Your life is basically normal—at least most of the time. You are moving closer to marriage, and you think you couldn’t be happier.
You’ve been learning about building a marriage upon a foundation of God’s Word. The relationship with your future spouse is going well. (Okay, maybe it isn’t perfect, but what relationship is?) But for some reason, there’s a nagging feeling deep inside you, hinting that there’s something more. That you’re still lacking something. That you’re missing the basic issue at the heart of every problem in every marriage. That there’s a secret to building the type of marriage and family relationships you desire.
Do you want to know the secret to building the type of marriage and family relationships you desire?
The secret is this: If you want to experience marriage the way it was designed to be, you need a vital relationship with the God who created you and offers you the power to live a life of joy and purpose.
Jesus Christ said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). And Psalm 16:11 tells us, “In [God’s] presence is “fullness of joy.” God gives us a biblical plan for making family relationships work, and He gives us the power to follow that plan through a relationship with Him.
There is a problem we all face, however. It’s a problem that prevents us from establishing a relationship with a holy God, no matter how hard we try. That problem is sin.
In our world today, “sin” is not a popular word. Many people have little idea what sin is. Put simply, sin is a term that means missing the target, or missing the mark. Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Most of us have assumed throughout our lives that the term “sin” refers only to the really bad acts, like murder. But in reality, sin is anything that breaks God’s laws, and it is impossible to go through life without sinning. Look at the 10 Commandments, for example. Here are three of them from Exodus 20:3-17:
If you have broken any of these commandments—even told little “white lies” or stolen something small, like envelopes from work or a pen that doesn’t belong to you—then you are guilty of breaking God’s laws. And it is that sin that creates a gap between you and God.
None of us has trusted and treasured God the way we should. We have sought to satisfy ourselves with other things and have treated those things as more valuable than God. We have gone our own way.
According to the Bible, we have to pay a penalty for our sins. We cannot simply do things the way we choose and hope it will all be okay with God. Following our own plans leads to our destruction. Proverbs 14:12 tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” And Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.”
The penalty for sin is eternal punishment and separation from God. And no matter how hard we try, we cannot make up for the sins that we have committed. God is holy, and we are sinful. In order to enter heaven, God demands perfection, and we have already seen that no one can be perfect. No matter how hard we try, we cannot come up with some plan, like living a good life or even trying to do what the Bible says, to avoid the penalty for having sinned.
Thankfully, God has a way to solve our dilemma. He became a man through the person of Jesus Christ. He lived a holy and perfect life in obedience to God’s plan. He also willingly died on a cross to pay our penalty for having sinned. Then He proved that He is more powerful than sin or death by rising from the dead. He alone has the power to overrule the penalty for our sins.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).
Christ died for our sins, . . . he was buried,. . . he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).
The death and resurrection of Jesus has fixed our sin problem. He bridged the gap between God and us. He calls all of us to come to Him and to give up our own flawed plans for how to run our lives. He wants us to trust God and His plan.
If you agree that you are separated from God, He calls you to confess your sins. All of us have made messes of our lives, because we have stubbornly preferred our ideas and plans over God’s. As a result, we deserve to be cut off from God’s love and His care for us. But God has promised that if we will agree that we have rebelled against His plan for us and have messed up our lives, He will forgive us and will fix our sin problem:
To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
When we “receive” Christ, we acknowledge that we are sinners and that we can’t fix the problem ourselves. It means we turn away from our sins. And it means we trust Christ to forgive our sins and to make us the kind of people He wants us to be. It’s not enough to just intellectually believe that Christ is the Son of God. We must by faith—as an act of the will—trust in Him and His plans for our lives.
Are things right between you and God? Are God and His plan at the center of your life? Or is life spinning out of control as you seek to make your way on your own?
You can decide today to make a change. You can turn to Christ and allow Him to transform your life. All you need to do is to talk to Him and tell Him what is stirring in your mind and in your heart. If you’ve never done this before, consider taking these steps:
Once you’ve spoken to God, read the following prayer and decide whether it expresses the desire of your heart:
Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be. Amen.
