Marriage Matters Series

The issue is not so much compatibility but forgivability. You will have many opportunities to forgive and if you’re like me, maybe even more times you’ll have to ask for forgiveness. Here are some practical ways to put this into practice.

• Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. The night before our wedding rehearsal, the pastor took us down by a river and read Ephesians 4:26-27: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. And do not give the devil a foothold.” He challenged us to make a vow not to ever go to bed angry. The idea is to forgive your mate or stay up late. Needless to say, we’ve had a few late nights!

• Don’t get “historical” by bringing up past wrongs. I heard about one husband and wife who literally walked around the house with ledger books to record every wrong their spouse did. It wasn’t until they threw these records of wrongdoing away that they were able to move toward intimacy. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says “love keeps no record of wrongs.”

• It’s better to be reconciled than to be right. Or, as one book title puts it, “You can be right, or you can be married!” James 3:18 says, “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

• Live out your covenant vows. Marriage is not a contract; it’s an unconditional and exclusive covenant. Staying married is not so much about staying in love, it’s about keeping your covenant with God and with your spouse.

In Old Testament times there was a ceremony between two nomadic tribes to promise a son or daughter in marriage. The fathers would butcher some animals, cut the carcasses in half, and then at sundown walk barefoot through the blood path. This was referred to as “cutting a covenant.” The slaughtered animals symbolized what would happen to either party if they violated the conditions of the covenant.

There are nearly 300 references to the word “covenant” in the Bible. A covenant was an exclusive, solemn, and binding mutual agreement between two parties. In Ezekiel 16:8, God compares His commitment to His people to the covenant vow a man makes to a woman in marriage: “...I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.”

• It takes three to make marriage work. A young boy was asked what he learned in Sunday School from the story of Jesus turning water into wine. After thinking for a moment, he answered, “If you’re having a wedding, make sure Jesus shows up!” In God’s marital math, 1+1+1=1.

Your marriage won’t last long if you don’t have any outside help. Paul Tripp says, “If God isn’t at the center of your longings, your longings will never be satisfied.” Adam and Eve didn’t begin to have problems until they moved away from God. Let me say it like this: Your spouse is not your Savior. Only Jesus can be your Savior.

Among the surest predictors of whether a couple will stay married is how regularly they put Jesus first and how often they gather with God’s people for worship.

A couple years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to come across an article in Newsweek with a provocative title: “Can our nation’s churches save marriage – and the family?” Drawing from a new book called Endgame: The Church’s Strategic Move to Save Faith and Family in America, the columnist makes this statement: “Faith and family life have hit record lows even as the science continues to mount telling us how much they matter for the welfare of men, women and children…the decline in church attendance in America is inextricably linked to the decline of marriage.”