"What if God created marriage to make us more holy than happy?"This is the question author Gary Thomas asks in his book "Sacred Marriage". If we ponder this question we may find that it can bring a dynamic change in how we view our marriages! If happiness is way down God's list of reasons for creating marriage, then why do we see so many marriages end because "I'm just not happy with this person anymore". What if we began seeing marriage as one of the tools God uses to conform us to the image of His Son. What if we began to view our marriages as a spiritual discipline instead of means to simply meet our needs. What if we began to view our marriages as a sacred possession...a sacred creation of God...a sacred gift? If we could adopt these views our marriages would cry out to the world that our God is good, He is loving, He would die for us (and did!), He wants intimacy and oneness with us!
So in order to investigate this "sacred" view of marriage we must do three things:
1) Search for God in our marriages: We'll call this Sacred Searching
Throughout the Bible you will find God using marriage as the illustration or symbol for what He is trying to do in us and through us to the world! For example: "...as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." (ISA 62:5) Here God uses marriage to illustrate how He feels about His people! He feels like a bridegroom on his wedding day (or even His wedding night!). It describes commitment, passion, intimacy, excitement, joy, love...and on and on!
2) Learn what our marriages can teach us: We'll call this Sacred Learning
Through the illustration of marriage and matrimony God can teach us things like love, perseverance, forgiveness, and servant hood, along with many other necessary life lessons and disciplines! Marriage can be a training ground for so many areas of our life! By learning to love our spouse unconditionally we learn how to love God unconditionally...By persevering in marriage we learn to persevere in many other areas of life...When we can forgive the person who knows us better than anyone, our spouse, we can learn to forgive others for much lesser things...And when we can learn to serve our spouse, even when we don't feel like it, or when we feel they don't deserve it, then we can learn to serve God and learn to serve most anyone!
3) Allow God to reveal His glory through our marriage: We'll call this Sacred Presence
In the Old Testament God gave Moses very detailed instructions for how to build the Ark of the Covenant. One of the instructions was that he was to put two angels kneeling with their wings outstretched toward one another. This gives us a portrait of what marriage can be when we follow God's instructions. How, you might ask? Well, angels are created beings, just like humans, and so God wanted two created beings with their arms reaching toward one another placed on the ark and then he said this in Exodus 25:22, "There, above the cover between the Cherubim that are over the Ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you...". God has promised that when we reach for each other as husbands and wives...He will be in between us...meeting with us...and the closer we get to each other...the closer we both get to God! That's God's promise to us in our marriages!
We can choose to have a sacred view of marriage. We MUST have a sacred view of marriage if we are to see it and live it like God wants. Does God want us to be happy in our marriages? Yes, of course, but is happiness the point? No. God has much higher purposes for our marriages than we often understand or imagine. But if we search, learn and pursue His presence, we'll find that He has beautiful days ahead for all of our marriages!
In His Grip,
Pastor John
7 comments:
That would explain why I'm not HAPPY!!
It would be so nice if the church of God would get back to the ''old-fashion ways.'' Yes, it may not be ''cool'' but it will last . Preachers need to stop sugar-coating everything , take heed , preach on HELL. Opps, do we even talk about that place anymore? Sure our God is all loving and died for us.....but he also has a wrath. PREACH ON HELL OR DON'T PREACH AT ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!
We don't respond to annonymous posts, letters, calls, etc. So comment with a name and email address...or don't comment at all.
I think it's important to point out that the church is a family, so we would hope that anyone could come to anyone personally - not anonymously - to discuss any questions, issues, or problems; and we hope that it would be done (by both parties) in love.
Quick fun fact for "Anonymous". According to the the New International Version, Jesus mentions "Hell/Hades" 13 times in the gospels and that includes where the gospels repeat the same stories. Jesus mentions "Love" 63 times. That means that Love was at least 4.85 times more important to Jesus's ministry than Hell was. So should we follow the "old-fashion ways" or should we follow the example laid out for us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? God is Love brother (or sister).
P.S. I still love you Anonymous.
Bruce says, You gotta love these guys".
I wholeheartedly agree with 天氣晴朗!
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