Love and Marriage

How can you know who to marry? How do you know if love will last? How do you know what a person will turn out like after marriage? What is the greatest reason for marrying someone?

The purpose of marriage is to reproduce God's image in us. God's plan for marriage is to become one flesh, not a physical and mental joining primarily for each other's sake. That's a selfish love that tends to concentrate on getting rather than giving.

Marriage is two helpers fit for each other to love each other into the image of God. The one would help the other be fit to fulfill the purpose that God has for that person in this world. Love will stretch you. It's going to change you.

The depth of intimacy in marriage comes as a culmination of spiritual, mental, and emotional intercourse. The beauty of the physical relationship is the mutual response from the desire that comes from the union of your spirits, minds, and emotions.

In a marriage relationship, we are meant to work out the love that God is giving us in our spirits, giving that out to the other person. When our physical acts of love are based on that, it is a beautiful expression of selfless love.

When you reach the point of not satisfying your will or purpose in your marriage - then there is the hope of making something out of your marriage, to begin to create something new.

Jesus' standard for marriage was so high his disciples questioned if it was worth it. First is to love God with all our being -- humanly impossible--but his Spirit fills us with his love if we are willing. Then we are complete whether we marry or not.

Marriage is to be a beautiful cooperation. The issue is not to elevate one or denigrate the other but to be subject to one another. The issue is what does God want you two to do with your lives?

The basis and purpose for real marriage. Listening to and trusting in God for His will for you in finding the right person.

God's will for us is never to divorce. People divorce because they demand things from each other that only God can give.