Vineyard Church North Phoenix | I Do

I Do. No phrase will change your life more than these two simple words. They serve as the gang way onto the ship of marriage that sails life’s seas, a wondrous journey of companionship, joy, peace and great love. But like any voyage, your marriage will encounter choppy oceans, rough seas, storms and possibly a hurricane. How prepared you are before you set sail will help to prevent your marriage from being lost at sea.

I wish I had known Jesus before my first marriage. I was in my late twenties and thought of marriage as something that you added to your life as one ads to a wardrobe. In retrospect I was an insecure man who while being somewhat promiscuous before marriage had never been real successful at dating. Most of my dating instability stemmed from self esteem and anger issues that followed me from childhood.

While I had gone to church as child and throughout my high school years, I never really had a relationship with Jesus Christ and was not born again until later in life. Consequently I was not equipped to deal with a rising tide of inadequacy, anger, insecurity and defective manhood that resulted from a broken relationship with my father. Like suitcases packed for any trip, these troubles followed me into adulthood and onto the deck of my first marriage. In the ten years that my first marriage lasted (the last two being separated) my spouse and I never enjoyed smooth sailing. We fought constantly over how to spend our free time, money, mutual respect and family.

Ultimately our marriage foundered on the rocks because we had no unity of vision for what we wanted from our marriage. But mostly our union failed because we did not have God at the center of our marriage. We never prayed together before we got married to ask God if our union was what He wanted or had planned for our lives. We did not attend church or read the Bible or associate with other believers or even have conversations about God and his plans for our lives. Had we done any of these things, we could have avoided most of the anguish, pain, hurt, sadness and sense of being alone that occupied substantially most of the ten years of our marriage.

How can you avoid this outcome? Are you ready for marriage? Ask yourself some of the following questions:

1. Are both of you ‘born again’? In 2Corinthians 6: 14-15 it says “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? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?”
   
   Plainly speaking is God going to be the center of your marriage? Just as planets revolve around the sun, a husband and wife need to have God at the center of their universe. Without the spiritual gravity of God’s love, guidance and blessing of your marriage, you’ll eventually spin out of orbit and away from your spouse and family.

2. Hebrews 13: 4 says “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” Are you sexually active now? If you’re not then please remain chaste until your wedding night. Your sexual intimacy is a sacred trust and should remain the personal property of you and your spouse for the rest of your lives and it will be so much more cherished if it is bought at the high price of sexual celibacy prior to your wedding night.
   
   If you are sexually active then you need to stop now! Why? Men how would you feel if your future wife was sleeping with someone other than her husband? Well guess what? Right now she is; with you! And ladies, would you want your future husband to dishonoring his future wife by sleeping with someone else? Well guess what? Right now he is; with you!

3. Are you in agreement about children? Psalm 127: 3 says "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward". Don’t wait until you’re married to decide this critical issue. With the possible exception of the death of your spouse, no other change will disrupt your life more than children. They are truly God’s blessing upon you but they will make extraordinary demands upon both of you. Are you up to that challenge? Better to discuss this prior to ‘I Do’ rather than saying ‘I Can’t’ later.

4. Have you discussed finances? It says in Luke 12: 34, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Will money be more important than your spouse? How Will you manage your finances? Will you maintain separate accounts (not recommended as this creates an immediate separation between you and your spouse). Who is going to manage the checkbook? Plan on a weekly meeting to review finances where you can discuss short term needs (i.e. monthly budget items), medium term needs (Christmas and vacation expenses) and long term needs (retirement and college expenses). Give each other some fun money each month (to be used as that person wants without review by the other spouse).

In summary, it is very easy to get married today. But often we don’t consider and respect the many things that make a marriage successful until well after the fact. I would pray that every couple that is thinking of getting married would seek God’s counsel for their lives. Like any successful trip plan ahead and make sure the bags are properly packed.

Author -Jack Bethel