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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Rob Green
Started reading
January 15, 2020
God designed marriage. Marriage was his idea. He designed marriage to be one man and one woman who leave their parents and build a new life together. Therefore, all the blessings associated with this institution are based on his instructions. Second, it’s important because in Ephesians 5:31–32, Paul described marriage as a reflection of the relationship between Christ and his church. This has tremendous implications for the way we should approach marriage.
Let me begin by encouraging you to avoid two extremes when thinking about married life.
The first extreme is the belief that marriage has to be hard and difficult, with an inevitably miserable transition period.
God intends any struggles you have to show you where you need Jesus’s work in your heart.
The second extreme to avoid is the belief that marriage will be wonderful without any effort.
We need to remember that Jesus taught us to be continuously dependent on him, because as sinners we need to be. He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
A more biblical approach is to recognize that God has given us marriage to enjoy. He created it for our pleasure, and he created it to give us a glimpse of his covenant love for us.
First, I want to help you establish a marriage that brings pleasure to Christ and to you.
how to build a life together with Jesus at the center.
but many of us (myself included) are slow to identify areas where we struggle. We are even slower to do something about them without some form of personal encouragement and exhortation.
Those realizations can be a bit painful or embarrassing at first, but they are for your good in the long run.
The eight chapters in this book describe eight areas that are crucial to establishing a marriage that honors Christ, resulting in great joy for both of you.
1. Parental support
2. Physical standards of conduct
write up their standards for the physical contact they will have during their engagement.
standards are tools that can help couples live in a way that they will not be ashamed to discuss later.
3. Testimonies of conversion to Christ
a written testimony of how you came to trust in Christ as your Savior and Lord. How did the Lord draw you to himself?
it helps you focus on the incomparable gift of eternal life that God offers us.
writing out your testimony sets the stage for our first lesson about putting Jesus at the center of your life and marriage.
some couples preparing for marriage have never heard the conversion story of their future spouse.
4. Two paragraphs on why you want to marry your fiancé(e)
What is it about her that encourages you to choose her for life? Of all the men in the universe (like three billion of them!), why him?
