Principles of Marriage

 

    Being single is good.  You have less distractions to keep you from doing God's work and living a pure life.  However, marriage is a gift from God for a man and a woman to unite into one force for God.  Marriage can help you stay moral because it is sacred, but you do lose some of the rights that single people have.

    When you are married you are no longer your own person.  Your body belongs to your spouse.  It is not like property ownership, but being respectful that it is for his or her pleasure and no one else has a right to even look.  That said, you still have the right to say no to your spouse, if there is a reason and it is not everyday.

    Marriage is a covenant between God and your spouse to be devoted to each other and have God in the center of the relationship through prayer.  It takes work because you don't want to leave an opening for Satan to come in destroy something so sacred.  If there is an opening, Satan will come in and mess with your mind to tempt you to lose control and burn your marriage.  Don't get married unless you are committed to be satisfied with that one partner sexually for the rest of your life or it can easily become sexual immorality.

    Divorce is permissible, but not acceptable.  As a Christian, you should do all that you can to save your marriage.  There are only a couple of reason's why divorce can occur and it not be a sin or a sin to move on and find love again.  To get remarried, it has to be due to adultery.  This is not a one time mistake that you can work through an rebuild trust.  It is the multiparters and the having no remorse adultery.  

    A Christian that marries a non-Christian is asking for a more difficult marriage.  It just will not work on the level that God designed marriage because the non-believer can't be something that they are not.  The Christian can pray and maybe the non-believer comes to faith through how the believer lives our their lives, but that is not a guarantee.  

    If the non-believer leaves the Christian spouse, then let them go.  We are called to live in peace and a marriage without peace destroys all that is good in life.  The marriage is not worth fighting for if the non-believer is determined to leave.  Once they are gone, then you are no longer responsible for their holiness.  However, it does not mean that it will be painless or not leave a soul scar.  

    If the non-Christian is willing to stay in the marriage and not cheat, then you are called to stay in the marriage to be the introduction to God.  You are a slave to that marriage and  do not have the right to seek freedom.  You entered into it knowingly and accepted the responsibility, even if you may not have been fully aware at the time.  A Christian marring a non-believer is avoidable stress.  Protect yourself and only date people that have the same faith as yourself, but sometimes your love can open their eyes to God.

    Marriage is a responsibility to God more than to each other.  It is not a sin, but it does bring many troubles because life is hard enough to live solely for God as one person.  You add in being responsible for another person, then children, and life gets complicated.  Being single is a life with fewer concerns other than survival and loneliness.  Marriage divides your attention with a bond that last until death do you part.

    

1 Corinthians 7