Tag: Keys To A Successful Marriage

‘Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.’ Colossians 3:18-21(NLT)

‘If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. ‘ James 3:13-17(NLT)

‘By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.’ 2 Peter 1:3-4(NLT)

There are two kinds of wisdom at work in this world. There is the earthly natural wisdom and the wisdom that comes from above, God’s wisdom. You cannot live a God-glorifying marriage on the basis of common sense or human wisdom. You live a God-glorifying life on God’s wisdom. 

The word of God is going to be the standard for my life, therefore, the standard for my marriage. The word of God is trustworthy and is enough. If all I had was the Word of God to navigate the married life, I’d have everything I need. The latest self-help book can’t add one thing that I have to have. The one thing that I have to have is found in Scripture. The word of God is to be applied. I can know it, but if I don’t live it, there will be no benefit from what I know. 

The Church is Vital to My Marriage

Your relationship to the church is going to have an effect in your married life. God’s people should experience His health in their marriages, as they live according to His word in their relationship with the rest of the family of God. The church is the fellowship in which there is mutual instruction and accountability. The church is where I learn from people who are more experienced than I am. It is also where I’m able to invest in people that which I do learn so that I can help them in their walk with God. We help, exhort, and strengthen each other. Sometimes we correct each other. 

The Christian Life is Simple

You go to the bookstore and you find all these books saying, “15 Ways to Understand a Woman.” Good luck with that! God’s instruction is simple. The focus in Paul’s letter to Titus moves from this large picture of salvation to the specific commands regarding marriage or raising children. Those commands are simple and straightforward—shockingly brief in most cases. 

We are called to live the Christian life in every realm of our life including that sliver of life that is called marriage. If the main things are the main things in your life, the Lord will guide you whenever you grab dinner on your way home, to find out that your wife had prepared a meal.

Live your married life to hear, “Well done.”

from Keys To A Successful Marriage

‘So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. ‘ 2 Corinthians 5:9(NLT)

‘Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. ‘ Philippians 2:3(NLT)

‘For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ‘ Romans 8:29-32(NLT)

God’s word is for saved people to live out. It requires new life in Jesus Christ, new capacities that allow you to glorify God. In a marriage where salvation has taken place, the person has a new nature. They have spiritual sight, understanding, and access to the truth. They have access to the power of God, therefore a new ability to live out what God gives in His word. They have a whole new set of ambitions that can be boiled down to one, to please Him. That is the goal for your marriage, for your existence. That one day you will be able to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “I made my ambition to please you in the way I related to my wife/husband.”

People with a new nature have a new security, and as a result, a new endurance. We’ve watched godly people strive to please God by the way they relate to a husband or wife who is not loving them back. God gives them the grace necessary to live that life. That is not possible apart from salvation. 

We’ve been granted a new humility. Before we knew Jesus Christ, all we had access to was all that self-centered existence in sin. Only the love of God introduces you to love that says, “I want to put you before me.” It’s a servant’s kind of love, a sacrificial kind of love, and a love that believes therefore acts. 

God has granted to us a new love. We’re instructed to be compassionate for each other, tender-hearted. So much of the conflict that you see in marriages is hard-hearted, is just a selfish callousness that we can mistreat someone and not break our hearts doing so. 

The new birth imparts to us a whole new set of values. We have a realistic set of expectations as a result of salvation. If I’m living my married life out of the Gospel, then I understand that the Lord has saved me, but He has not yet perfected me. He is progressively conforming me to the image of His Son, but there are going to be many stumbles and failures along the way. I am constantly a work in progress on this side of Heaven. Should I expect anything different from the person I’m married to? If you expect your marriage to be perfect, you will be perpetually disappointed. 

New life means departing from the old ways. It’s new life, new identity, new ways that belong to the new person. The best thing you will do in your marriage is live the Christian life at home. Live a Scripture-saturated life. 

from Keys To A Successful Marriage

‘Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.’ Colossians 3:1-17(NLT)

Most of the struggles we have in marriages are not due to a lack of information. They are due to a lack of obedience to what we already know. I’ve had the privilege to shepherd churches for thirty-four years, and I’ve done a lot of marriage counseling. I can tell you that most of the time the people sitting in front of me are not suffering from a lack of information. They have grasped the information. They could even give you the right answers of how their attitudes ought to be. They just don’t have within them the desire to do what Scripture says, or they don’t know how to live it out. 

Individual Perspective

What needs to be in place in your own life if your marriage is to glorify God? What needs to be in place as an individual if you’re to experience the joy, unity, sense of purpose, and worship that God means for marriage to be? Marriage is not a 50/50 proposition. This is often how we think, whether we’ll admit it or not. “Well, the reason that I responded that way, is because you responded this way. If you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have said this. If this hadn’t been your attitude, this wouldn’t have been my attitude.” As if somehow we’re excused to disobey the Lord because the person we are married to has not treated us properly. I want to remind you that glorifying God in marriage is a 100/0 proposition. That is, what I do, I do unto the Lord. And the life that glorifies God can be explained in the two great commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. That is something that I am responsible for, regardless of how I’m treated, and that includes marriage. 

