Marriage – Love Covenant or Love Contract
Marriage is a commitment to life, to the best that two can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other human relationship can equal, a joining that is promised for a lifetime. Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. Marriage is a supreme sharing of experience, and an adventure in the most intimate of human relationships. It is the joyous union of two people whose comradeship and mutual understanding have flowered in romance.
“Haven’t you read,†he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘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.†- Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV)
Today you and God proclaim your love and commitment to the world, and we gather here to rejoice, with and for you, as you commit your life to each other. The Bible teaches that marriage is to be a permanent relationship of one man and one woman, freely and totally committed to each other for life. Such great estate did God hold this relationship that he placed it above all others; “therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh.â€
What is the power of love that brings two into one being?
There are those that would say that it is providence, others claim that it is fate, and yet others believe that it is destiny being fulfilled. Could it be that it was not fate, chance, luck or providence that brought you and God together but the captivating power of love? It is amazing the power that lays in that little four letter word “loveâ€.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—[30] for we are members of his body. [31] “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.† [32] This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. - Ephesians 5:28-32 (NIV)
- Could it be that marriage is God’s greatest idea?
- Good marriages are directed by God’s Holy Spirit, not providence, fate, destiny.
- God’s match making is driven by God’s love that must be followed like following the Holy Spirit in our Spiritual lives.
- To be one person great sacrifices will be the normal daily activity of a successful marriage.