Introduction

In the year 1970, Paul Williams and Roger Nichols wrote the song, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” famously recorded by the brother-sister duo, “The Carpenters.” It was originally written for an ad campaign, and it was written as a wedding song. And the Lord put this song in my mind this morning, which He will sometimes do with different songs, because there is a message He wants to convey through it. And this song is about a marriage and the processes it goes through, but it is also for the purpose to sell something.

So, I looked up the word “sell” to see what it means, and it rendered: “to dispose of or manage for profit.” So this could be to dispose of a marriage, to give it up, “to give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty, and especially for personal gain; to give up property to another for something of value; to give up in return for something else especially foolishly or dishonorably” (MW Dictionary). So this could be about a marriage between a man and a woman, or it could have to do with our marriage to Christ, or both, I believe.

Jeremiah 8:4-8 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

4So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says:
“Do men fall and not get up again?
Does one turn away and not return?
5Why then have these people turned away?
Why does Jerusalem always turn away?
They cling to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6I have listened and heard;
they do not speak what is right.
No one repents of his wickedness,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has pursued his own course
like a horse charging into battle.
7Even the stork in the sky
knows her appointed seasons.
The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush
keep their time of migration,
but My people do not know
the requirements of the LORD.
How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the Law of the LORD is with us,’
when in fact the lying pen of the scribes
has produced a deception?”

God and Spouse

There are many people in our world today professing faith in God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – who are going through what appear to be the motions of marriage to God and to spouse (if they are married), but it is all for show. It is a deception. It is something they are selling to other people but it is a con job. It is in appearances only. They want to appear to others as though they are doing well, that they are true Christians, and that they are faithful to their spouses, but it is all a ruse. It is just for show.

The truth is that they are habitual liars and deceivers who portend one thing outwardly but who are those who have fallen into sin and who have remained there, and they have not returned to the Lord or to their spouses in love and in faithfulness, even if they try to give an outward appearance of love and faithfulness. They sin against God and against their spouses deliberately and habitually without true remorse and with no genuine repentance and change of heart, mind, and behavior which lasts.

So, why do they do this? Why do they sell (dispose of) their marriages to Christ and to their spouses? Because they want their sins more. What they long for is the sinful pleasures of their flesh, so that is why they keep going back to them over and over again. Even though they will profess with their lips their love for God and for spouse, and for a healthy and biblical relationship with both, they cling to their sins, instead. And they cling to deceit to cover up their sins in order to give a false appearance of good.

And it isn’t that they don’t know the requirements of the Lord. They do! They do not know them intimately like in a close and personal relationship, for they reject them and they ignore them in order to keep on in their sinful pleasures. But many of them will put on a performance as though they are following the ways of the Lord, and as though they are doing what the Lord says we must do as His followers, but while they continue to sin in secret, but not in secret from God, for He sees and knows everything we do.

The Gospel

But Jesus Christ taught that to come to Him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) Him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to His commands, in His power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

For God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for Jesus’ return. For it is not the one who claims he is “in Christ” who is “in Christ,” but it is the one who has denied self, died with Christ to sin, and who is now walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in practice, and no longer in sin. We have the hope and the promise of eternal life with God in heaven (see Titus 2:11-14; 1 John 1-3).

So, know the truth, and obey the truth, and follow Jesus with your life.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

An Ad Campaign
An Original Work / October 23, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Trust and Obey

Words by John H. Sammis, 1887
Music by Daniel B. Towner, 1887

When we walk with the Lord
in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Not a shadow can rise,
not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear,
not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear,
not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss,
not a frown or a cross,
But is blessed if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove
the delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows,
for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet.
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way.
What He says we will do,
Where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

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