Wed Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

This may shock you, but the primary purpose of marriage is not to pro-create children. Couples who cannot bear children are just as married as couples who can. You must understand the primary purpose of marriage or you will never understand the place that marriage should have in your life and the position it holds in God’s eyes.

“And said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’”? (Matthew 19:5)

Do you see the word “therefore?” It literally means “because of this.” Because of what? Because of the fact that marriage goes all the way back to that one act of God in the beginning when He created Adam and then Eve – male and then female.

With that understanding, the boy that grew up to be a man and the girl that grew up to be a woman are to leave their mother and their father. Let me just stop right here and say this is one of the biggest causes of marital conflict in any marriage.

The preeminent relationship in a family is not the child to the parent, nor is it the parent to the child. It is the husband to the wife. They are to leave that parental relationship. The man is specifically told he is to “hold fast” to his wife. Now we come to the purpose of marriage, “and they shall become one flesh.” A parent and a child are two. A brother and a sister are two, but a husband and a wife are one.

This is so important to understand that Jesus repeats this again.

“So they are no longer two but one flesh.” (Matthew 19:6)

Don’t miss this! When God sees a parent and a child He sees two. When God sees a brother and a sister He sees two. When God sees a husband and a wife He sees one.

Jesus does in marriage what is impossible in math. You all know that in math 1+1 always equals 2, but in marriage 1+1 always equals 1.