Thur Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

I have to say something here that is going to make some of you very unhappy. You really cannot have the marriage you ought to have and be the husband or wife you ought to be and meet God’s expectations if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I have to admit to you that everything I am saying is strictly only for those people who really are devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Don’t miss the motivation for submission. He says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The single greatest relationship a husband has in a marriage is not the relationship he has with his wife, but the relationship he has to Christ. The single greatest relationship a wife has in a marriage is not her relationship to her husband, but her relationship to Christ.

The kind of husband you are going to be and the kind of wife that you are going to be and the way you are going to relate to your husband or to your wife all comes down to your understanding two things:

(1) What Christ did for you
(2) What Christ is to you

God wants the husband to model God’s love to his wife and He wants the wife to model God’s love to the husband. The way that you do that is by putting the other person first and making sure you serve his or her needs before your needs are met. You are going to see throughout these verses that God wants your marriage to be an expression of His love.

It all goes back to your reverence for Christ. Do you know what it means to reverence Christ? You reverence Jesus Christ when you put Jesus Christ where He belongs. Where does He belong? He belongs on the throne of your life. He belongs in first place in your heart. Here is what you will find. When you put Christ where He needs to be you will then put your spouse where he or she needs to be.