Marriage is a gift from God
“He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”
One of my favorite events to be a part of is a wedding! So much life, celebration, and anticipation of a great love story ahead! One of my favorite moments is when the groom first gets a glimpse of his bride! There’s something unique and beautiful about those initial moments of the rest of someone’s forever commitment to each other. As a pastor, I’ve been able to officiate many weddings, and with that comes the task of looking for the perfect Bible verses and the right words to say to bring attention to God’s heart and purpose for that particular moment. Along the way, I discovered that my favorite verse to read during a wedding is from the book Song of Songs.
come out, and look, you daughters of Zion. Look on King Solomon wearing a crown, the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced.
Song of Songs 3:11 NIV
The ending line says it all, the wedding day is the day the groom and bride’s hearts rejoice! It’s the time when your heart feels a sense of coming alive in a way never felt before. This full experience of love and joy is the gift of love that God has given us, expressed through marriage. One of God’s greatest gifts to humanity is love, romance, marriage, and intimacy, both in sexual intimacy and in deep human connection found only in a committed union between husband and wife. So don’t ever downplay the passion and love in weddings as “unnecessary” or “not something that lasts”; instead, honor it as an authentic glimpse of the love that God has given to humanity. It’s a passion to be stirred up and encouraged!
The Power Of Love
Have you ever been in an airport and watched those reunions between a dating or married couple? There’s something beautiful about seeing people in love being reunited together. I almost get choked up when I see that happen. It’s like you’re watching them find the other part of themselves! There’s an iconic movie line where the man says, “You Complete Me.” I grew up hearing all the sermons against that line because pastors were trying to say that you’re complete in Christ first and that you don’t need to try to make a man or woman complete your brokenness and emptiness. The idea is that we must be two whole people coming together rather than two incomplete halves. Now, I agree with some of that, of course, but if we’re not careful, we can diminish the true picture of love, marriage, and the two coming together as one. While your life can be great even if you never marry, there’s no doubt that we were designed not to be alone but to come together to be one. So when you choose the man or woman you want to spend the rest of your life with, the person you cannot imagine living without, it really does bring a completeness and wholeness to our lives.
Marriage Is The Goal
God designed love and romance to mature and lead toward marriage. Unfortunately, our world has distorted love, marriage, and sex, which has led to so much pain and dysfunction. Our world has made commitment and marriage the afterthought rather than the endgame of romance. Life’s principles and systems operate best when things are in the correct order and in alignment with God’s Word. Marriage should be the goal of every romantic relationship between a man and a woman. Growing up, my parents taught me that we don’t start dating someone unless we could see ourselves marrying that person.
Dating should be with the intention of marriage.
It doesn’t mean that you have to marry the first person you date, but it means you don’t entertain a relationship that you know could never end in marriage because of misaligned values and vision. Only in marriage will a man and a woman fully experience all the love a relationship has to offer. The marriage covenant's strength is what unlocks marriage's full beauty. Marriage is like the fireplace that holds the fires of passion. Within a marriage, you have passion from a few directions. Obviously, sexual intimacy is at the forefront of marriage, but you will also have the forces of tension, anger, pain, and disagreements. These passions are like a fire that will warm the house if it’s in the fireplace or burn it down if it’s not.
God Designed Everything To Progress.
Relationships aren’t supposed to stay stagnant. If you’re dating, it should progress. If you’re married, your marriage should be growing. So often, we get in trouble when we attempt to delay the natural flow of a relationship. It can be like trying to swim up a river. Or if you’ve been dating for years and not progressing in commitment, you may be caught more in a swamp. If your friendship isn’t moving towards dating, and from dating to engagement and engagement to marriage and married life to kids and growth in intimacy, then something is off.
Better Together
In an era celebrating individualism and trying to fight against uniting but emphasizing our difference and separation even after marriage, we’re really missing the point. We’re designed to operate in strength when we come together. Having levels of ourselves being lost within each other is an incredible thing because the two become one. But it’s not just a 1+1=2. When we come together, it’s multiplication, not addition. Like when a single horse is pulling its weight and then a second horse is added in, it doesn’t just double the pulling power; it multiplies it by 10x. So coming together in marriage has the ability to enhance your life greatly! God created and blessed marriage!
Marriage Is A Picture And Perfector
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:31-33 NIV
Marriage is also a picture of God’s commitment and covenant toward us. He commits to your heart and soul forever! God went all-in to seal a partnership with us! So much so that He gave his one and only Son, Jesus, on the cross! With Jesus' death and resurrection, He purchased this covenant, and nothing in heaven and earth can break and stop His love toward us. You can be confident that God won’t abandon or leave you for someone else. His covenant with you stands forever! In the same way, marriage is to be a reflection of that covenant and commitment. No matter what comes your way, be fully committed to giving all for each other.
Marriage is also a perfector. There’s something powerful about the two becoming one. That process is a beautiful and honestly sometimes painful process of laying down your life for each other. For a marriage to work and be great requires that you each grow. See marriage as a tool God uses to shape you into the masterpiece that He designed you to be. You will create beautiful music together, but the sparks will also fly as you clash! Don’t be afraid of the sparks of iron sharpening iron; it’s how you get better.
