Devotionals
The Foundation Of A Godly Marriage
What Makes A Godly
Marriage?
Marriage, as we all know, is the coming together of two people to become husband and wife. Marriage aims at starting a family. However, if marriage aims at starting a family and any two people can come together to become man and wife, then how can we have a Godly marriage? What exactly makes a marriage Godly?To understand the question above and also answer it, it would be necessary to go to the beginning when God instituted marriage. According to how God created man, we see that God set an order in play when he created man. In Gen 1:26, God spoke to himself and said that he wanted to create man in his own image and likeness. Hence, his plan was to create man, and that man was to mirror him. When God made this statement, it was the 6th day. Hence, we can say the foundation of a Godly marriage started when God made this utterance.A quick look over the book of Genesis, especially the first and second chapters, show that everything God created started from God speaking. Since we are mirroring God in our marriage, we ought to understand that a marriage that is godly first starts from the words we speak.
I will get to that shortly.
Back to the book of Genesis, God created man to mirror him. The man was created in the image of God. If you check out this verse in the epistles, you will see that the image of God is Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” He said Christ is the image of God. So since Christ is the image of God, God’s plan to create man in his image would mean that God wanted to make man who is his Son. This would come in handy as we look at the foundation of a godly marriage.
Realizing that you are an image of God, or better still, that you are a son of God is very key to having a Godly marriage. When you want to start dating, courting and eventually starting the marriage itself, our view about ourselves determines whether it would be a godly marriage or not. Now that we have seen that God’s reason for creating you is for you to be his Son, we also see that in marriage, God expects you to also reflect and conduct yourself as his Son.
Another very important aspect of marriage is to understand how God looks at marriage itself. A look at what the Apostle Paul said will help us see what this is. In Ephesians 5, we see what Paul said.
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Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. -
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. -
Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. -
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; -
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, -
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having a spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. -
Eph 5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. -
Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: -
Eph 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. -
Eph 5:31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. -
Eph 5:32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
The essence of marriage is to mirror Christ and the Church. Hence, as Christ loved the church, so ought the man to love his wife. Also, as the church is submitted to Christ, the same way is the woman to be submitted to her own husband. I like to see it as this; the husband is to love the wife totally, he is to love the wife such that he can give everything for her and to her, while the wife is to be submitted to her husband totally and then give everything to him and for him. That is what Christ and the Church does. That is what we should also do if we want to have a Godly marriage.
Just like the foundation of a building is very important, the foundation of a Godly marriage is also very important. This is supported by what was said in the scriptures, “…if the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do?” So, the foundation of marriage is very important. Having God as our foundation in our marriages makes it impossible for the marriage to be destroyed. Remember, God cannot be destroyed, right? So if God cannot be destroyed, the foundation of such a marriage cannot be destroyed. A foundation is the part of a building that bears all the load in that building. If we put all the load of our marriage on God, then our marriages cannot be destroyed.
Solomon also said the same thing in Ecclesiastes 4:12, “a threefold cord is not easily broken.” Having a marriage view of this verse gets you to see that a Godly marriage is between man, wife, and God. Marriage is not a man and woman becoming two people; it is a man, woman, and God functioning as one. That is why God said in Genesis 2:24 that they would become one flesh. Having this singular understanding about marriage gets you to see that God is greatly concerned about your marriage, and he expects you to see this union as sacred to him. Do not forget that you are marrying your spouse as well as God when you enter into a Godly marriage.
As seen earlier, the original intention of God in marriage is to mirror Christ and his church, the character of God and God’s unconditional love for the church. Thus, as we conduct our marriages, we ought to have that in mind.