God created the marriage "program", wrote the "operating manual", and is faithful to explain it. He is the one and only reliable and trustworthy authority on the subject of marriage. As its "inventor" (see the first two chapters of Genesis), he knows how it works and how to make it last. Lord over marriage, he has given all we need for life and godliness - and marriage - in his Word.
The Bible is the foundation for a thriving marriage.
Marriage was not invented by God, it belongs to God. He has a unique claim over its design, purpose, and goals. It actually exists for him more than it exists for you and me and our spouses.
Marriage is not first about me or my spouse. Obviously, the man and woman are essential, but they are also secondary. God is the most important person in a marriage. Marriage is for our good, but it is first for God's glory.
Christians are rapidly losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many Christians are explicitly denying that their own sin can be the cause of their personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain the human dilemma in wholly unbiblical terms: temparement, addiction, dysfunctional families, the child within, codependency, and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanism promoted by secular psychology.
The potential impact of such a drift is frightening. Remove the reality of sin, and you take away the possibility of repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan of salvation. Erase the notion of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for a Savior.
Once I find 1 Timothy 1:15-16 trustworthy - once I can embrace it with full acceptance - once I know that I am indeed the worst of sinners, then my spouse is no longer my biggest problem: I am. And when I find myself walking in the shoes of the worst of sinners, I will make every effort to grant my spouse the same lavish grave that God has granted me.
When we are first tempted to sin - for example, tempted to become angry with a spouse - the battle is within, and we must go on the offensive: our goal is to defeat the sin, to not let it break out. Should we fail at this, and sin breaks out of our hearts into the larger battlefield of our marriages, we are called to be peacemakers: our goal is to end the fighting.
Wisdoms for our marriages then, is not found in “how to” books, or in formulas for success. It is found in putting our beliefs into gear and heading down the road of wisdom with God behind the wheel.
To be suspicious of my own heart is to acknowledge two things: that my heart has a central role in my behavior, and that my heart has a permanent tendency to oppose God and his ways.
Many marriage problems could move toward resolution if husband and wife actually lived as if they were “sinners” who said, “I do”. Sinners who are humble are growing more knowledgeable about their hearts.
We all have a common tendency: we often want to fix our marriage problems by “fixing” our spouses. … Scripture does not give me permission to make the sins of my spouse my first priority. I need to slow down, exercise the humility of self-suspicion, and inspect my own heart.
Matthew 7:3-5 Jesus is not concerned here with which of you is more at fault in a particular instance. His emphasis is your focus, what you find to be the most obvious fact to you whenever sin is in view. He’s calling for the inspection to begin with me. In light of who we are compared to God, and because of the reality of remaining sin, it is nothing more than basic integrity to consider our sin before we consider the sin of our spouse. To do otherwise lacks integrity. It’s hypocritical.
Wisdom connects integrity to humility in a pretty simple way. If you suspect yourself (humility), you are more likely to inspect yourself first (integrity). This road feels narrow to us, because we are constantly looking for an off-ramp to focus on the sins of someone else. But if we stay on it, we can be confident that it will take us where Jesus wants us to go.
Okay, maybe you think you are able to be more objective than your spouse. But even if that’s true, your objectivity is itself tainted by sin. You must bring to these conversations an awareness of your own sinful drives and desires that is more tangible and more vivid than your awareness of your spouse’s in. This will lower your irritation and soften your tone of voice.
Also, avoid the off-ramp of self-righteousness. Integrity calls you to suspect and inspect your motives. Are you really doing this to bless, encourage, and help your spouse? Or do you actually have a strong interest in chalking up a few points for the home team? Do you hope to be proven right? To be vindicated? To emerge as spiritually superior? Who are you intending to serve – your spouse or yourself?
