Sunday 17 December 2017

The Responsibilities of Marriage

Hello people, its Christmas season and time just flies by without us knowing. We thank God for the grace to see the last month of another year and as we prepare for the incoming year, I will encourage us to take stock of the past year and show gratitude to God.
In today’s post I pray and trust God to open up our minds and our eyes of understanding to be able to know and understand the depth of the responsibilities bestowed on us as married couples. More than for just the show of affection to one another and more than just for the man to have someone to handle the running on his life for him, we have a responsibilities to God and to our society with our lives and the way we handle our marriages.
As a wife when you accepted the call to marry the man you call your husband, what you invariably accepted is the call to be a tool in the hands of God to help make the life of that man you call husband better than you met him. The Bible calls the wife a suitable helper and what helpers do is to make that which they are to help better. Helpers makes things better.
And the man who has accepted the call to be a husband to a woman whom he call his wife has invariably accepted the call to be like Christ in the life of the woman that he has accepted as his wife; to be to her and in her life what Christ was and still is to the church. It’s not just about being the boss in her life, but about being the one who cares for her and her every need, being the one who protects her and nurtures her to perfection and then presents her to himself as a perfect bride.
This is one of the many responsibilities of marriage and its important that we understand these responsibilities well and prepare for them well in our hearts and mind before we venture into the marriage union. Marriage is beyond mere falling in love and wanting to be together. The reality of marriage begins the moment the covenant of marriage is signed and so before entering into that covenant it is important to have a very clear understanding of what you are entering into and be well prepared for it. 
If you are not ready to love a woman to the point of making her better than she was when you met her, then its just important that you know that you are not ready to be a husband to her yet. Being a husband is not about what you can get from the union but more about what you are prepared to give in to the union and what you are prepared to sacrifice for the union. It is what you give into your marriage that determines what you get from your marriage. 
Making your wife better than you met her is not achieved with force or stern discipline like you are trying to mold a child. The woman whom you wish to marry or are married to is already a grown woman so the method of impartation is quite different. This improvement we talk about is achieved through love; deep, unconditional, unrelenting love, in the manner in which Christ loves the church. A love that is strong enough to wash away impurities in a human character, love that is strong enough to turn wrong to right and still remain undented. 
As a woman, its important that you know and appreciate that marriage is not a bed of roses where you raise your feet and have everything done for you in the name of love. In Genesis 2:18 God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone and He purposed in His heart to make a suitable helper for the man He had made and realized needed a helper. And so God made the woman as a suitable, befitting helper to the man He had made. So as a woman it is important that you realize that first and foremost the purpose of your creation is to be a helper in the life of your man, so never expect your husband to be perfect, but you need to realize and understand that you are the perfection your husband needs. You are the one whom the Lord has created for him to make his life complete and good after God realized that it was not good for the man to be alone.
As a woman, wife and suitable helper, it is important that you understand as you enter into that marriage union that you are on assignment to be a suitable helper in the life of your husband such that you help make him a better man than you met him. Your marriage covenant which God stood to witness is you telling God that you are ready to be a tool in His hands in making the life of your husband better than before. If this was not your mindset when you got married to that man, then you got it all wrong from the beginning.
Making your husband better than you met him is not about forcing your opinion on him, you won’t get the job done in that manner. Its about submitting to your husband in obedience and letting God use your reverence, purity and humility as a tool in His (God) hands in making your husband better. In yourself you cannot achieve the set goal that God has assigned for you in marriage, but as a vessel in God’s hands you can achieve much. It’s all about God bringing the best out of your husband through you and not you literally changing your husband because no matter how you try it out without God you cannot succeed, you will only get frustrated which will most likely lead to a miserable marital life or divorce when the center can no longer hold.
And another responsibility of marriage is found in Malachi 2:15 and it reads, “Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” The second responsibility of marriage is the offspring the marriage produces. Are they the godly offspring that the Lord was seeking?
In as much as this cannot be generalized and I don’t have statistics to back this up, but based on my personal experience, I have come to realize that marriages that are not functioning right often produces children that are not functioning right. There are a lot of single parents who are determined and are working very hard to make sure they raise godly and responsible children and they are succeeding at it by the grace of God. But the burden would have been lighter and the work easier if there were two parents united as one with the fear of God and the power of God in them to raise godly offspring that the Lord seeks.
In order not to make this post too lengthy, I will stop here. In my next few posts, we will take a look at the impact of our marriage on the lives of our children and search from the word of God on this issues. Until then remain blessed. 

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