It’s been a week since I shared with you a video about the topics yet to be married couples need to discuss before they tie the knot.
Well, praise God, here is the rest of that video message. I hope and pray that many of you young unmarried couples take this message to heart because beautiful marriages don’t drop from heaven but they are made by two devoted people here on earth. And the work starts way before the couple finds themselves in the marriage, not after marriage. You know what that’s called? It is called prevention!
Unfortunately many people don’t put any effort in prevention because, well, many reasons but the common one is this: They think and believe that their story is unique and different and their love is permanent and their “unchanging love” will take them through life without any trouble.
Let me tell you something: Only God’s love remains! Everything else including is destined to change!
So, as a couple, sit and discuss very important topics, topics such as, religion, doctrines, money, sex, when and how to seek counseling, how to handle extended families, how to protect your marriages from your families and more so your love and marriage will remain to the end.
For example, the word of God is clear when it comes to who a Christian should marry: Only a Christian!
Listen:
“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
Therefore,
“Come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
And,
“I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 NIV
If you dare to compromise on this word of God, you’re by your own. God cannot be held responsible for your marital problems. So, if you are seeing someone who is not a Christian, think long and hard before you take any step (by the way, a Christian means a person who strives to follow Christ in every area of his/her life).
And also see if you and the person you’re dating/seeing now follow a similar doctrine so you would be able to avoid going to two different churches after marriage.
As a couple, discuss also how you two don’t use sexual intimacy as a tool to punish each other when any disagreement or conflict rises between you, or to use sex as a reward for “a job well done!”
Again, the Bible is clear on this one too.
Listen:
“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command.” 1 Corinthians 7:3-6 NIV
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Do you see the last verse? It says, “I say this as a concession, not as a command.”
It means, a husband cannot say to his wife, “You are here to sexually satisfy me. Your body is mine! I can do whatever I want to with it and I need to have your body whenever I want to even if you are sick or sleeping because the Bible commands you!”
What? That is called insanity!
The above passage is written for a husband commanding him to take his responsibility to “fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.” Not for a husband to lecture his wife about her “marital duty” or the other way around.
So, way before you get married, please sit and discuss candidly and openly about these and other similar important topics. Read books to help you two to be well prepared for marriage, books written by spiritual people such as Gary Thomas, Tim Keller, Dr. Juli Slattery, Steve Arterburn and more and be on the same page.
And make sure you fervently pray for your future marriage, not with the person you’re dating in a room, “praying in spirit, praying in tongue.” As I already said this many times, I will say it again here: This kind of “spirit filled prayer” kind of practice has nothing to do with spirituality but everything to do with sexuality. Whatever “spirit filled prayer” you want to do, do it alone as “a single person,” in your own home/apartment.
You will pray in a room, alone with the person you are married to, after marriage, not while you’re dating.
I hope this helps! And I sure will come back to this topic again since there are many issues which need to be addressed. ///