We think about the love of God, a love that preceded our love for Him. He loved us before we ever loved Him, when we were unlovely, and even now the story of love is not our love for God, but God’s love for us. And it is this kind of love that we’re to demonstrate in all of our human relationships, including the relationship of marriage. So when you think about your marriage, instead of thinking about what you wish your spouse was, think about what the Lord’s work in your life should look like. This means that the first foundational issue for you as an individual is salvation.

from Keys To A Successful Marriage 

‘As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. ‘ Titus 2:1-6(NLT)

‘For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.’ Titus 2:11-14(NLT)

We need to realize that what we often want is not what scripture gives us. What we want, are answers to our day-to-day questions. How can I better communicate with my wife? Like, what do you do when you grab dinner on your way home and then you find out that your wife prepared a meal? You eat it. It will be the best pound or two you gain in your life. These are the sort of issues we’d like to talk about. 

This is not what God gives us in His word. When you look at the marriage-specific passages, that is not the focus. When you get to these passages in the New Testament, they come at the end of long passages that deal with larger issues about salvation, and then when they get to the marriage issues, they are surprisingly brief and simple. Contrast that to what you see when you walk into a bookstore and you see the marriage section. What do you see? You see lots of volumes that deal with marriage. Contrast also with the hunger you find from people to go to marriage seminar weekends, videos, and talks, bringing home books. I understand the desire. I just want you to see the contrast between the amounts we give to this subject in book form versus the focus it’s given in the word of God. 

When we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, it allows us to believe that the Scripture not only supplies our answers but guides us in our questions. If we will discipline ourselves to ask the questions the Scripture raises, then we will find that the Scripture supplies the answers to the questions it raises. 

You will also find that when you embrace what Scripture does reveal, it is amazing how the indwelling truth teacher, how the indwelling Christ our Lord will guide us to respond to these practical issues that we face in our day-to-day lives. In other words, if you get the big things right, it’s amazing how God takes care of the smaller things. 

from Keys To A Successful Marriage

‘He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.’ 2 Corinthians 5:15(NLT)

‘My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ‘ Galatians 2:20(NLT)

‘Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.’ Ephesians 5:2(NLT)

Live by the covenant and not by your mood. Part of the challenge of marriage is that people tend to be consumed with how they feel in the moment instead of the covenant conviction. The key to a marriage is that it is not about you, but about God’s glory. How do I die to self so that I can be the tool that God uses to invest into my spouse, so they can be all that God intended for His glory—and hence the good of the culture, the good of the marriage? 

God is into the transformation business. We have been called from sin to know Him, to become like Him, to be useful to Him. You are to come alongside your spouse and help lead in that process. What I see too often in marriage counseling is that people say, “We have marital problems.” I think they are not marital problems, they are character deficiencies that show up in your marriage. Part of that is 

· Lack of commitment to your role 

· Lack of understanding of your role

· Being consumed with your mood and not the covenant. 

These are crucial matters for a God-honoring marriage. 

But we get impatient because we’re pragmatic, and we want to know what to do here, how do I deal with this, how do I respond to this situation. And what we’re often missing are those foundational things without which we don’t even know how to respond rightly about those more particular things.

John Piper wrote a book on marriage called “This Momentary Marriage” in which he said, “It is marriage that sustains love, and not love that sustains marriage.” In other words, our view of marriage fuels our ongoing love for each other. Out of the conviction of the covenant, we love each other. 

from Keys To A Successful Marriage

‘Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. ‘ Hebrews 11:1(NLT)

‘No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.’ 1 John 4:12(NLT)

‘Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. ‘ 1 John 4:18(NLT)

Sometimes, young couples say they want to have a strong marriage and family life because they come from a background where the marriage wasn’t solid. A broken home brought them a lot of pain and heartache, so they’re worried about repeating that. They think, “I don’t have a good model that I grew up in, I’m about to get married, and I’m afraid that someday we might head down the same road.” 

I’d like to encourage couples and tell them that we tend to be conformed to our focus. Sometimes when someone has an angry father, they say, “I will never be like that,” and amazingly they turn out to be just like their father, because they lived their entire life focused on him and what they do not want to be. In the same way, we can do that with marriage, saying, “I saw my parents’ marriage struggle, so I want to make sure that I don’t do this and don’t do that.” I want to encourage couples to think differently. Instead of focusing on what you’re not going to be, focus on what you are going to be. 

Set your focus on what Scripture teaches. A good marriage begins with selection. So, who are you going to marry? Marry someone who loves the Lord. Someone who genuinely, unmistakably is born again. Make sure that you are born again and that you both love the Lord Jesus Christ. Then build your lives out of reverence for the Lord in every aspect. Pay attention to what God says about marriage being a lifelong union. One man and one woman for life, so you’re not even going to consider divorce. Your mind is not going to go in those areas. 

You’re going to pursue sexual purity, and believe the Bible and obey the Scripture and what it speaks to those issues. Husbands are going to strive to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Wives are going to see that they respect their husbands and live out what the Bible teaches about being a wife. So, it’s building your life on Christ and the Scriptures. 

Let that be your focus. Instead of living your life out of fear of what you’ve seen go wrong, live your life in faith, focusing on what the Bible puts before us as the model.

from Keys To A Successful Marriage