Hope you’ve read last week’s post. IF you have, you know what is coming today. IF you haven’t, now is the good time to read it so this post makes sense to you.

We’ve been talking about communication. It’s a big topic to try to tackle in one post. So, what we try to do is to touch the surface of the topic of communication in multiple posts.

When we talk about ways to get a healthy marriage, nothing comes close to a healthy communication that guarantees a couple to have a healthy and nurturing marriage. As we said last time, there is no perfect marriage on this side of heaven, only good/healthy or bad/sick marriage. Guess what? The same can be said about communication.

Why?

For the obvious reason! Only sinners on this side of heaven get married and communicate. And what do you expect from two sinners? Perfection?

Yeah! Even as Christians “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). But as the Bible says, “The godly may trip seven times, but” – don’t you love “but?” Yes, the verse reads like this, “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.” Proverbs 24:16 NLT Praise God!

By the mercy and grace of God, we get up and strive to stay on the same path the word of God has shown us. That is why it is said, Christianity is not really about perfection but direction. So, in marriage, as Christian couples, we strive to adapt and cultivate healthy communication so our marriages fall into the category of good/healthy marriage.

We said last week that good communication can only be built on three equally important pillars: Honesty, respect and love. If one of these pillars is missing from our marital communication, our communication will eventually get sick and lead the marriage into a death-bed.

Honesty is something we discussed in the earlier post and just to say a few things, the literal meaning of honesty is “the quality of being honest.” And honest means “free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere.”

How can married couples have a healthy communication while one of them or even both of them tend to be deceitful and insincere? It is impossible. Absence of honesty destroys communication and eventually the marriage.

The other most important pillar that a healthy communication can be well established up on is respect. Respect? Yes, respect!

Respect nowadays is becoming one of those outdated or back warded words. The world sees you as a fool when you show respect. What is common is when people become rude and disrespectful to another human being, they earn recognition very quickly.

You don’t need to go any far to witness that. Just open social media and you will see it everywhere.

But we Christians are not from this world, are we? We live in this world but we are not of this world as Jesus prayed for us:

“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”  John 17:14-15 NIV

So, we strive to respect everybody for the word of God says, “Show proper respect to everyone” 1 Peter 2:17 ESV

And all human beings are created by the image of God. God is our Creator. He has not just created us but He created us in His very own image.

God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness – – – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:26-27 KJV

Every human being is a bearer of the image of God. Because of this only one reason, we need to respect ourselves and others. It is like respecting God, the Maker of all things. In the marriage setting, two human beings, one man and one woman, two God’s image bearers are coming together to be one-flesh. When these two people are Christians, it means “they are re-born of the Spirit of God,” they are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Jesus said this to Nicodemus:

“I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3 NLT

God, “according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,” called us to His Son’s Kingdom and we became Christians. Christianity is not an institution we can sign ourselves in or out. It is the work of the Spirit of God in us, giving us faith to accept the gift of God:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV

What is the end goal of this re-creation in Christ?

Listen:

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29 ESV

Did you see it?

Those who are re-born in the Spirit of God through the word of God are destined to be “conformed to the image of” Jesus Christ.

So, a husband and a wife in Christ see each other through this truth. And the basic attitude they each have or “should have” towards each other is respect. Actually the word of God calls us to that “basic” standard before it lays out the full picture of what marriage should be. It says,

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21 NIV

Right after saying that, the Bible reads, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” And it says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” Ephesians 5:22, 25 NIV

The source of our respect towards our spouse comes from our “reverence for Christ.” You know what this means? It means, if we don’t have any reverence, fear or respect for Christ and His word, we are unable to respect our spouse. The fuel to respect our spouse comes from the “reverence for Christ” we have in our heart. . . (Cont’d next week) ///