What makes you attractive ?

One area in which self-delusion abounds today is in what makes one attractive to the opposite sex.
Males, especially, seem to have an ongoing problem in this area. But women too can be misguided when it comes to understanding the laws of attraction.
This is particularly so when it comes to how to keep the power of attraction long term in marriage.

One of the questions I ask young couples in pre-marital counselling is:  “What do you think will make you attractive to your husband or wife after many years of marriage?”

Some suggest: “If my husband or wife keeps themselves looking physically attractive…”
It is true there’s nothing very attractive about becoming a slob who doesn’t care about looking nice for your wife or husband.
But, many near physically perfect film stars and models don’t seem to have a very good track record when it comes to holding on to their marriage partners.

Others give the “right” answer: “If I am caring, and meek, and godly, and always doing the right thing…” Certainly this is even more important.
But again, it is not enough to sustain attraction in a long-term, intimate relationship.

Let’s look at Psalm 45:

A Royal Wedding

This is one of the royal Psalms.
These are Psalms that focus on “the King” (see vv 1,5).
In some Psalms the “king” is David; in other Psalms the Messiah (eg. Psalm 2); in others, God Himself (eg. Psalms 93, 96, 97, 99).

It is also a wedding Psalm (I think it is the only wedding Psalm).
Here we see the King preparing to wed his bride (see vv 13-15).

And it is a Messianic Psalm.
Verse 6 addresses the King as God: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your kingdom.”
But in verse 7 it says: “You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You…”
– The King is addressed as God.
– Yet, the King is directed to Another who is His God!

The writer of Hebrews (ch 1:7-8) solves this for us.
He tells us this Psalm is about Jesus, the Messiah.
Jesus is God, the Son.
But, at the same time He is distinguished from God, the Father.
Jesus is the One anointed by God the Father to reign as King over His kingdom.

Who is the “royal daughter” who marries the King ?
Ephesians 5:32 tells us the “bride” of Christ is the church, i.e. that vast body of believers redeemed from their sin by the blood of Christ.

Revelation 19:6-7 portrays the royal wedding of Christ and the church.
Here is:
– God Himself: “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!”
– God’s Anointed, Jesus Christ: “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come…”
– The Bride of the Lamb, the whole body of believers: “…and His wife has made herself ready”

Psalm 45 is about the marriage of Christ and believers.

The Great Attraction

This is “a good theme” (v 1).
If so, one matter that will weigh upon your heart is:
What will make us, as a body of believers, attractive to Christ ?

This was the burden of the Psalmist’s heart:

“Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear…” 

He tells us what makes you attractive:

“Forget your own people also, and your father’s house;
“Because He is your Lord, worship Him…
…So the King will greatly desire your beauty.”

When God instituted marriage, in Gen ch 2, He said: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Here is the most attractive thing about any husband to his wife (or, wife to her husband):

• he has forsaken all others
• he cleaves only to his spouse

In the words of the marriage ceremony: “Forsaking all others (leaving), will you keep yourself only to her (cleaving), as long as you both shall live?”
This makes your wife uniquely special in your life.
This is what makes you especially attractive to her.

When a wife knows she is unique in her husband’s eyes, when she knows she is the centre of his earthly universe, he will never look more attractive to her.
When a husband knows he is the centre of his wife’s earthly universe, she will never look more attractive to him.

On the other hand, there is something peculiarly ugly when a husband, or wife, does not forsake all others; but builds up an intimate relationship with a third party.
There is nothing more ugly than unfaithfulness in a marriage.

Leaving: “Forget your own people also, and your father’s house…”

To “forget” here means: to leave behind your former way of life.

This kind of commitment requires us to: leave behind your family.
Christ commands those who would be His: “Forget your father’s house.”

Earthly marriage requires you to leave behind your former family (Genesis 2:24).
That doesn’t mean that you forget your father and mother, in the sense that they are erased from your memory. The command to “honour father and mother” endures as long as father and mother do. Nor does it mean you cease to love your father and mother.
But it does mean that, from now on, your wife will have priority in your life.
You must leave your parents’ household, and focus instead on building your own household with your wife.

Similarly, Jesus said: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – and yes, even his own life also – he cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26)J
Jesus didn’t mean we are, literally, to hate “father and mother”; certainly not the “wife” that we leave father and mother for.
But, He did mean we are to love Him more; He is to have first priority.