There is a lot of talk these days about the need for honesty in marriage. Unfortunately, what’s being advocated looks more like a license to verbally unload on our spouse whatever we’re “feeling” for the sake of “emotional” honesty. Sadly, this approach in practice typically produces great hurt and offense. Though honesty is essential in marriage, we must be able to build trust and resolve offense. The problem is not with the honesty itself, but in the intent of a person’s honest words.
Blame-shifting is what I do when I basically know I’m guilty and am just trying to convince myself or someone else that maybe I’m not.
Why didn’t Jesus get irritated or bitter or hostile? The simple but astounding answer is that when his engine was heated by circumstances, what was in his heart came out: love, mercy, compassion, kindness. Christ didn’t respond sinfully to the circumstances in his life – even an undeserved, humiliating, torturous death – because the engine of his heart was pure. What was in his heart spilled over. It was love!
Your spouse was a strategic choice made by a wise and loving God. Selected by him, for you, from the beginning of the world, your spouse is an essential part of God’s rescue mission for your life. Often a spouse plays his or her part by raising the engine temperature and heating the oil. But if we’re wisely honest we will realize that God is behind it all, revealing the familiar sin so that it might be overcome by amazing grace.
According to Scripture, the source of angry words, unforgiving looks and cold shoulders is not unmet needs. It’s unsatisfied desires.
Is it wrong to desire the gentle caress of a husband’s hand or the kind words from a wife’s tongue? Absolutely not. But even things that are good for a marriage can be corrupted if they are defined as needs. The problem is not that we desire-desire is completely natural; it’s that our desires become juiced with steroids. Calvin called our desires “inordinate”.
It’s not wrong to desire appropriate things like respect or affection from our spouses. But it is very tempting to justify demands by thinking of them as needs and then to punish one another if those needs are not satisfied. A needs- based marriage does not testify to God’s glory; it is focused on personal demands competing for supremacy. Two people, preoccupied with manipulating each other to meet needs, can drive their marriage down the path of “irreconcilable differences”. This is cultural language that simply acknowledges that a marriage can no longer carry the weight of demands understood as needs.
Without mercy, differences become divisive, sometimes even “irreconcilable”. But deep, profound differences are the reality of every marriage. It’s not the presence of differences but the absence of mercy that makes them irreconcilable.
Mercy doesn’t change the need to speak truth. It transforms our motivation from a desire to win battles to desire to represent Christ. It takes me out of the center and puts Christ in the center. This requires mercy.
Mercy is given to be shared. And what it touches, it ultimately sweetens. We are to pass along what we have received from God-steadfast love, inexplicable kindness, overflowing compassion. We sinned against God and he responded with mercy. We are called to go and do the same.
Here are some practical ways we can show mercy when under attack:
1. Remind yourself that your greatest enemy is “the enemy within” - your own sin.
2. When you’re not in a conflict, ask each other the question, “What behavior of mine expresses anger or a lack of love for you?” Take your spouse’s answer and attempt to do the opposite when you feel sinned against.
3. Learn to love in the style of 1 Corinthians 13 by being “patient, kind, and not resentful”. Resist being a defense attorney in your mind. Fire the “prosecuting attorney” within – it’s nothing but an expression of the sin of arrogance.
4. Memorize and apply this wise advice from James, “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires” (James 1:19-20). Applying this one verse in the heat of conflict can have an amazing effect on where the conflict goes.
5. Where patterns of sin are causing persistent problems, draw in the outside counsel of friends, pastors, etc. who can help you spot where chronic problems are occurring and provide accountability for responses of love.
Ideas like this will not eliminate conflict. But they are biblically sound strategies for responding to the heat of our spouse’s sin in a way that doesn’t just increase the temperature or complicate the process of resolution one thing I’ve learned, if I can avert a two-hour argument with two minutes of mercy, that’s a win for everybody involved.
Maybe you didn’t know this, but the Bible gives you a specific privilege in dealing with sin committed against you. It’s called forbearance. It means that you can bring love into play in such a way that you can cut someone free from their sin against you – without them even knowing or acknowledging what they’ve done! Forbearance is an expression of mercy that can cover both the big sins of marital strife and the small sins of marital tension. And let’s face it, small sins are the fuel for most marital blazes.
