The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  Reflection: When you are wronged in a relationship, how do you respond? Do you wait for the other party to make the first move? Or do you take whatever steps are necessary to repair the connection? How does the gospel of God’s grace make that easier to do?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to give you a heart that can grant forgiveness and to teach you the skill of forgiveness.

  March 20

  Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. (Hardcover, p. 48; paperback, p. 44)

  THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND. Since God’s relationship to us is meant to be our model for marriage, speaking the truth in love would be our goal even if we were not commanded to do it in Ephesians 4:15. Harsh denunciations, no matter how truthful, never change anyone. Sentimental—or, worse, fearful—approval of everything your spouse does is a form of stealth cruelty. It is not loving to see someone’s faults, see how they hurt him or her and those around them, and yet say nothing. At the very least a marriage ought to be as good as a good friendship, where “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17) and “wounds from a friend can be trusted; but an enemy multiplies kisses.” (Proverbs 27:6)

  Reflection: Couples, do you lovingly dare to help your beloved even if you know the truth will hurt? What measures do you take to make your communication as gentle as possible without compromising the truth?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on which side of Ephesians 4:15 is harder for you temperamentally—the truthfulness or the graciousness? Then ask God to strengthen you where you are weak.

  March 21

  The gospel can fill our hearts with God’s love so that you can handle it when your spouse fails to love you as he or she ought. That frees us to see our spouse’s sins and flaws to the bottom—and speak of them—and yet still love and accept our spouse fully. And when, by the power of the gospel, our spouse experiences that same kind of truthful yet committed love, it enables our spouses to show us that same kind of transforming when the time comes for it. (Hardcover, p. 48; paperback, p. 45)

  GOD’S LOVE AND OURS. If your income increases dramatically your giving to charity can (and should) increase dramatically. In the same way each spouse must be full and overflowing with a love that comes from outside the marriage—God’s love, poured into our lives through Christ’s sacrifice (Romans 5:3–4). Only then can we deal appropriately with one another, speaking the truth in love, when our spouse hurts us or is hurting him- or herself with sinful behavior. We can love because we are supplied with an unending supply of divine love. As important as your spouse is to you, he or she is not the only or ultimate source of your love, significance, and security. This allows us not to panic when something “isn’t right” in our marriage.

  Reflection: Do you panic or get angry when your spouse is depressed, or hurting, or even sick? Is it because you expect the other person to be your rock and your redeemer, rather than Christ? What can you do to change this?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Romans 5:3–4, about how patience and character growth result when we experience the love of God poured out into our hearts. Ask God to send his Spirit to effect this in your life.

  March 22

  “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21) . . . [Paul] is declaring that everything he is about to say about marriage assumes the parties are being filled with God’s Spirit. Only if you have learned to serve by the power of the Holy Spirit will you have the power to face the challenges of marriage. (Hardcover, pp. 50–51; paperback, pp. 47–48)

  LORD AND SERVANT. Marriage is not meant to be a transactional relationship, where I only give and stay involved if I am getting a good return on my investment. Rather, when each party in a marriage submits to the role to which he or she has been called, they do it out of reverence for Christ, not because of coercion by another human being. Husbands who accept their role of servant leadership when they would prefer to remain passive and wives who submit to their roles as suitable helpers when they might prefer to be more assertive should do it for the glory of Christ. And in the end each role is taken on out of a desire to emulate Jesus, who was both Lord and Servant of the covenant, as we love and build up our spouse.

  Reflection: Men, are you passive in your role in the marriage and in the home? Does it frustrate your wife? Have you asked her? Women, are you frustrated in your role in the marriage and in the home? What about it frustrates you? Have you offered it to God as a way of glorifying him, or have you had your role imposed on you by cultural forces? Have you talked to your husband about what frustrates you?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Philippians 2:7 and ask God to help you “take the very nature of a servant” for your spouse as Christ did for you.

  March 23

  [A]t the end of the day, Christ’s love is the great foundation for building a marriage that sings. Some who turn to Christ find that his love comes in like a wave that instantly floods the hard ground of their hearts. Others find that his love comes in gently and gradually, like soft rain or even a mist. But in any case, the heart becomes like ground watered by Christ’s love, which enables all the forms of human love to grow. (Hardcover, p. 239; paperback, p. 276)

  THE DYNAMIC THOUGHT. George Herbert, in his poem “Love (III),” depicts a weary man coming to an inn.42 The innkeeper is Love and the man feels that because of his “guilt and sin” he should depart in “shame.” But Love says: “And know you not . . . who bore the blame?” “Love” is, of course, Jesus himself. And having silenced guilt by pointing to the cross, he invites him again. “‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’ So I did sit and eat.” Philosopher Simone Weil was an agnostic, but when meditating on this poem, Jesus’s love became so real that, she wrote, “Christ came down and took possession of me.”43 That is how it works. We meditate, pray, and read about the love of Christ until the Spirit makes some passage, text, or thought dynamically powerful. When we know his love, love for others can grow powerfully.

