Guidelines to a Meaningful Marriage
1 Corinthians 7:2-40
The following, classified ad, appeared in the Rocky Mountain Newspaper in Denver, Colorado. Will trade. Will trade my non-cooking and non-shopping wife with attitude problem for one Super Bowl ticket. No Indian givers. Call Jim,
762-1000. Hurry!
Jim claimed that he wasn’t kidding, although he was known to play practical jokes. He said the idea occurred to him the day after the AFC championship game, when it snowed heavily in Denver.
“She refused to go shopping,” he said. “She said the roads were too slick, so she made me do it. I get tired of that stuff after a while. If I could get a Super Bowl ticket, it would be a one-way trip.”
Sharon, his wife of eighteen years, was asked what she thought about his little advertisement. She said, “He’s dead meat.”
Marriage is the first institution created by God, and remains the holiest of all earthly relationships. When a couple believes marriage is more about self-fulfillment than self-denial it will soon self-destruct. Marriage is the unselfish union of a man and a woman who care more about each other than themselves. Therefore, all couples need to identify each other’s needs and never neglect each other. Make every effort to seek to please each other for the glory of God.
(1 Corinthians 7:3 NKJV) Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
There is no human institution more sacred than the union of one man and one woman in marriage. Marriage is a place where we learn about commitment. The Bible teaches that marriage is to be a permanent relationship of one man and one woman freely and totally committed to each other as companions, for life. Therefore, see your marriage as an ordained partnership. Declare your commitment regularly to each other. Working through our problems is harder than walking out on our spouse. Resolve to not walk out. Don’t use the word or reference “Divorce.” Seek reconciliation and quit looking for a way out.
I once read about an older woman who was celebrating her golden wedding anniversary. Someone asked what her secret was to a long and happy marriage. She said, “On my wedding day, I decided to make a list of ten of my husband’s faults which, for the sake of our marriage, I would overlook.” One of the relatives jokingly asked her what were some of the faults she had chosen to overlook. She replied, “To tell you the truth, I never did get around to listing them. But whenever my husband did something that made me hopping mad, I would say to myself, ‘Lucky for him that’s one of the ten!’”