 1 Cor 13:4-7 - attacks Christ or demeans Him in any way.

SLE

It includes marriages that do not meet the requirements of the law. For example it unlawful for close relatives to marry. Such a marriage is incest. It is therefore not a true marriage. Some people people fornicate without getting married. Though this could be a common-law marriage it is not a real marriage.

Your spouse is your spouse until death; more so than your son is your son. If your son commits a terrible crime he is still your son. It is the same with your spouse. Obviously, if your spouse is dangerous you may have to stay away from him/her until the problem is fixed. However, you would have to find help for his/her problem just like you would do if he/she had a terrible infectious disease.