  Reflection: It is one thing to read the Bible or devotional guides quickly. It is another thing to meditate long and thoughtfully over the many promises of the gospel in the Bible. How can you get more time to do this?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Psalm 1, about the importance of meditating “day and night.” Ask God to move your knowledge and experience of him out of the shallows through the disciplines of the Word and prayer.

  March 24

  The Holy Spirit’s task, then, is to unfold the meaning of Jesus’s person and work to believers in such a way that the glory of it—its infinite importance and beauty—is brought home to the mind and heart. . . . The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to take truths about Jesus and make them clear to our minds and real to our hearts—so real that they console and empower and change us at our very center. (Hardcover, p. 51; paperback, pp. 48–49)

  THE BIBLE AND MARRIAGE. How does the Holy Spirit make Jesus real to us? Do we wait and listen for a voice? No. Extraordinary revelation ceased with the apostles; extraordinary guidance is rare. How can we know God’s love experientially (Romans 5:3–4)? The Holy Spirit does this in a way that is very ordinary, even commonplace. He does it by illuminating the Scriptures as we pray and study them. (See Psalm 119.)44 If we need the love of Jesus in our hearts in order to love our spouse well (see March 21 and March 26), and if we need the Scripture in order to know that love, then the Bible becomes central to a Christian marriage. Read it individually, jointly, regularly, attentively, and prayerfully.

  Reflection: How can you make the Bible play a greater role in your life? In your marriage? Brainstorm some ways.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Psalms 119:43–48 and 130�
�135 on the deep effects the Bible can have on one’s life. Then ask the Lord to bring those things—freedom, courage, confidence, wisdom, discernment, and a sense of God’s presence—into your life.

  March 25

  “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Ephesians 5:19–20] And because the object of this song is not favorable life circumstances (which can change) but the truth and grace of Jesus (which cannot), this heart song does not weaken in times of difficulty. (Hardcover, pp. 51–52; paperback, p. 49)

  RADICAL GRATITUDE. In Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, she tells of the transformation that occurred when she began keeping a record of each day’s gifts and deliberately giving thanks for each one. This has the salutary effect of freeing us to focus on God’s goodness rather than on our disappointing circumstances. My own (Kathy’s) list, begun years ago, began very simply with “I am thankful for clean water to give to my children.” This was something that many parents in the world do not have. The reason I did have it was largely due to where I was born and raised—all of these things being God’s gifts. When I began to see things that I took for granted as things to be grateful for, it indeed injected a new music into my daily life.

  Reflection: Do you keep a list of the things for which you are thankful about your spouse? If not, why not start today?

  Thought for the day: Make your own list of very common, taken-for-granted things in your life for which you can be thankful to God. Then thank him directly for them.

  March 26

  [T]he picture of marriage given here is not of two needy people, unsure of their own value and purpose, finding their significance and meaning in one another’s arms. If you add two vacuums to each other, you only get a bigger and stronger vacuum, a giant sucking sound. Rather, Paul assumes that each spouse already has settled the big questions of life—why they were made by God and who they are in Christ. (Hardcover, p. 52; paperback, p. 49)

  IDENTITY IN CHRIST. Everyone has to live for something—everyone bases his or her meaning and significance on something. If it is your career, you will give your spouse and family too little attention. But if it is your spouse, you may need them to always be perfectly affirming. If your meaning in life rests in another person’s love, you will crush him or her. No human being can bear the full weight of the expectations of another person. Rather, with our identity found in Christ, we can give and receive love and support out of the fullness we have as God’s children, the heirs of grace.

  Reflection: Has your spouse become an idol in your life, someone you look to for all your happiness? Has this resulted in a happier marriage, or one in which you resent any problems your husband or wife may have, because it keeps him or her from focusing exclusively on you? How can you begin repenting for this?

  Thought for prayer: To rest one’s identity more in Christ and his love than anything else is a never-ending struggle. Ask God for the patience and wisdom necessary for continual progress.

  March 27

  No one lives a life of continual joy in God, of course. It is not automatic and constant. If that were the case, Paul would not have had to start [Ephesians] verse 18 with an imperative, exhorting them literally to “go on being filled with the Spirit!” We are often running on fumes, spiritually, but we must know where the fuel station is and, even more important, that it exists. (Hardcover, p. 52; paperback, pp. 49–50)

  SPIRITUAL PROVOCATION. Just as it was not good for Adam to be alone, so it is impossible to grow spiritually by yourself. We need others to exhort, provoke, and stir us out of spiritual complacency (Hebrews 3:13, 10:24–25). Helping one another to find renewal in the Holy Spirit, therefore, may be the most important act of love we do for one another in marriage. This is rarely accomplished by nagging (constant sermonizing) or dragging (forcing an unwilling spouse to accompany you to every church-sponsored event). We just received a letter this week from an eighty-seven-year-old woman who saw her husband become a Christian several years before he died—after quietly praying for him for decades. Other spouses have been helped into spiritual growth by more insistent (but still gracious) conversations. The only wrong thing to do is to be passive.

