The pressures of marriage
When my older brother asked me to minister at his wedding, God immediately gave me the title of the sermon that I was to preach, viz. Marriage is the journey, life is the destination. Once I received the title, the first thing that came to mind was that marriage can be compared to the underground elemental pressures and heat that turn a piece of pure carbon into a beautiful diamond within the earth. Today we have machines that can create synthetic diamonds by pressurization as well.
Without life’s challenges (pressure) there is no change to the character and relationship (carbon to diamond), but marriage is God’s main tool, besides the born-again experience, that acts as a catalyst for this transformation. We thus need to understand that challenges are there to transform us, not to destroy us, though many of us are oblivious to this and end up divorcing instead of growing in love and character, however, this is easier said than done.
On a lighter note, it reminded me of Woody Allen’s joke: “Life is like a 3 ring circus, first she gets the engagement ring, then the wedding ring, and finally we get the suffeRING”.
Applicable to the unmarried
Although God gave me visions and words of knowledge for the sermon at a wedding, I realized that the sermon is also pertinent to unmarried people, but obviously through relationships at the workplace, family, and social environments. The point is that we need relationships to develop personally by identifying kinks in our armor so as to fine-tune our character for the better. Marriage is, therefore, the journey to help us develop this character which ultimately gives us eternal life in Christ whose fruits are love, joy, peace, gentleness, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, patience, and self-control, see Galatians 5:22. I am not saying that we will all achieve this optimally, or that we will miss inheriting heaven if we do not achieve, but there are certainly benefits in our physical bodies and souls to those who continue in the faith and allow for transformation, and the final benefit is the eventual metamorphosis into a glorious body at the final trumpet for those who are still alive (message).
Fruits of the Spirit and unconditional love
The fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) for those who maintain the faith in Christ and transform themselves for the sake of others are not only available for the next age (next life) when we receive glorious bodies, but also for the current age where life becomes more glorious as we flow from one glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18), even though life’s challenges are always working to destroy that glorious life in our physical bodies, especially when we take our eyes away from Christ. This is why Christians must ignore those emotions and feelings that lead to destruction but rather do what is right regardless of the situation, i.e.: put feelings and emotions aside and do what’s right even if it is against our personal desires, even if it is to bless our enemies. In this fashion, we start to learn unconditional love as the Holy Spirit sheds love in our hearts (Romans 5:5), which with faith, is the springboard to getting us closer to the stature and image of the son of God, Jesus Christ, see Ephesians 4:11-13.
Unfortunately, most Christians delay all the gifts and blessings of the Spirit of God to the next life (age) even though they are more needed here on earth than in heaven, which is why Jesus says, “Let it be in earth as it is in heaven”, see Luke 11:2-5. God’s purpose is to transform life on earth as it is the place He gave humanity to inherit so that we can become the sons of God so that we can once again do away with the corruption that befell all of the creation due to humanity’s sin, see Romans 8:18-24.
Emotional love
Most people do not operate under unconditional love but under conditional love, which is emotive, swaying them to and fro from one feeling or emotion to another in most of their relationships, however, Jesus made it clear when He said “Love your enemy and do good to those who hate you”, see Matthew 5:43-48.
God gave human beings emotional love, specifically stronger in females who have a greater function in caring for children, however, men and women alike often use this emotional love to get some form of recognition or reward in return for their good or loving deeds, instead of recognizing that it is a gift from God for assisting others in need. In other words, conditional love works with unconditional love, where conditional (emotional) love is the trigger for our acting to assist others in need, and unconditional love gets us to do what is right, regardless of the situation with no expectation of reward or recognition. The expectation we have for people to admire our good deeds results in selfishness and pride setting into our character thus swaying us from one feeling to another when things are not in our favor, and therefore affecting the condition of our relationships.
Marriage and the Kingdom of God
In order to change our character it is imperative that we become “born again” by the spirit, i.e.: our human spirit needs to be regenerated. Once we are born again or regenerated we also receive the spirit of Christ to assist in the changing of our inner man and thus our character. This is done by receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour by believing with our hearts unto righteousness and confessing with our mouths unto salvation, see Romans 10:9-10. Believing with our hearts is extremely important because this is the foundation by which we get saved and is manifested only when we confess with our mouths. In other words, confession with our mouths bears no fruit of salvation if we do not believe in our hearts and vice versa, and this same criteria applies to all scripture, and no wonder many people leave Christianity because they give up when there is no fruit in their lives. This means that we cannot stop learning and instilling the Word, with action, in our hearts and minds, so that we get to “know that we know” that the Word is truth.
