“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”   ~Genesis 2:24

According to the above account in Genesis, marriage is a holy covenant between a man and his wife, a blessed union established by God at creation between one man and one woman. 

​“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”   ~Ephesians 5:25

​The godly marriage between a man and a woman is a give and take relationship. For me, it’s about allowing a man, to be a man, the head of the house and the king of his castle. There is nothing more manly than a responsible, God-fearing, hard working, family loving man!

​“He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.”   ~Proverbs 18:22

Marriage is literally an earthly representation of a heavenly union, that of Christ and His church. God compares Christ’s relationship with the church of believers to that of a husband and wife. Comparing the marriage supper of the Lamb of God, (which is Jesus and the church), to the wedding of the bride and groom—an unbreakable covenant of love!

​“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, write: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God.”   ~Revelation 19:7-9

I recently read about an absolutely beautiful correlation between the wedding supper scene and ancient Jewish wedding practices. Apparently, after the groom had paid the dowry, he and the bride were considered legally married, even though they could not yet live together. The groom would then return to his father’s house to prepare a place for her, a place where they would live together. The bride stayed at her father’s house to prepare herself for the wedding. When all the preparations were complete, the groom would come back to the bride’s father’s house to receive his bride, and the wedding feast would take place. Afterward, he would take his bride to the place that he had prepared, and they would live together.

Now, think about this . . . Christ left His Father’s house in heaven to come to earth to betroth his bride—the church. After paying the dowry with His life at Calvary, He returned to His Father’s house to prepare a place for His bride. He promised to come back to receive His bride to take her to the place that He had prepared for her.

​“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”   ~John 14:2-3

​This comparison is just one of many, many type/anti-type correlated stories in the Bible. God has the most incredible way of making these comparisons so that we can have a here and now understanding of past or future events.

The Bible’s Song of Solomon is also another adaptation of the husband/wife relationship and the love of Jesus (the groom) for His betrothed wife (the church). As well as the books of Revelation and Isaiah to mention just a few.

​“For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth.”   ~Isaiah 54:5

The bride of Christ or bride, and the Lamb's wife are terms used in reference to a group of related verses in the Bible; in the Gospels, the book of Revelation, the Epistles and related verses in the Old Testament as well. Sometimes, the bride is implied by calling Jesus a Bridegroom. It is clear that Jesus is so in love with us that marriage is the only relationship that even begins to express His loving commitment to us.

​“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”   ~Hebrews 13:4 NIV

We must never, ever look lustfully at another once we are married. We must stay totally faithful to one another, and the only surefire way to succeed at this is to stop looking at others. If we could learn to love our spouses as Jesus loves us, we might find a depth of love beyond anything we could ever imagine. If we could always see our betrothed as the wonderful person we fell in love with—see all of the desirable traits that attracted us to them in the first place, we would stay in love and truly embrace our wedding vows.

​“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”   ~Ephesians 5:25

We need to reach a new level of, not only commitment and devotion but of love and forgiveness. We need to always give our spouse the benefit of the doubt, no matter what. We need to be their place of refuge, their shoulder to lean on in every situation. If we could just hold tightly to the Lord when things get rough; stop looking to others, stop listening to Satan’s temptations of how much sexier someone else is or how much better life would be with them—focus rather on becoming the person we want our spouse to be—we would then be able to achieve this higher level of love!

​If the grass is greener somewhere else . . . add some love and caring to your own lawn!

The next time you get frustrated with your spouse, try the following. Sit quietly and think about why you married them in the first place—what attracted you to them—what qualities were so appealing to you. And then think about how you would feel if anything happened to them, how devastated and broken hearted you’d be if you lost them!

We took an oath when we spoke our marriage vows. We made a covenant with our spouse in the sight of God and presence of witnesses that we would stay together through the good times and the bad, ​for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others until death. We got married for better and for worse. If we quit at the for worse part, we're cheating ourselves out of the for better part!

The word wedlock tells it all. The meaning of this word is: to pledge, “Till death do us part.” To vow, the state of being married, holy matrimony, a permanent conjugal bond. We are locked together, till death!​

​The key to having a marriage that Satan can’t destroy is to never have divorce as a possibility. The secret to a Godly marriage not failing is really rather simple, just remove divorce from the equation. Me and my husband decided at the onset of this marriage that divorce would not be an option. And believe me, this one thing really changes the playing field! The key to a continued successful marriage is clearly spelled out in the book of Ephesians. In the following verse, God clearly tells us the two most vital conditions to achieve marital bliss. We must cleave to the love that brought us together!

​Love and respect . . .

​“Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”   ~Ephesians 5:33

​If we would heed this very simple command from God, we would discover that love would flourish and ill feelings would all but vanish. We need to ask ourselves this most important question, is it more important to be right or to be happy? Only a fool will destroy their own home out of stubbornness.

​“The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.”   ~Proverbs 14:1

​Satan loves nothing more than to destroy Christian marriages. He will do everything in his power to stir up strife between husbands and wives. When we get angry, we stop communicating with God, stubbornness ensues, and a simple disagreement becomes a battle of wills. If both parties hold their ground when there is a major marital issue, both parties lose. Impasse is Satan’s way of killing God’s plan of sanctified matrimony.

​“The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And He answered and said to them, have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”   ~Matthew 19:3-6

If Satan can get us thinking that there is no solution, we will stop looking for one and just give up. By getting one or both parties to believe that they are right and the other is wrong, he gets us locked into a state of pride. After pride, comes the fall, and he knows this all too well, for pride was the iniquity that was found in his heart and the reason for his fall from heaven.

​“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”   ~Proverbs 16:18

​The following is a great culmination of the deep essence of several verses, Malachi 2:13-14 and Psalm 68:5-6. The devil will always point out your mate’s inadequacies, create suspicion and jealousy, and try to convince you that things would be better with someone else. But always remember that God can change our hearts . . . if we allow Him.

I’ve learned that God’s way is the best way—that if you remove divorce as a potential option, you then have no other choice but to resolve your marital issues one way or another. Prayer is, above all else, the most powerful intervention possible. If just one party prays, God will then be invited into the situation.

Christian counseling is a very viable choice when communication has ceased. Contacting your pastor for marriage counseling is a great place to start if you feel you can’t reach a resolution on your own. If you don’t have a pastor, ask a close friend or relative to refer you to theirs.

God wants your marriage to not only survive the hard times but to flourish and grow. He wants us to see His inexplicable love for us in the love we feel for our spouse. He wants us to understand His commitment to us through His sacred covenant in the binding, irreversible, sacred covenant of marriage.

​“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”   ~Revelation 21:9

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