If this prayer expresses the desire of your heart, pray it right now, and Almighty God will forgive you of your sin and make you His own, just as He promised.
For a person who is a follower of Christ—a Christian—the penalty for sin is paid in full. But the effect of sin continues throughout our lives:
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing (Romans 7:19).
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
The effects of sin carry over into our marriages as well. Even Christians struggle to maintain solid, God-honoring marriages. Most couples eventually realize that they can’t do it on their own. But with God’s help, they can succeed. The Holy Spirit can have a huge impact in the marriages of Christians who live constantly, moment by moment, under His gracious direction.
Self-Centered Christians
Many Christians struggle to live the Christian life in their own strength, not allowing God to control their lives. Their interests are self-directed, often resulting in failure and frustration.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).
Self-centered Christians cannot experience abundant and fruitful Christian lives, because they trust in only their own efforts to live right: They are either uninformed about—or have forgotten—God’s love, forgiveness and power. These Christians
Some or all of the following traits may characterize Christians who do not fully trust God:
In fact, individuals who profess to be Christians but who continue to sin should realize that they may not be Christians at all:
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God (Ephesians 5:5).
By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments (1 John 2:3).
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. . . . No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God (1 John 3:6,9).
Spirit-Centered Christians
When Christians put Christ on the throne of their lives, they yield to God’s control. The interests of these Christians are directed by the Holy Spirit, resulting in harmony with God’s plan.
[Jesus said,] “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23).
The following traits result naturally from the Holy Spirit’s work in the lives of Spirit-centered Christians:
The degree to which these traits appear in the lives and marriages of Spirit-centered Christians depends upon two things: (1) the extent to which the Christians trust the Lord with every detail of life, and (2) how mature those Christians are in Christ. Of course individuals who are only beginning to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit should not be discouraged if they are not as fruitful as mature Christians who have known and experienced this truth for a longer period of time.
Jesus promises His followers abundant and fruitful lives as they allow themselves to be directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. As you give God control of your life, Christ lives in and through you in the power of the Holy Spirit (see John 15:1-11; Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:11).
If you sincerely desire to be directed and empowered by God, you can turn your life over to the control of the Holy Spirit right now (see Matthew 5:6; John 7:37-39).
First, confess your sins to God, agreeing with Him that you want to turn from any past sinful patterns in your life. Thank God in faith that He has forgiven all of your sins because Christ died for you (see Colossians 2:13-15; 1 John 1:9; 2:1-3; Hebrews 10:1-18).
Next be sure to offer every area of your life to God:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2, NASB).
Consider what areas you might rather keep to yourself, and be sure you’re willing to give God control in those areas.
Then, by faith, commit to live according to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and power:
I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do (Galatians 5:16-17).
And trust in God’s promise:
This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him (1 John 5:14-15).
If you become aware of an area of your life (an attitude or an action) that is displeasing to God, simply confess your sin, and thank God that He has forgiven your sins on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross. Accept God’s love and forgiveness by faith, and continue to have fellowship with Him and to walk in the Spirit.
Consider practicing this exercise—Spiritual Breathing—as you give control back to God:
This is the essence of walking in the Spirit—exhaling and inhaling, maintaining an attitude of repentance hour by hour, day by day.
No matter how much you try to please God with your life and your marriage, you will experience frustration and failure if you’re working in your own power. The secret is to establish a dynamic relationship with God.
This new commitment of your life to God will enrich your marriage. Sharing with your spouse what you’ve committed to is a powerful step in solidifying this commitment. As you exhibit the Holy Spirit’s work within you, your spouse may be drawn to make the same commitment you’ve made. If both of you have given control of your lives to the Holy Spirit, you’ll be able to help each other remain true to God, and your marriage will be revolutionized. With God in charge of your lives, life becomes an amazing adventure!