  Reflection: Husbands and wives—when you see one another struggling, is your reaction one of compassion . . . or irritation? Do you pray for one another, or scold and harangue?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on 1 Samuel 12:23, in which it is said that failure to pray can be a sin. Ask your spouse for three things that they need and for which you could pray to God. Then do that at least once a week.

  March 28

  After trying all kinds of other things, Christians have learned that the worship of God with the whole heart in the assurance of his love through the work of Jesus Christ is the thing their soul was meant to “run on.” That is what gets all the heart’s cylinders to fire. If this is not understood, then we will not have the resources to be good spouses. If we look to our spouses to fill up our tanks in a way that only God can do, we are demanding impossibility. (Hardcover, p. 52; paperback, p. 50)

  THE RIGHT AIM. Just because something is impossible doesn’t stop us from wanting it. Expecting our spouse to supply all our needs for happiness (if we remain distant from God) is a futile impossibility. It is so easy to pay lip service to our faith in God, but functionally to rely on our spouse to make us happy. C. S. Lewis summarized a basic principle of the Christian life: “Aim at heaven and you’ll get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you’ll get neither.” Happiness is an inevitable by-product of holiness, but pleasing God (not yourself) must be the primary aim. We can apply this to marriage. If we aim at God—at being faithful to him above all—we will be satisfied in our marriage; if we aim to find our happiness in our marriage alone, we will get neither.

  Reflection: Functionally (meaning, for real), where do you look to fill your need for meaning, purpose, and happiness—in God or some human relationship (especially your spouse or a child)? What can you change to place more of your trust in God?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Matthew 5:6, where Jesus says we experience blessedness if we hunger for righteousness rather than blessedness. Now ask God to help you do that.

  March 29

  In [Ephesians] verses 22–24, Paul says, controversially, that wives should submit to their husbands. Immediately, however, he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and “gave himself up for her” (25), which is, if anything, a stronger appeal to abandon self-interest than was given to the woman. . . . [E]ach partner is called to sacrifice for the other in far-reaching ways. Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. (Hardcover, p. 53; paperback, p. 50)

  FORM YET FREEDOM. If we are to dance, the partners must have choreography that supports and honors the Other. If we are to sing, harmony is better than everyone singing only melody. If life-giving is the primary goal of marriage (whether in the creation of children, the growth of spouses toward holiness, and/or care for other image-bearers of God), then diversity of role is a creative necessity. Cultures and temperaments differ, and accordingly the Bible prescribes few details for what the husband and the wife in a marriage can or cannot do. It gives us plenty of freedom to work out what those roles are in a particular marriage, but nevertheless the roles exist.

  Reflection: Husband, do you work to discover and encourage all the creative potential of your wife? Does she excel in ways you never expected? How have you helped her to develop her gifts? Wives, are you passive, doing little to stretch yourself and use the gifts and talents God gave you? Or are you trying to do everything at once, rather than focusing on the ways God wants you to contribute to your marriage, your church, and the world?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to, first, reveal to both of you your respective strengths and weaknesses, and second, how you can play to strengths an
d guard against weaknesses in the roles you adopt within your marriage.

  March 30

  Christians [are] to be douloi of one another (Galatians 5:13)—literally bond-servants . . . [b]ecause Christ humbled himself and became a servant and met our needs even at the cost of his own life. . . . [A] servant puts someone else’s needs ahead of his or her own. That is how all believers should live with each other. And if all believers are to serve each other in this way, how much more intentionally and intensely should husbands and wives have this attitude toward one another? (Hardcover, pp. 53–54; paperback, p. 51)

  DIFFERING GIFTS. Paul’s explanatory treatise on the interlocking gifts of the Body (1 Corinthians 12:12–30) is crucial for married couples. A marriage is a small version of the Body of Christ. Paul argues first that every person is gifted differently—we are not interchangeable. He also argues that some gifts and abilities which “seem to be weaker are indispensible” (1 Corinthians 12:22). Therefore, within the Body of Christ those the world thinks “less honorable we treat with special honor” (verse 23). All this applies to marriage. Many chafe at the idea of a wife following her husband’s leadership. But when we see that Christ himself was fully divine yet submitted to his Father, the terms “equality,” “headship,” and “submission” take on meaning beyond all our imagining.