Marriage is a holy union established by God to reflect His love for us.   #theloriclineshow   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Have you been to a wedding lately? Was everyone sad and somber? No! Of course not. Everyone is happy and it’s a beautiful celebration. A bride and groom come together after months of planning and preparation to say, ‘I do’. Surrounded by family and friends, vows are exchanged, traditions honored, wedding cake is eaten, everyone does the cupid shuffle and two become one. It’s a beautiful and blessed day. I was a June bride and this month I am celebrating thirty years of being married to my best friend. Thirty years! And we still love each other! And most days we like each other too. That’s something to celebrate when almost fifty percent of all marriages in the United States end in divorce or separation. The number has to be even higher if you add in the couples that have emotionally or physically disconnected, even though they remain in the same home. It’s an emotional divorce and it can be just as devastating. We do not take our marriage for granted. From our wedding day to today, we know our marriage is a gift of God’s grace that requires daily surrender, first to God and second to one another. The institution of marriage is God’s perfect design, established in the garden to ultimately be a reflection of Christ and the church. It’s a mystery gift and the Apostle Paul speaks to it beautifully in Ephesians five. Ephesians 5:21-33 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. If you’re bothered by the word submit, go back and read it again. See beyond yourself. You see that’s the key in marriage, being selfless. I give my all for it and it gives its all for me. Needs are met, not out of self reliance and control, but out of surrender and submission, first to God and then to one another. That’s the mystery gift. We give ourselves and our heart to something greater and in return we are abundantly blessed. Wives are given four verses of instruction while husbands are given nine and the motivation of it all is love. Remember the gift of love I talked about last time? The LOVE of God leads me in life. Love leads me to repentance, obedience, surrender and through that love I find rest, peace and unexplainable JOY. It’s the same for my marriage. The love of God leads me to love my husband and submit to his leading. In the same way, the love of God leads him to love me and submit to me. Out of that we serve one another, respect one another and care for one another as we would our own body, because we are one. So it is with Christ and His body, the church. It’s a profound and beautiful mystery and design that leads to new life and all things new. You see marriage is SO much more than an ‘I do’. It’s a holy union, established by a holy God to be a reflection of His deep and intimate love for us here and now and for eternity to come. That’s the truth. Marriage is a gift and it’s a reflection of a beautiful mystery. Sadly, the sin and brokenness of our hearts and the world makes it difficult to see it as such and experience it that way. That’s why we need Jesus. He makes all things new and if your marriage is in need of repair, turn to God today and allow His love and grace to transform your heart first and then your marriage into something new. I’m Lori Cline.