Keys To A Successful Marriage Sample

New Nature

God’s word is for saved people to live out. It requires new life in Jesus Christ, new capacities that allow you to glorify God. In a marriage where salvation has taken place, the person has a new nature. They have spiritual sight, understanding, and access to the truth. They have access to the power of God, therefore a new ability to live out what God gives in His word. They have a whole new set of ambitions that can be boiled down to one, to please Him. That is the goal for your marriage, for your existence. That one day you will be able to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “I made my ambition to please you in the way I related to my wife/husband.”

People with a new nature have a new security, and as a result, a new endurance. We’ve watched godly people strive to please God by the way they relate to a husband or wife who is not loving them back. God gives them the grace necessary to live that life. That is not possible apart from salvation. 

We’ve been granted a new humility. Before we knew Jesus Christ, all we had access to was all that self-centered existence in sin. Only the love of God introduces you to love that says, “I want to put you before me.” It’s a servant’s kind of love, a sacrificial kind of love, and a love that believes therefore acts. 

God has granted to us a new love. We’re instructed to be compassionate for each other, tender-hearted. So much of the conflict that you see in marriages is hard-hearted, is just a selfish callousness that we can mistreat someone and not break our hearts doing so. 

The new birth imparts to us a whole new set of values. We have a realistic set of expectations as a result of salvation. If I’m living my married life out of the Gospel, then I understand that the Lord has saved me, but He has not yet perfected me. He is progressively conforming me to the image of His Son, but there are going to be many stumbles and failures along the way. I am constantly a work in progress on this side of Heaven. Should I expect anything different from the person I’m married to? If you expect your marriage to be perfect, you will be perpetually disappointed. 

New life means departing from the old ways. It’s new life, new identity, new ways that belong to the new person. The best thing you will do in your marriage is live the Christian life at home. Live a Scripture-saturated life.