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July 17, 2023 - May 20, 2024
God “established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind.”
God “established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind.”
The Bible begins with a wedding (of Adam and Eve) and ends in the book of Revelation with a wedding (of Christ and the church).
The Bible begins with a wedding (of Adam and Eve) and ends in the book of Revelation with a wedding (of Christ and the church).
Marriage is God’s idea.
Marriage is God’s idea.
Plenty of people who do not acknowledge God or the Bible, yet who are experiencing happy marriages, are largely abiding by God’s intentions, whether they realize it or not. But it is far better if we are conscious of those intentions. And the place to discover them is in the writings of the Scripture.
Plenty of people who do not acknowledge God or the Bible, yet who are experiencing happy marriages, are largely abiding by God’s intentions, whether they realize it or not. But it is far better if we are conscious of those intentions. And the place to discover them is in the writings of the Scripture.
Here we will see that a new and deeper kind of happiness is found on the far side of holiness.
Here we will see that a new and deeper kind of happiness is found on the far side of holiness.
God devised marriage to reflect his saving love for us in Christ, to refine our character, to create stable human community for the birth and nurture of children, and to accomplish all this by bringing the complementary sexes into an enduring whole-life union.
God devised marriage to reflect his saving love for us in Christ, to refine our character, to create stable human community for the birth and nurture of children, and to accomplish all this by bringing the complementary sexes into an enduring whole-life union.
In other words, the Biblical authors’ teaching constantly challenged their own cultures’ beliefs—they were not simply a product of ancient mores and practices.
In other words, the Biblical authors’ teaching constantly challenged their own cultures’ beliefs—they were not simply a product of ancient mores and practices.
practical, realistic insights and breathtaking promises about marriage.
practical, realistic insights and breathtaking promises about marriage.
Unless you’re able to look at marriage through the lens of Scripture instead of through your own fears or romanticism, through your particular experience, or through your culture’s narrow perspectives, you won’t be able to make intelligent decisions about your own marital future.
Unless you’re able to look at marriage through the lens of Scripture instead of through your own fears or romanticism, through your particular experience, or through your culture’s narrow perspectives, you won’t be able to make intelligent decisions about your own marital future.
“So if you are a reasonably well-educated person with a decent income, come from an intact family and are religious, and marry after twenty-five without having a baby first, your chances of divorce are low indeed.”
There has never been a culture or a century that we know of in which marriage was not central to human life.
Now you are fully accepted and delighted in by the Father, not because you deserve it but only by free grace.
love is the very opposite of “self-seeking,” which is literally pursuing one’s own welfare before those of others.
envious brooding on the better situations of others, and holding past injuries and hurts against others.
Without the help of the Spirit, without a continual refilling of your soul’s tank with the glory and love of the Lord, such submission to the interests of the other is virtually impossible to accomplish for any length of time without becoming resentful.
To have a marriage that sings requires a Spirit-created ability to serve, to take yourself out of the center, to put the needs of others ahead of your own.
It is impossible for us to make major headway against self-centeredness and move into a stance of service without some kind of supernatural help.5
The deep happiness that marriage can bring, then, lies on the far side of sacrificial service in the power of the Spirit.
“he had done at home in glory and gladness.”6
That means paradoxically that if we try to put our own happiness ahead of obedience to God, we violate our own nature and become, ultimately, miserable.
Seek to serve one another rather than to be happy, and you will find a new and deeper happiness.
while at the same time filling you with deep doubts about your own judgment and character.
The wounds justify the behavior.
Both people crippled by inferiority feelings and those who have superiority complexes are centered on themselves, obsessed with how they look and how they are being perceived and treated.
“OK, I shouldn’t do that—but you don’t understand me.” The woundedness makes us minimize our own selfishness.
If two spouses each say, “I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,” you have the prospect of a truly great marriage.
that you lose yourself to find yourself.
It means taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met and are, in fact, being met so that you don’t look at your spouse as your savior.
Those who stop concentrating on how unhappy they are find that their happiness is growing. You must lose yourself to find yourself.
“fearfully beautiful.”
we are completely accepted and loved by the only One in the universe whose opinions really count.
will rest in the righteousness of Christ and learn to rejoice in it. Then I can look at males or career and say, ‘What makes me beautiful to God is Jesus, not these things.’”
He was too tormented by his past and his bitterness to change, even to save his family.
The shame and sense of powerlessness that had stoked his hate and misery had vanished.
But each of us comes to marriage with a disordered inner being.
Others of us hope that unending affection and affirmation from a beautiful, brilliant romantic partner will finally make us feel good about ourselves. That turns the relationship into a form of salvation, and no relationship can live up to that.
come into our marriages driven by all kinds of fears, desires, and needs.
Until God has the proper place in my life, I will always be complaining that my spouse is not loving me well enough, not respecting me enough, not supporting me enough.
They both take people “out of themselves.”
How can we grow in the fear of the Lord, so we are not controlled by other fears?
to not expect our spouse or our marriage to meet all our needs and heal all our hurts.