This kind of commitment also requires us to: leave behind your people.
The culture around us makes continual demands upon us in terms of:

• Entertainment, and leisure: the movies you might watch, or the clubs you might go to. “They think you strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you” (1 Peter 4:4).
• Values: In the name of “tolerance”, “your people” expect you to treat all ways of life as equally valid.
• Idols: When we are young, and strong (but poor) “your people” make an idol of wealth.  When we are old and wealthy (but no longer young and strong) “your people” make an idol of youth and beauty.

And this kind of commitment requires us to: leave behind the world of sin and the devil
Without Christ “your own people” follow the devil. Jesus says of those who do not love Him: “You are of your father the devil.” (John 8:42-44)
The test of God’s fatherhood in your life is that you love Christ: “If God were your Father, you would love Me,” He said.

If you now love Christ, forget this former “father’s” house – in every way possible: hate, loathe, positively detest everything to do with this former “father”. Don’t set up a new house, and go on visiting the old.
“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11)

Cleaving: “He is your Lord, worship Him”

Your long-term attractiveness to your spouse is not in your physical appearance.  Nor is it found merely in such qualities as being caring, and meek, and godly, and always doing the right thing – as attractive as those qualities are.
What makes you especially attractive to your spouse is that they know that they are, to you, the centre of your world – at least when it comes to all other earthly relationships.  Only your relationship with Christ has priority over that.

Likewise, in our relationship with Christ: How will it be that “He greatly desires our beauty”?
Because you have left all, and are now devoted to Him! He is the centre of your world.
Nothing else is so attractive to Him.

How is such devotion seen?
After all, history is strewn with thousands of hopeful relationships, where a young man, in a moment of passion, professed to his girl: “I’m hopelessly devoted to you” – when, really, all he was, was hopelessly devoured by his own lust.
It is easy, in a moment of passion, to say those words to get what you want.

What is the real evidence of devotion to Christ ?

If you are devoted to Christ: “He is your Lord”
That means, we will obey Him.
Plumer comments:

“If Christ is the Husband, He is also the Lord.  [That means] He must be obeyed promptly, uniformly, universally, cheerfully, lovingly.”

Jesus Himself says this over and again (John 14:15, 14:21, 14:23, 15:10 etc). Eg.

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” John 14:21

Perhaps you wonder at those words: “He who loves Me will be loved by My Father”.
You object: “How can my obedience and devotion to Christ affect how much the Father loves me?  Isn’t the love of God, unconditional; it doesn’t depend upon what I do.”
That is true – so far as your salvation goes.  God could not love you any more, nor could He love you any less, when it comes to whether or not He loves you enough to save you (assuming, of course, that you are saved).
But your attractiveness to Christ is most certainly affected by how you live.
Your devotion to Christ is evident in your obedience.

Look again at Revelation ch 19:7-8

“The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.
“And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”

This is difficult to understand.
On the one hand, with Count Zinzendorf, we wholeheartedly confess:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress
‘midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.

I.e. We are accepted and beautiful in God’s eyes, only as we are “arrayed” in the righteousness of Christ. Nothing else!

On the other hand, we read the Bride “has made herself ready” “arrayed in… the righteous acts of the saints.”

But here “the righteous acts of the saints” refers to the attractiveness of sanctification, rather than the fundamental beauty of Christ’s righteousness in justification (which is the sole basis on which God accepts us).

Just as (ideally) a wife is loved by her husband – no matter what mood she is in.
But how attractive she is to her husband is affected (as we have seen) by whether he knows he is, to her, the centre of her earthly world.

Also:

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” John 14:23

Wow! “We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
What is it, that the Bride does, that helps nurture such intimacy?  “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…”

We are coming to the One who “loves righteousness, and hates wickedness.” Psalm 45:7
If you are devoted to Him, you too will “love righteousness, and hate wickedness.”

Is Christ the centre of your world?
Not just the centre of all earthly relationships – such as your husband or wife might be.
But your whole world – because only then: “He is your Lord.”

Also, if you are devoted to Christ: “Worship Him”
In this Psalm He reigns as God the Son.
We worship Him, along with:
– God the Father (whom we worship, in v 7)
– and God, the Holy Spirit.

Though, in this Psalm, we worship Him:
– not simply as God the Son,
– but as the Messiah, sent by God, to redeem us from our sin.
We worship Him, as the Husband and Lord and King of the church.

Is He your Lord? Do you worship Him?
There will come a day when: “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…”
Don’t leave it till that day.
Because then, it will  be too late.

We are here on this earth to glorify God… and to enjoy Him.
Ultimately this is about the glory of God.
It is not just about bowing at the name of Jesus.
Ultimately, this is about glorifying God the Father:
“At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord… to the glory of God the Father.”