The Starting Point For A Great Marriage
The best starting point to ensure a great marriage should come long before marriage, even before dating.
The best way to start a great marriage is to develop a deeply personal relationship with the God who loves you immensely more than any spouse ever would or could.
“Well, how can we develop a great relationship with the God that loves us?” you may ask.
Like all things with God, a loving and personal and even intimate relationship with Him is possible primarily because His Holy Spirit dwells in every believer. God desires for each of us to “know Him” intimately. Because He is just and fair, the ability to have a personal and deep relationship must be universally equal and attainable for all of God’s children.
In Christianity, there are no earthly high priests, actually no priests at all or even spiritual fathers. In actuality, Jesus is High Priest, the only priest. And as adopted children of God, our Heavenly Father is our Father.
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Mathew 23:8-12, New International Version (NIV)
That does not mean there are to be no church leaders, pastors, teachers, or those in other gifted positions teaching and leading you into a deeper walk and relationship with God. What it does mean is that you are responsible for seeking God and building a personal relationship with Him yourself. You alone are accountable for this.
As you know, Jesus was a teacher, and even when He was young, he held the leading teachers in Jerusalem spellbound. (Luke 2:47) Later in His ministry, it would be said, “He taught as one with authority.” (Matthew 7:28-29)
We tend to believe that Jesus, within His humanity, did mighty miracles and spoke and taught with super-human intelligence. But Christ was limited, as we are, to what He could accomplish by obedience to and guidance from our Heavenly Father. (John 5:19)
In other words, His life was one of deep fellowship with the Father. This allowed Him to have both guidance and empowerment in His ministry. As a consequence, He was able to successfully complete His earthly mission.
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 5:19 (NIV)
A successful marriage, one that brings fulfillment and meaning to our lives, requires us to develop and maintain daily fellowship and an ever-growing relationship with the Father. The process, as it did for Jesus, starts with the absolute surrender of ourselves to God. It is maintained by daily and complete obedience to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and his admonition within the process of sanctification, a daily clearing of our conscience, immersing our minds in the Word of God, and daily prayer.
In reality, what we are saying is that we have a choice. We can choose to live our lives and marriage in harmony with God and His purposes for our lives and all of eternity – or settle for something far less that will have to be left behind at the end of our trail of tears.
Love to all,
Ted
