You And Me Forever: Marriage In Light Of EternitySample

"Love Your Spouse Less"

Jesus said very little about marriage. On a few occasions, however, He mentioned marriage in order to warn us against over-exalting it! That means that if you value your marriage too much, you’re going against one of the few instructions Jesus gave on the subject!

In Matthew 10, Jesus gave a job description to His disciples, which included a warning that following Him would lead fathers to divide from sons and mothers from daughters—it would even lead to enemies in one’s own household. Not the family-friendly message we often associate with Christianity!

Jesus was clear that the disciples’ families could not take priority over the mission He was giving them. On another occasion (recorded in Luke 14), Jesus turned to the large crowds following Him and told them that any man who refuses to hate his wife for the sake of following Him can’t really be a disciple. Yikes! 

“Hate your own wife” is probably not the advice you were expecting to receive from a study on marriage. But that’s how Jesus instructs the husbands who were interested in following Him. 

Honestly, it’s a message we don’t like to hear. But Jesus was clear: You can’t follow Him if you’re clinging too closely to your family. No relationship takes priority over your relationship with Jesus. If you want to follow Jesus, you can’t even cling to your own life.

Count the cost. That’s how Jesus ended this dialogue in Luke 14. Clinging to Jesus requires loosening your grip—perhaps letting go completely—on every other thing in your life. Are you sure you want to follow Jesus?

Discuss with your spouse: How should Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 and Luke 14 affect the way you relate to each other?