Sacred Marriage

Sacred Marriage

by Gary Thomas

 

• If you get a good wife you’ll be happy, if you get a bad wife you’ll become a philosopher – Socrates.

• We can run from the challenges in marriage or we can face them.

• Marriage life calls us into a new commitment of responsibilities.

• There’s a lot of selfishness built in each of us that marriage will draw out.

• Your spouse cannot give you ultimate fulfillment, that must come from God. Yes you have wonderful times together and she makes you happy, but true fulfillment can only come from God.

• Marriage is temporary. Our relationship with God will outlive our relationship with our spouse. So a Christian marriage can find true fulfillment because both of the spouses know God.

• Only God can fulfill us ultimately. We are wrong to look into fulfillment with other humans because they cannot provide that, that comes from God.

• Spiritual growth is the main thing, good marriage will come as a result of it.

• Our first goal in marriage must be what pleases God. That takes away all selfish desires of what pleases me or what I want. So I must die to myself daily.

• Putting God first in marriage will allow you to see your wife in a different aspect.

• When our marriages do not please Christ, they will become roadblocks instead of examples of what the Christian life is about.

• The first reason to keep your marriage together is for Christ. It is your Christian duty well before any outward appearance or physical aspect.

• If just one reason a Christian should stay with their spouse, it is because Christ commands us.

• If a man does not love his wife, it is not his wife’s fault rather his. If he says he never loved his wife than he is admitting that he never acted like a Christian.

• Christ tells us that we are to love even our enemies. We are to love those that cannot pay us back or love us back – Luke 14.

• Marriage should be so much easier to love because God did not force us to get married, we chose to. So if we could not love our partner, how can we love others?

• Allow your marriage to stretch your love and make you a better Christian.

• To fail to love your wife in order to love others is a sham.

• I John 4:20-21 – if we cannot love our brother, we cannot say that we love God.

• You have to understand that your spouse to respect her and you have to respect her to love her.

• We all want to get respect, but we are supposed to give respect.

• You must be broken before you can fully understand.

• Honor not expressed is not honor.

• Respect is a spiritual discipline as well as an obligation I owe to my wife.

• A good marriage is not just knowing each other but first knowing God.

• If you want to be closer to God, you must learn to pray; and if you want to have your prayers heard, you must have the right relationship with your wife (I Peter 3:7).

• Our marriage conflicts are a hindrance to our prayers. God hates dissension (Proverbs 6:19) and when there are those dissensions in marriage, it affects more than just our marriage, it affects our relationship with our God. Dissension is a major prayer killer.

• Being in a marriage relationship shows me where I fall short.

• When marriage satisfaction pokes its head up, it’s time to get your own heart right on track.

• When we are unsatisfied in marriage, we don’t need to change our partner rather ourselves. We need to change and have the power to change.

• Sin will lead to self-destruction if we allow it to.

• Unresolved conflict leads to break-up and break-up leads to to severe pain.

• You must be careful about asking the dangerous question of “did I marry the right person”. Once you’re married, your spouse at that point is the right person.

• Most of the people that end their marriage do so because it is too tough – but suffering in hard times are part of the Christian life. We must learn to get through hard times and not give up on them.

• Struggles make us strong, but only when we work through them and not run from them.

• God does not save us from all our problems but he does help us through all our problems. Maybe it is time to get down on our knees and pray for his help. You have the opportunity to excel in character and Christian growth.

• A good marriage is not something that you find, it is something that you work for.

• You must learn to forgive and practice it.

• Don’t run from the struggles of marriage, embrace them. They can help you become a greater Christian if you seek God’s help because of them.

• We cannot control how our spouse acts or how the world acts, but we can control how we act and respond.

• Look at your marriage from a different perspective: am I learning? Is it causing me to grow? What does God want to teach me?

• Look at your marriage through the lens of eternity – how does that shape you more like our Savior.

• The average married couple only communicates about 27 minutes a week.

• Falls in our marriage are inevitable, but we can choose which way we want to fall – towards our spouse or away from our spouse. Decide that falls (struggles) will push you towards your spouse and not away from her.

• You have a Biblical obligation to draw closer to your spouse. Just as in the Christian life, not hating does not mean that you love, it may mean apathy… And so it is in a marriage. Do not be apathetic, grow closer towards your spouse.

• Marriage based on romanticism is based on selfishness, but marriage based on Jesus Christ is based with our eyes placed on him and dying to self.

• Because no one is without sin, the person you married will eventually hurt you. So we must learn to forgive.

• Forgiveness is a horribly difficult. It is not a choice of one time but a continual process.

• All of us face failures in marriage because we live with a person who fails just like we do. But we can turn that bitter juice into a sweet honey when we discipline ourselves in the Lord.

• Marriage can teach us to forgive.

• Marriage can teach us to serve.

• Christ loved the church by giving up his life for it – this is how a husband should love his wife.

• Sacrifice is not sacrifice unless it cost us something. What are we doing each day to sacrifice for our wives? What do we do that cost us something? Do we seek to emulate our Savior or want to be selfish and receive for ourselves?

• God has called you to the service of people whether they are worthy of your service or not. It’s not yours to determine if someone is worthy of your love and service or not. You love and serve because that is how you serve our God. God is always worthy to be obeyed — and serving your spouse is in obedience to God.

• The depth of marriage must be more than just lovers. You and your wife are brother and sister in Christ. That outlives the short time on this earth.

• We can train ourselves to desire what we want to desire.

• We must learn to control our tongue. There are two kinds of evils with the tongue:                                                 1) is speaking evil things and 2) not saying good things.

• Silence in marriage will only hurt your marriage.

• We love God so we listen to God. Love speaks and love listens. By our words, we draw further or closer to our God and to others.

• When our hearts grow cold towards God, other relationships suffer as well. Your wife can be literally your God-thermometer.

• Confession is good. Not because we have to confess to another human, but our confession makes us take whatever offense more seriously.

• Building a family is not a side occupation, it takes a enormous time, strength and effort.

• A Christian man might be tempted to neglect his marriage responsibilities for God’s work, but this is not right. We made a certain promise to our spouse when we got married. We cannot neglect the one we promised to and think that we are doing God’s work.

• It is one thing to do the right thing but is a whole other ordeal to do the right thing with the right spirit.

• It is true that marriage limits the things that we can do, but it also multiplies the effects that we can have.

• In marriage we must view ourselves as “we” instead of “I”.

• A selfish marriage is a hollow marriage.

• The love we have for God and the love we have for others are not two distinct things, they are two parts of the same thing.

• We should work on becoming holy individuals as well as a holy couple.