Let’s be careful here. Forbearance doesn’t mean we tuck sin away for another time. It’s not a variation on patience, nor is it some Christianized, external “niceness” where you pretend nothing bothers you. It’s not even a kind of ignoring the sin, in the sense of refusing to acknowledge it.
In forbearance, we know (or at least suspect) we have been sinned against, but we actually make a choice to overlook the offense and wipe the state clean, extending a heart attitude of forgiveness and treating the (apparent) sin as if it never happened. Proverbs 19:11 tells us it is a “glory to overlook an offense.” Forbearance is preemptive forgiveness, freely and genuinely bestowed.
Of course, righteousness often demands that we address the sin of another, even if that may create some unpleasant results. It’s not forbearance to suppress an offense you can’t readily release, or to prefer the pain of being sinned against to what you imagine would be the greater pain of discussing it, or to let a pattern of sin in your spouse to go completely unaddressed.
Forbearance applies to specific instances of sin. It involves a clear-eyed realization that we may have been sinned against and then bold-hearted, gospel-inspired decision to cover that sin with love. Peter gives us the key to forbearance. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8).
Self-righteousness doesn’t just who up when people sin against us. I also expresses itself what to draw too fine a line between sins and weaknesses. I don’t’ want to draw too fine a line between sins and weaknesses, because sin in fact has a weakening effect on our character. But the Bible understands weakness- areas of vulnerability or susceptibility to temptation that are different from person to person. We’re not all strong in all areas. Some are more susceptible to discouragement than others, or anger, or anxiety. Some struggle with physical weakness more than others. We all have some weakness in some areas, or else there would be no need for the power of God to operate in our lives. (Romans 8:26)
Weaknesses in our spouse can tempt us-they’re inconvenient and frustrating to what we want from our marriage. How do I respond when that particular weakness in my spouse arises again? Do I just keep insisting (aloud or silently), “I don’t see how that can possibly be a problem for you!” this is a particularly sad expression of self-righteousness. Rather than sympathizing with the weaknesses or limitations of others, we act in condescending and demanding ways. We are finely attuned to the weaknesses of others but slow to see our own.
When I grasp the mercy of God expressed to me, it opens my eyes to the bankruptcy of my own righteousness and sends me to the cross for the righteousness of Christ. I can then sympathize with my spouse weaknesses and rejoice in my own, for they reveal Gods strength (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Forgiveness and repentance is the powerful tool that repairs the damage done to sin-torn marriage relationships. And where forgiveness is employed, and repentance is lived out, it transforms. Forgiveness humbly sought, and humbly given, profoundly expresses the glory of God. Why? Because forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel-the true demonstration of God’s love for those who deserved his wrath. As John Newton said so well, “The unchangeableness of the Lord’s love, and the riches of his mercy, are likewise more illustrated by the multiplied pardons he bestows upon his people, than if they needed no forgiveness at all.”
We have been forgiven the greatest debt. Let’s learn how to forgive the debtor we married. It’s the way forward when sinners say “I do.”
When someone close to you is running from the truth, love demands that you speak. Sometimes love must risk peace for the sake of the truth.
It’s evitable. In navigating through a fallen world with a sinful heart, from time to time your spouse will experience a pattern of sin that extinguishes joy and saps the soul, revealing dangerous corrosion in one’s character or relationship with God.
We are called to be merciful and withhold judgment. But we are also called to challenge one another- to correct, exhort, and speak truth to the one we love (Hebrews 3:12-13). This can seem like a paradox, even an apparent contradiction in our call. But it’s not. On the contrary, God has set us in our marriage, at this time, with this person so that we can perform an extraordinary task of ministry. We can fulfill the call of reconciliation – turning a wandering believer back to God who saves. We can love by bringing truth in gracious ways; applying grace through speaking the truth.
