3 Keys to a Strong MarriageSample

Key #2

Here is Key #2 to a strong marriage: Look to God’s Word. The Bible is how we get a vision for our life. Too often we are trying to conform to the world’s vision for marriage, and it fails miserably. 

Instead, as a Christian, focus regularly on what God says about your role in marriage, and become a doer of His Word. When you govern your relationship His way, it works! 

To best understand your God-given roles in a marriage, read, study and meditate these verses regularly (they’re posted here from the AMPC version). Write them down and put them on your bathroom mirror if you need to. If any of it sounds like bad news to you, read it again! Every word is in the Bible for your benefit—ask God to help you understand it and walk in it. He has only your best interests at heart.  

(Side note: be sure to only read the part that is addressed to you! Don’t read what God is saying to your spouse and try to “make them do it”).

• Wives, read Ephesians 5:22-24, 33 – Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself the Savior of [His] body. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands... let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [[a]that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and [b]that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. (Also read 1 Peter 3:1-4)

• Husbands, read Ephesians 5:25-33 – Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless]. Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and carefully protects and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members (parts) of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is very great, but I speak concerning [the relation of] Christ and the church. However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self. (Also read 1 Peter 3:7)