God's Instructions for Marriage

As much as I’ve laid out the mess that so many people and marriages are in recently, I want to start providing some solutions. That’s going to be my goal over the next several weeks, to lay out in a simple way, what the husband and what the wife must do in order to have a marriage they would wish for anyone.

Today I’m going to set up the context for God’s instructions for marriage. Over the coming weeks I’m going to lay out very specifically what the husband and wife roles look like according to God’s Word, so you’ll definitely want to dial back in over the next week or two. Let’s start with this:

Society has a certain perception of marriage; 1.) Casual View – no lasting commitment, 2.) Feelings View – based on current passion, 3.) Separate lives view – living together like roommates, and finally there’s 4.) Dictatorial View - the male is dominant and superior.

All of these are warped perceptions of marriage. Is this what God intended when He ordained marriage? No, absolutely not!!

I once heard a teaching on the radio and the pastor was talking about couples that were on the verge of divorce and were meeting with him for counseling. Before he would agree to meet with them, he would ask them these three questions:

·         Are you both born again followers of Jesus Christ?

·         Do you believe that the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inherent, word of God?

·         Well then, based on your positive answer to those two questions, are you willing to submit to it?

WOW – What a heavy statement! Are you willing to submit to it (God’s Word)? I guess everything in life when you come right down to it boils down to that very question; Are you willing to submit yourself to God’s instruction, to His written Word?

You see, in all of the years that I have counseled marriages that are on the verge of divorce, the one single common denominator is that one or both people within the marriage relationship is selfish. They fail to live up to their end of the bargain as far as what the word of God instructs them to do. So what then does God instruct them to do? What is their role in the marriage relationship?

The counter intuitive thing about God’s Word when you want to look up a topic like this is to realize that if you want to learn what a man needs, you look up wife and come to find that God’s Word is very clear to her on what she needs to do to meet the needs of her husband. The same goes for what a woman needs. You don’t look up wife; you would look up husband and come to find that God is very clear with the man as to what he needs to do within the marriage relationship to meet the needs of his wife.

I’ve often told young couples that I premarital counsel, “Marriage is not rocket science. It’s really quite easy because God’s Word clearly lays the details out. The difficulty then is whether or not we’re willing to sacrifice our wants, needs, and desires for the sake of the others wants, needs, and desires.

Marriage is not a 50/50 proposition as culture has taught us over the years. In God’s eyes, marriage is a 100/100 proposition and you have to be willing to sacrifice “self” for the sake of “other.” Ultimately, isn’t that what Christ did for us?

I’ll start by addressing the role of the husband first in my next blog.

Thanks for tuning in! Blessings, Todd