When we get born again we start to see (understand) and enter the kingdom of God (John 3:1-5) which means that our eyes start opening to the scriptures and experiencing the fruits of the spirit in this life, see Romans 14:17. Therefore to enter the Kingdom of God does not refer to us going to heaven when we die in order to experience the kingdom, it does however refer to our experiencing love, joy, and peace right here on earth. Many people delay the fruits and gifts until after we go to heaven when in fact we need them here on earth more than in heaven. Jesus was clear that the kingdom of God is not an observable place, but is within us when we get born again, see Luke 17:20–21. The kingdom of God is therefore the ever-increasing heavenly atmosphere (righteousness, love, joy, peace, etc.) in our hearts as it increasingly aligns with God’s Word and Spirit which gives us the encouragement and love we need to change our ways to follow Christ.
Anyone who wants their marriage to be successful by improving their character needs to be born again by the spirit.
Marriage is a journey
Marriage is ordained by God so that humanity can multiply throughout the earth, however, the pressures of marriage, as a result of character differences among others, can be extremely challenging if we do not address those differences appropriately with grace and understanding, and I know all about it.
Everyone has differences, but it seems that God endowed males and females with greater differences for a reason. Eventually, I got to understand that God wants us to develop our character through the marriage journey to be transformed into the stature of Christ regardless of those differences. Without these challenges that put pressure on our marriage, it is impossible to develop character and attain the stature of Christ. Not addressing the challenges, however, establishes mankind into a lackadaisical type of lifestyle where anything goes, and complacency sets in, where the husband does his thing and the wife does her thing to avoid stress and strife which manifest into greater difficulties at a later stage. The long-term problem with these marriages is that couples live together for the sake of it instead of growing in love and harmony, or they eventually divorce.
We can then say that marriage is life’s temporal journey of character development that has a greater purpose, which is to transform the church (collection of believers) into the chaste virgin for the second coming of Christ in which we receive eternal life. The state of our character development can be measured through attitudes, like a barometer, to determine the state of our relationship with our spouse at any point in time until we reach maturity or perfection. We have to measure ourselves with people through interaction to identify our attitudes toward one another because it is impossible to know our progress with Christ if we cannot see Him, and thus interaction is minimal in comparison. It is extremely easy to get along with Christ because He is God, Who we automatically respect and who does us no harm, so the test is with your brother who is not perfect. That’s why 1 John 4:20 asks “How can we love God whom we do not see but hate our brother whom we can see?”.
I like to use an example of a holiday trip to the coast as a journey in which it is imperative that everyone gets along in a confined space. If we get along on the trip, we will potentially have a great holiday experience. If, however, the trip is full of strife and anxiety, for whatever reason, the holiday will always be dull or negative in some way.
Life is the destination
Most importantly though, the destination of the marriage journey is to become one with Christ through overcoming life’s challenges, and therefore to receive life and happiness in this age, and obviously eternal life in the next age. Therefore we should always see our marriage journey as the catalyst or springboard by which we change our character to become a chaste church for Christ Who is life itself. That’s why Ephesians 5:28-33 says that spouses are to love one another as we are one flesh, however, Paul is actually talking about Christ and the church, i.e.: our love for one another is a reflection of our love for Christ.
The book of Revelation tells us about the 144,000 virgins that Christ will come for from all the tribes of Israel, however, the 144,000 virgins represent the chaste bride of Christ from all the people of the earth after we have reached maturity. Many people think that there will be exactly 144,000 Jews who become Christian never having engaged in sex, but this is far from the truth. God forgives sin and gives us the Holy Spirit that assists us in molding our hearts to become the chaste virgin of Christ. In the New Testament Jews are those that have circumcised the heart (Romans 2:29), not the flesh, whether they were previously Jews or Gentiles. Of course, God desires that all people get saved, and thus God will delay the last trumpet (message) until He is satisfied but only He knows when.