This past summer, I participated joyfully in the wedding of two teenagers whom I discipled through their junior high and high school years. It was great. In some ways I felt like a “proud papa” as I listened to them say their vows. I preached their wedding sermon and they had assigned me Colossians 3:12-17. As I studied the passage and prepared the sermon, I was increasingly convinced this passage contained foundational principles for a solid, Godly marriage.
Claim your Spiritual Identity
One of these foundational principles lies at the very beginning of this passage. It's easy to overlook this principle because the main focus of this passage is the four commands. However, these commands are grounded in a powerful reality. Paul says, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” This is who you are at the core of your being. This is your identity. You are a chosen one of God, chosen before the foundations of the earth to be His. You are also holy and God’s beloved. You are loved by God. It’s out of this identity that the following commands overflow, but it’s important for us to take time to understand how this identity plays out in our marriage relationships.
Don't Get Lost in Emotion
We all remember what it feels like to fall in love. We remember the excitement of someone being interested in us--choosing us--and the possibility of them loving us. I still remember the night that I realized that I loved the women who would eventually become my wife. I remember feeling like I was in the clouds--on top of the world. I also remember the night she told me she would be my wife. These moments stick in our minds and are formative for our future. However, it’s easy to get swept up in these feelings and memories and forget our first identity, the identity Paul reminds us of in this passage. We are not just chosen by our spouse. We are not just our spouse’s beloved. God chose us first. God loved us first.
That reality changes everything. Long before your spouse ever chose you, God chose you. Long before your spouse noticed you and set you apart from the crowd, God set you apart. Long before your spouse loved you, God loved you first. This reality puts things in the right perspective. It will put your priorities in order. Since God was the first one to choose you, set you apart, and love you, you must love God first, even more than you love your spouse. You must worship and serve Him first. And, you must fight to keep Him as your number one priority. If you don’t, you might undermine the very foundation of your marriage.
Maintain Perspective
To say this another way, you must love God first if you want to properly love your spouse. The same is true for loving your children. This is very different from what our culture is going to tell you. However, putting your spouse in a position higher than God is not loving, it’s putting them in a position they cannot fulfill. They will only let you down and disappoint you from this position. They cannot fulfill the needs that need to be met as the number one priority in your life. You will find yourself frustrated, angry, and disappointed if you make your spouse responsible for being your greatest source of fulfillment and devotion. Not only will all of this cause your love to fade toward your spouse, but your spouse will not actually feel loved either. So, love your spouse more by placing God in a higher priority.
John Piper wrote a poem called “Love Her More and Love Her Less." He wrote this poem to his son on his wedding day. However, I believe it’s just as applicable to wives as it is husbands, just insert “husband” wherever you read “wife.” He begins the poem by telling his son to love his wife more than wealth, friends, ease, sex, art, fame, and even to love his wife more than his own breath. Then he ends the poem with some powerful words to his son. I’ll close this article with the same words John Piper closes his poem:
Yes, love her, love her, more than life; O, love the woman called your wife. Go love her as your earthly best.
Beyond this venture not. But, lest Your love become a fool's facade, Be sure to love her less than God.
It is not wise or kind to call An idol by sweet names, and fall, As in humility, before A likeness of your God. Adore Above your best beloved on earth The God alone who gives her worth. And she will know in second place That your great love is also grace, And that your high affections now Are flowing freely from a vow Beneath these promises, first made To you by God. Nor will they fade For being rooted by the stream Of Heaven's Joy, which you esteem And cherish more than breath and life, That you may give it to your wife.
The greatest gift you give your wife Is loving God above her life. And thus I bid you now to bless: Go love her more by loving less.
This article begins a series looking at Colossians 3:12-17 and how it applies to marriages.Out of the reality of loving God most, Paul also gives us four commands. Each command is directed at drawing us into relationship and creating intimacy. You can read more about “putting on” certain characteristics, “letting the peace of Christ rule” in your marriage, “being thankful,” and “letting the word of Christ dwell” in your marriage. This final article shares anoverarching, guiding principle for your marriage.
Take daily time with the Lord. Alone. If you can pray together with your beloved, or read the bible together and talk about it, that's great. Most godly couples will tell you, this is such a blessing and so helpful to be able to do together in marriage.
The most important thing with priorities is to get them in the right order. Loving God first is better for your spouse than if you were to love them first.
You are not the head of your household. Christ is the head of your household and as you submit to Him and follow in His example, your responsibilities as a husband will come into clearer focus.
Deuteronomy 5:16. 16 “Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
The Bible does not tell us to continue in relationships with people who have damaged us or are still damaging us, family or not. In fact, the Scriptures are full of teachings instructing us to leave relationships with wicked or evil people, to be separate from them, to shun, outcast, and purge them from our midst.
He calls every man to love his whole wife just as every man loves his whole self (Eph. 5:28–29). This means that a husband must do all he can to understand his wife's world.
God allows divorce only if one's spouse enters into sexual immorality or if one is married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever deserts and abandons the believer. In such cases the non-adulterous or non-deserting person would be free to seek a divorce and remarriage but is not required to do so.
Honor Christ and put others first. A wife should put her husband first, as she does the Lord. A husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the head and the Savior of the church, which is his own body. Wives should always put their husbands first, as the church puts Christ first.
"However, it's actually healthier to make your spouse the first priority." This is because it benefits all of your family members. If you have an emotionally solid marriage with a good foundation, your children will feel happier, more stable and more secure, Thomas says.
Like most secondary and tertiary beliefs, the Bible does not explicitly say husbands should come before children. Instead, we can infer this belief in reading scripture as a whole and the purpose and meaning behind marriage.
The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.
In the King James Version, the quote is found in Matthew, 12:25: “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”
"Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children." "Honor your father and mother." "A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother." "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.
A relationship with Jesus should transcend and take precedence over family relationships. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple” Luke 14:26 (NIV).
1 John 4:20. "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen."
God's gift of the family is so precious because it is the institution to which His grace comes to deliver us from that sinful pride, from a life lived in the bondage of self. That is why He gives us a family. That is why He sets us in the church. For life in the believing family and in the believing church is not self.
Introduction: My name is Neely Ledner, I am a bright, determined, beautiful, adventurous, adventurous, spotless, calm person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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