The Purpose-Driven Marriage | MarriagePartnership.com

Selfish Transformation

The real transforming work of marriage is the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment. This is the crucible that grinds and shapes us into the character of Jesus Christ… Marriage calls us to an entirely new and selfless life… Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.

—Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan)

Through Heaven's Eyes

You may ask how you can see your spouse as God does. This perspective comes only from prayer. Concern for my wife's spiritual journey leads me to pray regularly for her, asking that I will be able to discern the Spirit's presence and activity in her life and thereby support, never obstruct, the Spirit. The more I pray for her, the more I see her as God sees her—through eyes of love and concern for her spiritual growth.

—David G. Benner, Sacred Companions (InterVarsity Press)

Pleasing To God?

If I believe the primary purpose of marriage is to model God's love, I will enter this relationship and maintain it with an entirely new motivation, one hinted at by Paul: "So we make it our goal to please him" (2 Corinthians 5:9).

For the Christian, the first question we should ask ourselves when doing anything is, "Will this be pleasing to Jesus Christ?"

The first purpose in marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God.

The challenge, of course, is that it is utterly selfless living; rather than asking, "What will make me happy?" we are told that we must ask, "What will make God happy?"

—Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan)

Time After Time

Becoming married takes time. It doesn't happen on the wedding day. The wedding is only the beginning of a relationship that can be expected to endure and grow. What happens is that over time God's grace becomes visible in the marriage relationship. It becomes visible and real to the married couple, of course, but in a wonderful way it also becomes visible to the people who are touched by the relationship, to family and friends, to neighbors and fellow church members.

—Douglas J. Brouwer, Beyond "I Do" (Eerdmans)

In the Image of God

When was the last time you looked at your mate watching TV, maybe with a beer in his hand, and thought, He is made in the image and likeness of God?

When was the last time you sat across the dinner table and didn't stare down into your plate, but into the eyes of someone reflecting the image and likeness of God?

When was the last time you pressed warmly against your mate, knowing she is made in the image and likeness of God—and not just a body there for your amusement?

What a difference a divine image can make in a marriage. When you begin to relate as males and females according to your super-natural image, you move past the popular illusions and begin to pay attention to what is essential, spiritual, eternal, and even holy about your mate. Hanging bellies, thinning hair, or sagging breasts no longer become your standard for your mate. Your perspective changes from carnal to spiritual: you cease to see your mate as just an object whose sole purpose is to attract you or satisfy you.

When you begin to see your mate as the image and likeness of God, your marriage, no matter how exiled, will instantly realign to God's order. After all, how can you disregard the image and likeness of God? Can you really justify impoliteness or cruelty to the image and likeness of God? Is it possible not to find something beautiful or handsome in the image and likeness of God—regardless of what someone actually looks like? How could anyone, in good conscience, cheat on the image and likeness of God?

In fact, devotion, respect, kindness, caring, consideration, adoration, honesty, nurturing, chivalry, trustworthiness, truthfulness—a list as infinite as the Infinite One—are the only ways to treat the image and likeness of God.

When you correctly view your mate—not according to the warped, twisted, politically correct, fly-by-night, and faddish standards of a fallen world—but as God created that person to be, you set your marriage on the high road.

—Michael Shevack, Adam & Eve: Marriage Secrets from the Garden of Eden (Paulist Press)

What Kay and I do have is a marriage centered on Christ, specifically focused on glorifying God. We remain committed to each other because we remain committed to Christ and his work within us.

After three decades in ministry, I've noticed that it's not unusual for couples to float through their first year or two of marriage in a love-blinded bliss.

But, frankly, that didn't happen for Kay and me. Our first two years together were the most difficult. In fact, we were ready to throw in the towel. If we both hadn't been committed to Jesus Christ and we both hadn't agreed that divorce was not an option, we wouldn't have stayed together. It was simply too difficult.

Kay even said that in those first few years of marriage, she often wished that one of two things would happen: either she'd be widowed, or God would change his mind and say divorce was now okay!

Since then, we've met many couples who were convinced their marital struggles meant there was no hope for healing. We can say from experience that's not true; there's always hope!

Part of the difficulty for Kay and me is that we were virtual strangers when we got married, but we began finding out things about each other immediately—like the fact that apart from our love for God, we were about as opposite in nature as two people could be.

We viewed life from two different angles and argued over just about everything. I remember Kay's father sat us down the night before we were married and said, "There are five areas where marriages usually have conflict: money, sex, in-laws, children, and communication."

He proved to be prophetic: Kay and I went five for five! We fought over every single one of those items.

Not only did we disagree over those things, we couldn't even agree about how to disagree! Kay is an intense person who needs to talk. My preferred method of dealing with problems was just to walk away. That was a volatile combination!

The single factor that kept us married in those early years was that we agreed on one thing: divorce would never be an option for us. You can't leave the door open even a little bit, or eventually one of you will try to escape.

Because we knew we were in it for the long haul, we were forced to accept each other's differences. What else were we going to do?

Slowly, over time, God helped us not only to accept our differences, but to appreciate them. Through the process we learned that any successful marriage is built upon the biblical truth that God designed each of us with five purposes in mind: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and missions.