What Everyone Should Learn from Marriage

My last comment was, we practice marriage now; what does it mean for eternity? What are we supposed to be learning from marriage?

We practice marriage. We have this annoying flaw called sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” “If we say we have not sinned we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

Practice makes permanent. If we practice sin, our marriages will be wounded and stunted. We need to minimize sin and practice what is good to have a healthy and strong marriage so it will function as designed to achieve the goals of marriage.

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Goals? What are we practicing for? What should we learn from marriage? Marriage is the primary training ground for all types of relationships, especially our relationship with God. Marriage is the context that offers the relationships of husband-wife, father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and brother-sister.

These types of relationship describe aspects of our relationship with God, give us practice grounds for developing a full, healthy, multi-angle relationship with God. And if we cannot have healthy relationships with ourselves, our spouse, and those around us, we will not have healthy relationship with God.

What do we practice? Love, truth, wisdom, and life. Why? Because Jesus is love, is truth, is wisdom, is life and we are made in His image, flawed with sin. Jesus will be these things in His marriage with the Bride (whatever He means by the concept and analogy). He is refining the sin out of us, from glory to glory, to be like Himself, to have His character. So we will be love, truth, wisdom, and life back to Him to the extent we allow Him to work these attributes in us, practiced with our spouse.

And what does it mean for eternity? As we minimize sin and maximize His character, becoming our true identity and developing the good, healthy relationship with our spouse that God intends, we get a glimpse of one of the core concepts of what eternity will be like: marriage with Jesus. Again, whatever He physically means by the concept and analogy, but the spiritual and soul level character and emotion is illustrated. Talk about Heaven on Earth! The Kingdom of God has come! And it is best developed and revealed in our marriages!

Are you giving love, truth, wisdom and life to your spouse? And to God?