We all Get Married With Dreams in our Head

I imagined my wife would make a great pastor’s wife. She could sing too.  I could see her faithfully by my side as I preached to admiring audiences, occasionally doing a solo just before the message. But somewhere along the line my dreams of saving the world turned into the nightmare of feeding six children, of figuring how to take the whole family to Chuck E Cheese, of braces, and arguing about watching Terminator instead of Pretty Woman for the 30^th time.  Seemingly overnight we went from sexy nighties to ratty sweats. What happened to those dreams? Is this what marriage is really all about?

So What does God Want Marriages to be?

What was His design – “Sexy Nighties” or “Ratty Sweats”? How can Marriage make us Holy and Empower us to be like God, and accommodate any attire, any stage of life? This is the purpose of this series of messages – to discover God’s design for marriage, and to discover how to become TotallyMarried.

If we are to discover God’s purpose for marriage, we must commit our heart to God, without reservation. If we are to discover God’s purpose for marriage, we must surrender our will, our notions, our preconceptions to Him. The reason is quite shocking:

God Designed Marriage to Please Him!

1 Corinthians 7:1-2 (NIV) Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

1. “So Much Immorality”

God knew we had needs and so he designed marriage to deal with those needs. But those needs aren’t limited to sex, for marriage will also deal with anger, selfishness, pride, inadequacy, loneliness, anger. We never enter marriage perfect. We bring our character needs with us, and marriage is designedby God to deal with them.

2. God uses Marriage to Confront our Needs

No one who is afraid to face themselves as they really are should ever get married. Your spouse will quickly figure out your deficiencies, idiosyncrasies, strengths, weaknesses. Marriage reveals and often brings to the forefront our character needs and deficiencies.

3. You Decide if Marriage will Shape and Empower You.

Marriage is all about relationships and is the most strenuous “relational exercise” you will ever have. Marriage is a stress-test for our heart. Failure to deal with character needs will result in fights, relational walls, alienation, bitterness and worse. Marriage becomes God’s principle means for preparing us for eternity, as He uses marriage to mold and conform us to His Son, Jesus Christ. You can accept God’s purpose and design, or you can kick and scream and throw a fit.

4. Marriage Reveals There Is No Substitute For God.

Anyone who thinks their mate will complete them or give them total fulfillment soon discovers that will not be the case. God is our source of fulfillment and peace. Marriage simply reveals our need for Him. Your spouse is designed to complement you, not complete you. We are only complete in Christ. Therefore, we must look to God anytime we feel our spouse is not meeting our needs, or neglecting us, or even abusing us.

5. Marriage: Signpost Pointing Us to God

Marriage is used to Explore and Know God. You can either be married in a vacuum and deal with life on your own, or you can accept that God has a purpose for your marriage and that is to use it and the problems and trials to explore and know Him. Marriage can be a daily reminder of God’s presence in your life. Everything about our marriage is designed to reveal Him in a more powerful and real way.

6. Marriage Pictures Reconciliation

There is no better word to describe God’s heart toward man than RECONCILIATION. The Entire Bible is God’s message of what He has done to reconcile man to Him. He offers this hope to His people, who have constantly rejected Him and killed His prophets and even killed His Son:

Isaiah 62:5 “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you”

So much of the Word illustrates marriage and this picture of RECONCILIATION.

• God became united with flesh in Jesus Christ.
• Jesus Christ is seeking His bride for the wedding to the lamb (Rev 19:7) where we will enjoy the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14)
• Jesus reconciled God to Man so that we can know Him and have a relationship with Him.
• Marriage is the place of reconciliation that displays the Father’s Love to the world.
• Marriage pictures the ongoing relationship between Christ and His church.
• Couples will face moments of reconciliation constantly through their marriage.

7. We Must Chose between having a Man-centered vs. God-centered View of Marriage

• Man: We will maintain our marriage as long as our earthly comforts, desires and expectations are met. ( Marriage is all about my enjoyment.)
• God: We preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator (Marriage is about God’s Glory)

8. God Designed Marriage to Please Him

2 Corinthians 5:9 (NIV) So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

Paul says our goal in life should be to please God. Marriage is  more than happiness, sexual expression, bearing children, companionship, mutual care and provision. Marriage is designed be God to PLEASE HIM! We ask not “What will make me happy”? We ask “what will make God happy?”

2 Corinthians 5:15 (NIV)And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Married couples are to use their marriages to LIVE FOR HIM!

9. Marriage Fulfills the Ministry of Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:16-19 (NIV) So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Marriages model Christs forgiveness, selfless love and sacrifice.  Marriages that fail send a message to the world that I have stopped loving someone and  have broken a promise I made many years earlier. Sad that Barna notes Born Again Christians have a divorce rate that is higher than non-believers (27% to 23%) How can children believe us when we tell them God’s promise to Love and forgive them is secure when they can’t see that we honor our word.

Divorce signals that at least one of the Spouses has failed to put the Gospel first in their lives.

10. Successful Marriages require a commitment to Christian Duty.

Pictured is a 700 year old tree in the Northern Cascade National Park. These trees grow so old in the Northern Cascades because the constant rain and wetness ofthe  forest minimizes fire from lightning strikes.