It needs wisdom, courage and meekness.
According to Paul, feelings of sorrow alone aren’t necessarily conviction. We can be sorrowful for many reasons, including selfish ones. We can be sorry for the bad consequences of our sin, sorry we lost someone’s respect. This kind of worldly grief can’t begin to address the true offense of sin, and it can’t begin to change us. Only godly grief brings repentance. And only repentance testifies to the surgical effect of God’s truth applied to our sinful hearts.
In marriage, to be meek is not to be weak or vulnerable, but to be so committed to your spouse that you will sacrifice for his or her good. A meek person sees the futility of responding to sin with sin.
Sanctifying grace is good news. It’s the news that God gives persistent grace to run the race.
Grace is constantly at work in us, gradually and incrementally, so that we can patiently but diligently run the race set out for us. And a significant part of the race we will run is our marriage.
God promises persistent grace to help you run away from that sin and finish well. “Human sin is stubborn,” says Cornelius Plantinga, “ but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half so persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way.” Stubborn, persistent, unrelenting grace that changes us. Now that’s good news indeed.
Grace: the Power to Renounce the Old
Here God reminds us that the biggest challenge in our marriage is that we tend to live more like the old man (or woman) that we once were, than the new man or woman we have become in Christ. But have no fear: God has made provision for change! Grace meets us right where we are, to take us to where God wants us to be. Grace in salvation gave us new desires to please God and live for his glory. Grace in sanctification works to overcome the remaining opposition of sin and move us toward the goal that saving grace has set in our hearts.
Grace: the Power to Live
There are two aspects to sanctifying grace: a renouncing and an embracing – a turning from what is wrong and a turning toward what is right.
Grace: the Power to Wait
We cooperate with God’s persistent sanctifying grace to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. We understand that some sin, challenges, difficulties, and weaknesses may never be totally overcome, and that all change takes time. But because grace is so powerful, thorough, and comprehensive, even this waiting is for our good.
Grace interacts with time and eternity. Sanctifying grace settles our souls so that here in this waiting room we can both work and wait, trusting that God is exercising his perfect will, even in those areas where we wait and wait, and wait.
Grace: the Power to Want
Grace transforms us from within. Maybe things have drifted to a place where even the smallest kindness seems like the biggest step. Don’t despair, God has sent grace – persistent, sanctifying grace! It can work powerfully in you, not simply to call forth dutiful obedience but to make you “zealous for good works” in marriage.
Here are four things to keep in mind when encouraging your spouse in the grace of God.
1. Your spouse is inclined to drift from grace to self-effort.
I just need to do more, work harder, give it more effort.
- Preach the gospel to your spouse.
- Encourage meditation upon the riches of the gospel.
- Encourage resting in God even as the battle rages.
2. Your spouse may tend to become discouraged.
- Remind your spouse that God works beneath the surface well before change becomes visible.
- Celebrate what you can see, even if it is not directly to the area of desired change.
- Review the game plan for change. ~ sometimes grace comes through a simple willingness to take action. When it does, act decisively.
3. Your spouse can lose sight of the ultimate goal.
~ there is no one more fit to remind us of the ultimate goal of life than the person who is walking toward that goal with us in the bond of marriage.
4. Your spouse must be pointed not to grace, but to the one from whom all grace flows.
God intends for our greatest joy in marriage to come from being a primary source of joy to our spouse. John Piper says, “The reason there is so much misery in marriage is not that husbands and wives seek their own pleasure, but that they do not seek in the pleasure of their spouses.”
When it comes to your marriage, think of creativity as simply faith-inspired work, a natural outgrowth of your belief that God cares about your marriage and wants to help you improve it. The important thing is not how naturally creative or imaginative you may be, but whether you truly are walking in dependence on God in improving your marriage. As Gary and Betsy Ricucci have written, “There’s no such thing as a romance expert or passion professional. Romance must be continually practiced, like an art.”
