A few days ago I was having a conversation with my son, basically about how someone we both know and love who is unhappily married and why people get married for the wrong reasons. My son said to me “I don’t see why people need to get married, can’t they just live together? why do they need to sign papers or make a big deal?” Can you say jaw dropping because that is what my jaw did. Have I failed my child on his views of marriage? He is only 27 and has never dated or had a girlfriend where did he get this idea? I am a strong believer of marriage and that it works when you find someone you LOVE and make God the center. Though I am single and always have been, yes I have dated but I never found someone worthy to spend my life with. Most of my friends and family who are married its been working. An NO I am not saying marriages are perfect but it requires work and effort. I tried to explain to him the positives of marriage but he is convinced that he would be fine just co-habitation. Now I feel being a single parent has twisted his entire view of relationships. Maybe I should just wait for him to be in love and see if his views change but then again he has no interest in finding a relationship of love.
In the covenant of marriage, husband and wife must give themselves to each other. It is not fifty-fifty; it’s one hundred-one hundred. At any given time either spouse won’t have 100 percent to give, but it does not diminish because they are not in a contract but a covenant. As in a covenant of grace initiated by God to save sinners, one party can give 100 percent even if the other gives nothing. In a gospel – centered marriage, you give yourself to your spouse regardless of the goods or services because that’s what true love is and because that’s what glorifies God.
If everything goes great and you find out as you start your life together that marriage is exactly what you expected, you’re in. But if you’re like very normal human being and things get a little problematic, and you find out you married a sinner who’s go some crazy he or she was hiding away, you’re still in. This is why biblical marriage is so serious and why divorce is so serious.
Forgiving and loving our sinful spouse, we begin to understand on a much smaller scale what it meant for our holly God to forgive and redeem us God’s relationship to the church is not contractual; it’s convenantal . And what is mind-blowing about God’s convenantal love toward the church is that God fulfills the obligations of both parties!
Phoenix: Live Love Laugh 