Honoring our marriages

When you look at the spiritual and moral landscape of the United States, Japan, and many other countries, it’s amazing to see how the concept of marriage has deteriorated.

You don’t even need to dip into the idea of gay marriage to see this; just look at heterosexual ones. How far have we departed from God’s intention for marriage?

Marriages where two people truly become one, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Marriages where they remain one for life. Marriages where they are so united, that it would be unthinkable to cheat on their partner.

What do we have instead? Cold marriages. Abusive marriages, both physically and verbally. Affairs. Selfishness, divisiveness, and ultimately divorce.

Why? We don’t honor marriage. We definitely don’t honor the marriage bed anymore. Is it no wonder that our marriages are in the state they are in?

And so the writer of Hebrews admonishes us,

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (Matthew 13:4)

Think about this. When you don’t honor marriage, and when you don’t keep the marriage bed pure, God doesn’t just turn a blind eye to it. He judges it.

If you stray from your marriage and go the arms of another man or woman, he will judge you for it.

When you despise the marriage bed and you sleep with someone before you are married, God judges you for it.

Why? Because you are meant for one person. You are meant to join yourself as one to only one person, not two or three or more.

So when you sleep with people before you get married or you cheat on your spouse, you despise the marriage bed and what it represents, the joining of two people as one in a permanent bond.

But you also despise the marriage bed if you are cold to your partner. If you withdraw physically and/or emotionally from them. If you’re selfish, only looking out for your own needs, and not caring a whit for your partner’s needs. If you’re abusive toward your partner.

When you act these ways, it’s totally contrary to what the marriage bed represents.

Do you honor marriage?

Do you honor your own marriage, seeking to bring true oneness to it?

Do you honor others’ marriages, refusing to engage in adulterous activity that would break that marriage up? Do you instead do everything you can to encourage that couple draw closer to each other as one?

If you’re single, do you honor your future marriage, keeping yourself sexually pure for the one you will marry?

If you don’t, God will judge you. It is no light matter to him. He will judge you.

What does God see when he sees your attitude toward marriage?