Schooling

Ephesians 5:^32-33 “This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and his church are one. So again I say, each husband must love his wife as he loves himself, and each wife must respect her husband.”

Why GET married, STAY married, or RE-marry? Marriage is God’s idea and Marriage Is A Spiritual Model. We are to be trained to be like God in marriage. It is a parallel. Similarly, when you come to Jesus, you are married to Jesus. When you give your life to Jesus, He becomes your love, He becomes your life. You become a part of this spiritual building, made with lively stones of human hearts. So that is why it is a strange thing for people to say, “They offended me in that church. I am done with the church. I am done with following Jesus.” I am like, “Wow! You never followed Jesus.” It is just like saying you had food poisoning in a restaurant, therefore you hate all restaurants. In fact, you choose not to eat food again. It does not make sense.

Your family, my family, our families, are to be models of Jesus’ spiritual family. Ephesians 5:^29-33 “No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his Body, which is the Church. And we are his Body. As the Scriptures say, ‘A man is to leave his father and mother and is to be joined to his wife, and the two are to be united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and his church are one. So again I say, each husband must love his wife as he loves himself, and each wife must respect her husband.” (emphasis added). It is natural of the husband to care for his wife. Not to care for your wife, is to not care for yourself. For a man to beat his wife, is for him to beat himself. Like somebody said, it is only a mad man that beats himself. Marriage is an illustration, a model, a prototype of the way Christ and His church are one. We are in a broken world. No family is perfect. No prototype is perfect. But it is an illustration of the spiritual perfect union. Even the Bible calls it is a mystery.

Why GET married, STAY married, or RE-marry? The third thing is Marriage Is The Love Lab. Just like when blood work is taken to the lab, a lot can be learnt about the person. Like the person’s blood group or even a DNA analysis of the person. Marriage is the laboratory of learning to love. One of my big brothers in the ministry said to us at some point that he believes that you cannot really be a Christian until you are married. He must have been going through some things in his marriage when he said it. So, that is an exaggeration, but what he was saying is, marriage will test your Christianity. Love is kind, love is patient, love is long-suffering… You can recite and memorize it. But marriage affords you the opportunity to live it out.

Prayer:  Father, I accept and surrender to Your plans and purposes for my marriage. I ask for the courage and capacity to defer to You consistently, in Jesus Name. Amen!