1. The Western Slope of the Cascades are so wet that lightning strikes cause relatively few fires. Traditional forests face lightning initiated fires every 50 or 60 years.
2. Christian marriages will still be stuck by lightning-sexual temptation, communication problems, frustrations, trials, hardships, unrealized expectations. If marriages are heavily watered with an unwavering commitment to please God, the conditions will not be ripe for a devastating fire to follow the lightning strike.

If I am married only for my happiness, and my happiness wanes for whatever reason, one little spark will burn the entire forest down. But if my aim is to proclaim and model God’s ministry of reconciliation, my endurance and marriage will be fireproof.

11. We must practice the Spiritual Discipline of Marriage.

I must put my own relationship with God first. Sticking it out is a victory in and of itself. A 700 year old tree commands our attention simply because it has endured so long. Christians can command attention simply by staying married. When asked why, we say “would you like to hear more about the good news of reconciliation?” Of course, if our hearts are committed to God and pleasing Him, He will use our marriage to energize us and bring His Life to us!

Marriages Are The Message Of Reconciliation This World Needs To Hear And See.

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Why Did You Get Married?

Why did you get married? Why do you want to get married? Answers are varied, but usually focus on love, completeness, happiness, maybe even hotness…Some people even throw in God.

Did any one say because they wanted to please God? I don’t think so!

Marriage is a big deal throughout the world. There is something within normally wired men and women that draws us together. We are drawn into relationships, and those relationships usually end up in marriage.

In the 21^st Century we have come to regard marriage as a “me” thing. It must make “me” happy. It must have romance, it must have spontenaity, it must meet “me” needs. Books are written on how to compromise so that both me’s in the marriage are kept happy. Gone are the books about subjection and submission and pleasing the husband. Gone are the books about ruling your home and discipline and leadership. They have all been replaced with books about tolerance, sensitivity, freedom, acceptance and sharing responsibilities.

Children are raised with the idea that life is all about them and what they want, and so they go into marriage expecting the same. Most have experienced their parents divorcing, so they have this pre-programed attitude that if their spouse fails to meet their needs, they leave and move on to someone else. We have even come to accept the reality of  “starter marriages” and how they can be beneficial in opening our eyes to the hardships and struggles that marriages often have.

As most young people enamored with the romance and beauty of extravagant marriages and honeymoons soon discover, marriage quickly turns into the excitement of driving across Kansas and seeing an occasional overpass. Too often couples see marriage as an ideal that they want to have in their lives, but it soon descends into hurt and disappointment and even resentment and hatred.

So most couples who survive the turmoils of learning to live with a person of the opposite sex and opposite thinking, trade the romantic “Me-Marriage” for realistic “Mature-Marriage”. Instead of leaving the marriage because of selfish expectations, they stay in the marriage and learn to settle for or tolerate each other. The marriage becomes “livable” and “convenient”.

Is the “Me-Marriage” or even the “Mature-Marriage” what God had in mind when He designed man and woman?

God from the very beginning told Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”.

Marriage was designed to Conquer, to Win, to be Victorious! God’s Marriage must generate energy, not just energy to survive each other, but to subdue the world! God’s marriage generated energy to Overcome!

God is all about Life and Life that is Abundant, Fruitful and Fulfilling! God designed Marriage to accomplish His purpose!

God designed marriage so that the challenges and problems a couple faces should be transformational- should bring them closer to the power and purpose of God! Marriage is all about the Life that God wants us to Live! In fact, to be TOTALLY MARRIED is to have a marriage that points others to God!

Now if marriages are to accomplish what God wants, they can’t be about Me or even We.

And if Marriages are about Victory and Conquering, they shouldn’t be boring or lifeless or settling and mature. They should be about Life! The life that God gives!

We need to see marriage and our relationships with our spouses in a different light. We need to see them with God’s Design in mind. Consider these amazing thoughts:

• God did not design marriage to make US happy, but to make us HOLY!
• God did not design marriage to Benefit us, but to Empower us!

We all got married with dreams in our heads.

I imagined Lydia would make a great pastor’s wife. I could see her faithfully by my side as I preached to admiring audiences. But somewhere along the line my dreams of saving the world turned into the nightmare of feeding six children, of Chuck E Cheese, of braces, and fighting about watching Terminator instead of Pretty Woman for the 30^th time. Seemingly overnight we went from sexy nighties to ratty sweats. What happened to those dreams? Is this what marriage is really all about?

So What does God Want Marriages to be?

What was His design? Sexy Nighties or Ratty Sweats? How can Marriage make us Holy and Empower us to be like God, and accommodate any attire, any stage of life? This is the purpose of this site, to discover God’s design fro marriage, and to discover how to become TotallyMarried.

There are two Non-Negotiable beliefs that we must embrace if we are to become TotallyMarried.

1. Marriage requires a 24/7 commitment.

2. Marriage requires a new and selfless life.

If we are to discover God’s design for marriage, we must commit our hearts to God, without reservation.

If we are to discover God’s design for marriage, we must surrender our will, our notions, our preconceptions to Him. Thus begins our journey to be TotallyMarried!