One of the first news stories of 2004: Britney Spears walked into the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas right down the aisle and married childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander. Two days later their marriage was annulled even before The National Enquirer could spread the news they got married in the first place. Not to worry, though, because most other Hollywood marriages last much longer. Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra lasted almost five times longer than Britney and Jason, as did Cher and Greg Allman. Nine days. And for you old timers who think that it's just this generation, recall that in 1964 the marriage of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine lasted only 38 days. Not what we'd call perfect couples.

Britney's publicist explained that she just "took a joke too far." OK, I get it, the new way to have fun is to say "I do" at the altar and at some later time - days, weeks, years - drop the punchline, "Ha, I was just kidding." Fickle love is far from funny, though. Because of that risk, many people who are single prefer to stay single; they've just heard too many horror stories about relationships gone bad because of fickle love. On the other hand, some are more open to the idea of a steady relationship, but they insist it has to be a healthy one based on real commitment.

Commitment. Now there's an idea! What makes The Perfect Couple is not a smile glamorous enough to put them on the cover of People magazine, not a brood of well-behaved children, and not the fact that they've put up with each other long enough to celebrate a 40th wedding anniversary. What makes The Perfect Couple is commitment - it's a type of love that never gives up, always gives in, and goes out of its way to say "I do" over and over and over again by what it does as much as what it says. The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. Married or single, you're in a relationship like that right now, because through his prophet Isaiah, God promises you his love and declares you and Him to be The Perfect Couple.

Rejoicing over each other

These words in Isaiah reveal the Lord's joy over all believers, "You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God." Like a young lady who just got engaged can't stop gawking at her new gold ring studded with a sparkling diamond, God beams with joy when He looks at you. You are absolutely precious in his sight. "How attractive and beautiful they will be" (Zech. 9:17) one of God's prophets writes about believers. Of course, almost anyone can be made to look beautiful, and such was the extreme makeover God performed on us!

Anyone who has ever been called names can relate to God's Old Testament people being called "Deserted" and "Desolate," nicknames referring to the embarrassing fact that Israel had lost possession of the promised land. God had graciously given the people of Israel the land of Canaan to have as their own. A place where they could enjoy the natural resources, interact in the world economy, live peaceably, and worship God in a magnificent temple. Their land was the envy of other nations. They could protect it as their own possession, NOT by amassing army forces or building weapons of mass destruction, but by committing themselves in a faithful relationship to the Lord God above all else!

But instead, they cheated on God and scorned his love. Through another prophet God squints his eyes, clinches his jaw and detests their sin, "Israel defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood" (Jer. 3:9). The people of Israel rejoiced with greater pleasure over foreign idols, putting their trust in stone and wood images rather than God. The ruined the land God had given them with their filthy sins of adulterous idolatry. So God kicked them out of the land for a time and sent foreign nations to take them into exile. These foreign nations gave nicknames to the people of Israel to mock their claim that the land belonged to them as a gift from God. "Deserted … Desolate!"

Our promised land is not just a place like heaven, but an existence everyday in the lavish care and the almighty protection of our heavenly husband, God. He longs for us to rejoice in his love, but in how many ways have we given our love to a different god? How many times have I cheated on God and chosen quick and convenient earthly pleasure in the form of greedy selfishness, ignored responsibility or lustful glance? Committing adultery against God means ruining the land of his care and protection and being forced to leave it as much as the Israelites were exiled. A perfect God will not allow adulterous people to commit our filthy sins in his presence.

Can your shame hear the devil making fun of you and calling you names because you've lost possession of God's promised land of care and protection? "Deserted … Desolate!" Are you really willing to trade the lasting relationship of God's love for the temporary turn-ons of this world? You can't have both! Do you really want to turn your back on God so that you can enjoy pleasures that satisfy your sinful nature but not your soul? You can't have both! A loving God goes into action to win back your committed love.

God goes to the extreme and promises his loving commitment to adulterous sinners like us. God says, "I do" and marries you to keep you from an exiled life of lonely lovelessness. God, your Groom from heaven, bends to his knee by bowing down and becoming human in Jesus Christ, He reaches out his hands on the cross to propose to you and embrace you with forgiveness, and then He slips on your finger the glistening jewel of his glorious resurrection that promises you life everlasting with Him in his heavenly home. Repenting of your sins and rejoicing in God's love you say, without hesitating, "I do." And now, like a bride who takes on her husband's last name, you have a new name that identifies you to be closely connected to God forever, as God proclaims through Isaiah, "You will be called 'my-delight-is-in-her,' and your land 'married'."

To convince you of his loving commitment, God continues, "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." A groom knows full well that the woman he marries isn't perfect but on his wedding day the only thing on his mind is how perfect she is. God knows full well that you aren't perfect, but in the unending wedding day of his committed love the only thing He has in mind is how perfect you are cleansed by the blood of Christ. "As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you," God speaks to the land that Israel would repossess and, ultimately, to the spiritual land of care and protection that all believers repossess, taking possession of it like Israel took possession of their homeland once again. Today politics have prevented the physical nation of Israel from maintaining a peaceful existence in their physical homeland, but this promise applies to the spiritual nation of Israel, all believers, and no matter how much strife we endure we know that God's promise stands forever. We belong to him as a bride belongs to her husband! The Perfect Couple!

Reporting about each other

God goes on to remind us how The Perfect Couple behaves. The Perfect Couple talks to each other. God talks to you in Scripture with words of promise and you talk to Him with praise. God talks to you in Scripture with words of comfort and you talk to Him with the confidence that he's interested. God talks to you in Scripture with words of his will and you talk to Him with willingness to obey. It's the delightful dialogue of faith and God will never let up or give you the cold shoulder, vowing, "I will not keep silent."

The Perfect Couple also talks about each other. Visit a couple recently married or celebrating an anniversary and you'll hear them talk about each other in loving terms - and, if they really consider you special, they'll let you see their wedding photo album or even their wedding video. God loves telling the world about us and our relationship with Him. He says, "The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory." Others notice. They see that you have prioritized God in your life and appreciate the blessing of prayer. They don't hear your lips poisoned with the same filthy words as everyone else. They realize that you love God and that God loves you, and through it God wants them to realize that He loves them too.

In her book, "Why We Love," Helen Fisher proposes that romantic love is produced by specific chemicals and networks in the brain, namely, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. She writes, "I speculated that the feelings of euphoria, sleeplessness, loss of appetite as well as the lover's intense energy, focused attention and increased passion … might all be caused by heightened levels of dopamine or norepinephrine in the brain. Similarly, I believed that the lover's obsessive thinking about the beloved might be due to decreased brain activity of some type of serotonin." Studying people who had just fallen madly in love, Fisher experimented with their responses to different stimuli like a picture of their loved one, and the results of her study prove her point. Certain chemicals and networks in the brain increased in activity when a person looked at the picture of his or her loved one as compared to other pictures. Despite her excellent research, I highly doubt that any of you will send a Valentine card to your sweetheart in a few weeks with a picture of a brain on the front. We all know that the heart is at the center of love!

Ah, the heart. The place of our deepest desires, so deeply mysterious that they can't be studied and charted and analyzed. Because true love isn't human, it's divine, a gift from God for us to enjoy in our relationship with Him and with others. For those who are single, God's message today is comforting. You are complete. You lack nothing since you have been bound to God in a relationship of committed love as The Perfect Couple. For those who are married, the message today is also comforting. Though you can't be the perfect partner, God always is. Though you may want more from your spouse than he or she gives, God gives you everything you need all the time. You and God are The Perfect Couple. Amen.

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