Covenant Marriage—Offering My Best for His Glory
Covenant marriage is all about offering my best to God in my marriage for His glory. God is calling those of us who call ourselves “Believers” to a higher standard of living for Him in our marriages. If I am not giving my best to God first, I cannot give my best to my wife or husband. To give our best for His glory requires unrelenting determination. Such determination is a matter of the will—not one of debate or reasoning but absolute and irrevocable surrender of my will to God.
When I spend too much time thinking about or pondering the personal gains or losses in my marriage, I have lost focus on God’s intent for my marriage and have become selfish. I have to will to be in covenant with God and my spouse. An undue amount of thought or consideration for myself will keep me from making that decision to give my best to God or my spouse. Instead, I will begin offering a counterfeit replica of the real thing. I will cover up my lack of trust in God and his covenant with the pretense that it is my spouse or our children that I am protecting. I will begin settling for the mundane rather that the extraordinary benefits of a covenant marriage.
This year I am going to offer my best to God for His glory. That will first and foremost make an impact on my marriage and family. Covenant marriage is not for the faint hearted but for those who are willing to lay down their personal will to the will of God and determine to be absolutely surrendered to Him.
The one thing I will hold onto in the midst of this journey is the fact that God is Love and there will never be a time in my life or marriage or the lives of those I love that he does not act out of love. Whenever we place our love for self or others over our love for God, we are choosing second best. When we place anyone or anything over our love and obedience to God we are sinning against Him.
As with Paul when writing to the Philippians said, “I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil 1:20). Let’s not let anything stand in the way of our giving our best to Him for His glory today and every day.
