MARRIAGE ARTICLES
RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLES |
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Just as our acceptance of Christ was an individual decision, our walks with the Lord are also individual. The purpose of each of our journeys—for both husbands and wives—is to bring us to the place of completeness in Christ, where we will find our identity and walk in the fullness of His Life.
~Genesis 2:24
The word one in the above Scripture passage means to unify or collect. It is the same word used in the following passage:
~Deuteronomy 6:4
no hierarchy in the Trinity—
each individual Person
is unified in love—
there is
no hierarchy in marriage.
The individual husband and wife, like the individual Persons of the Trinity, can be metaphorically pictured as a cluster of grapes—
individuals joined together as one.
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Often at modern-day marriage ceremonies, two individual candles are lit before the marriage takes place. Once vows are spoken, the new bride and groom light a unity candle and then extinguish their individual candles. This picture is the opposite of what the Lord set forth for marriage.
Our individual flames need to remain individual in order for our marriages to be united in the love of God, as represented by the Trinity.
God is love, and so our marriages can reflect that representation of His love as husband and wife embrace their individuality, find their identities in Christ and their unity in love.
As Christian women, we should not find our identities in
and are free in Him
—free to take responsibility for our life before Him.
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relationship of addition but one of multiplication.
We are not half a person who, when added to another half a person, form a whole person. Rather, men and women are to remain the individual, whole people they were created to be—people who find their identities in Christ and are made complete by Him, whether married or not. When a whole woman who is complete in Christ marries a whole man who is complete in Christ, that couple multiplies: one whole woman, one whole man, and one whole Person (the Trinity), equals unity as one.
If we believe that our mate should complete us, we will be more prone to the marriages images that bind. Putting on those images will ultimately cause conflict in the marriage and/or strip the people within the marriage of their individuality. |
Personal Note The marriage articles in this book confirmed what the Lord was teaching me about the marriage relationship:
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The good news is that God uses relationships and circumstances, including the marriage relationship, to draw His people to Him and release them to love.
Many Christian couples do not find their identities in Christ, but God can use their marriage relationships and circumstances to grow them into Christ, their individual Head, as each one submits to and abides in Him.
A woman must first renew her mind to sound doctrine and release the teachings that bind her.
As she begins to walk in liberty, she will begin growing into the individual person who finds her identity in Him—a useful vessel for the pouring forth of His love to her husband. Ditto for the husband!
Strengthen each individual wife and husband, Lord,
so they can
go forth and multiply!
I pray this series of marriage articles challenges you to examine whether you live within your individual liberty or whether you are bound up in duty created by the images you have accepted.
from the oppression of man-imposed duty.
release Your precious daughter
to walk by the Spirit in her individual liberty,
and teach her how to manage this precious freedom
in her marriage relationship
to Your glory.
and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
~Galatians 5:1
Continue with Part 2 of this series of Marriage Articles, communicate with love and respect.
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