Mirroring Relationship and Marriage:

 

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Eph. 5: 21

My sweet sister recently sent me a short message she had found on marriage where four, very well known pastors each gave their take on it.  Although I am not married (as a girl who desires that and is waiting for the Lord to bring me into a relationship with one of His son’s) I found this message so amazing.  

One thing that one of the pastors said really spoke to me. He said “when God brings a man and a woman together that normally the areas of weakness that the other person has, are the areas that we wish they were strong in.”  He then brought up the point of why does God do that and showed that God does that, because the gift of marriage is to conform to the image of Christ and the personal relationship that we each have with Him. Our marriage should reflect an “earthly” portrait of what our relationship looks like with Christ. Think of it like this:

What are three words that you would use to describe Christ?  I would say unfailing love, patience, and grace.  So for marriage, how do we learn unfailing love if our spouse is near perfect?  If our spouse always did what we asked of them, and seldom failed us, we would never learn the beautiful gift of love that never fails. What about patience? If you always asked your husband to do something and he quickly did it right then and there, would you, as a wife learn the gift of patience?  What about grace?  If your wife was always doing just the right thing and never disappointed you  would you, as a husband be learning the gift of grace towards her? We cannot conform into the image of Christ unless we learn how to give the same gifts that He so graciously bestows on us every day. I am, by no means saying that we can ever come close to loving someone with an unfailing love like Christ (that dear one, cannot be matched) but we can learn to step it up and to not give up on a love that Christ brings together. As a Christian, God writes your love story and He brings your spouse to you.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:7-9

We worship Christ and thank Him daily for His grace on us yet we are not willing to offer the same grace to our spouse for a mistake they made. What would marriage look like if we looked to Christ first for help in forgiving our spouse when they have betrayed us? After all we have all fallen short.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23

Our spouse may not deserve our grace, our love or our patience but we are called to give them that because Beloved, we are so undeserving of the grace, love and patience from Jesus but He gives it to us and He loved us enough to forgive and carry every wrong act we would do. He can teach us to give the same back to others as well.