1 John 4:20 (NIV) If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen.

Why does it seem like we can get along with other Christians better than with our spouse? Many of our relationships work because we don’t know much about each other. We work together and only know what we have to know. In a marriage, the knowledge spreads out to almost every area of both people’s lives.

Our spouse knows a lot about us. They have experienced some things that have hurt the relationship. They feel feelings based on those experiences. And, these feelings are very strong because of the expectations that exist in a marriage.

We can feel fine about people we have never met. We can feel fine about the God we have never seen. But, the people we start interacting with can create some real problems for us. The closer we get to a person, the more we start having problems with them. That is what makes the marriage such a good measuring device for how we are doing in our spiritual growth and ministry.