ICS Daily Devotions
God’s Original Plan for Marriage
Malachi 2:14 Yet you say, “For what reason?” Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
Man has fallen away from God and has chosen to live their lives independent of God. Living a life independent of God in rebellion is SIN.
Marriage today is all about the big “I.” “If the relationship ceases to give me what I want, if it gets tough, or even if it just gets boring, I can walk away and start all over.”
Many fail to realize that each partner in marriage brings into the relationship years of mental, emotional, and spiritual baggage. The adjustments required when two unique individuals begin living together as one in marriage present all kinds of opportunities for emotional suitcases to pop open, revealing the good, the bad and the ugly of our lives. This is seldom a pretty sight.
Rather than facing their problems together and working to salvage their relationships, couples are taking the easy way out by getting a divorce. In the process, hearts are being broken, homes are being destroyed, and the collateral damage is rippling out into society as a whole.
It is inevitable that there will be differences in opinions, ideas, and habits, but how we resolve the differences will help us to strengthen our marriages.
Some people in the world especially in this modern society look at marriage as a contract. When it is viewed as a contract then the couple will think in terms of conditions, limits, rights, and even “outs”.
To our modern thinking, marriage is a social contract governed by the state and negotiated between the two sovereign people who share the same bed. Unfortunately, individualism is the deathbed of marriage.
A solid foundation is very important to ensure that the marriage will last. Marriage is like a house. If it is to last, it needs a solid foundation. The bedrock upon which the foundation of marriage must rest is an unconditional, mutual covenant that allows no external or internal circumstances to “put asunder” the marital union that God himself has established.”
When Adam and Eve chose to live independent of God by disobeying God, sin and individualism entered into the world.
God created for Adam a helper comparable to him because it was not good for Adam to be alone. God’s plan was for them to be one flesh. Adam and Eve were to work together to tend the garden of Eden and all that God has created.
The couple is one flesh in not just the physical union. The married couple becomes one in their goals, their direction, their will, their emotions, their mind and their spirit. They move together through life as though they were not a couple, but as though they were a single entity.
This was God’s original plan and this is His desire for us today as a couple.
Malachi 2:14b Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
The Lord was the unseen witness at the time when we exchanged our marriage vows which caused us to enter into a marriage covenant. God looked at it seriously and expects us to honor the covenant because He is a covenant watching God!
His plan also includes us having to be always connected with Him just like a three strand chord, which will not be easily broken. The third person in a Christian marriage is the Lord Jesus Christ who will hold and bind the whole marriage together in the bond of love.
As a Christian, we have a covenant relationship with God and we have a marriage covenant with one another, therefore as long as we model our marriage after the covenant that God has with us then the marriage will last.
Understanding the meaning of covenant will help many of us to understand the importance of being ONE. So it is important that we remember that we are one at all times. This will really strengthen our marriage life.
In a Christian marriage, it is not viewed as a contract but a marriage covenant. It is a sacred blood covenant witnessed and guaranteed by God himself. It is unconditional, unlimited and unending. A marriage covenant is more about trust than terms, more about character than convenience, more about giving than receiving. It reflects the very character of God.
Based on the marriage covenant, husband and wife are one and as one flesh, therefore we are to face everything together.
Sermon Series: Affluenza
