Total Commitment. To accept marriage as a sacred covenant means first of all to be willing to make a total commitment of ourselves to our marriage partners. This is why Paul in Ephesians compares marriage to the relationship of Christ with His church (Eph 5:25-26).

Christ’s commitment to us, the church, is so total that He loved us while we were yet unfaithful (Rom 5:8) and gave up His life that we may live (Eph 5:25). Christ’s total commitment to us, to be with us in life and death, shows us the kind of total commitment upon which Christian marriage is to be founded. It is a commitment based on unrelenting love. It is a love which is “patient and kind; . . . not jealous or boastful; . . . not arrogant or rude; . . . it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. [It is a love that] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13: 4-7). It is this loving commitment which makes Christian marriage a sacred and permanent covenant. A Christian married couple is called to enter intimately into the kind of total commitment existing between Christ and His church. Such a commitment makes possible the blending of two lives into an interrelationship where they grow together in loving unity and fidelity.

When Christian couples enter into a marriage covenant, they are committing themselves to maintaining their marital union, no matter what! This total commitment is set forth in the marriage vows: “for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

By taking the marriage vows, Christian mates promise to each other what is well expressed by Elizabeth Achtemeier: “I will be with you, no matter what happens to us and between us. If you should become blind tomorrow, I will be there. If you achieve no success and attain no status in our society, I will be there. When we argue and are angry, as we inevitably will, I will work to bring us together. When we seem totally at odds and neither of us is having needs fulfilled, I will persist in trying to understand and in trying to restore our relationship. When our marriage seems utterly sterile and going nowhere at all, I will believe that it can work and I will want it to work and I will do my part to make it work. And when all is wonderful and we are happy, I will rejoice over our life together, and continue to strive to keep our relationship growing and strong.”4

Such a total commitment is possible only by divine grace. It is God who gives us power to hold fast to our commitment. This is the unseen factor often ignored in marriage manuals. What is true for salvation is also true for a committed marriage: there is both a divine initiative and a human response. As Paul puts it, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). We must work to achieve total and permanent commitment in our marriages and yet recognize that it is God who is at work in and through us to make this goal possible.

A wonderful thing about a totally committed marriage is the fact that it is solely a relationship of grace, a relationship in which I do not have to earn my wife’s love constantly because she gives it to me as a gift. Love is seldom deserved because most of the time we are not lovable. Yet it is given to me, and this gives me acceptance, security, and freedom to act. This manifestation of unconditional love challenges us to respond by being more loving and lovable.

Next part….An Exclusive Commitment.

by Don Callander

Are we willing to make a lifelong commitment to “I Do”?
Are we willing to put in the time needed?
Are we willing to accept each other as we are and yet work hard on our short comings?
Are we willing to process and resolve bad feeling frequently and quickly?

Most people have the intention of being committed to their marriage and spouse, and many also realize that this implies translating commitment into actions. Yet they fail to do it. We must develop an honesty within ourselves that counters our own thinking and self-deception that our minds are capable of. There is a human tendency to develop a private logic, or set of beliefs, that we are comfortable with. We avoid seeking the real truth, which can be uncomfortable. For example, we feel better if we can believe that the larger share of the blame for a problem lies outside ourselves. We may want to believe we can enjoy the independence of single life as well as the unity of married life. We want the satisfaction of being right, and in control. Incompatible or faulty beliefs need to be recognized and dealt with honestly, as individuals and as a couple.

Commitment requires us to accept the principle that once we are married, ending the marriage cannot be considered as a solution to the problems in our relationship. We would never consider leaving our children as a solution to our problems with them. If you seriously consider another job, your devotion and performance in your current job inevitably suffers. If your destination is not determined, you are prone to make changes in direction that appear to lead to more interesting or pleasant places. So it is with marriage. Our destination must be the best relationship possible, given each person’s human faults. Our job is to find the best way to do it.

If a marriage is to be lasting and satisfying, consistent with God’s design, we must periodically evaluate the nature of our commitment, as expressed through our actions and behavior patterns. True faith is demonstrated in action as well as belief. Has our commitment to marriage been translated from belief, to intention, to specific behaviors? If there are gaps, we need to work hard at them.

Christian marriages should reflect a covenant commitment of the partners to the marriage because we are committed to one another. It starts with a covenant commitment of each partner to the Lord and then to the other person. All of the responsibilities spelled out in Scripture are first to the Lord and then to the partner. The covenant relationship reflects Christ’s covenant commitment to us. He loves us and cares for us not because of what we are but in spite of what we are. This is what grace is all about. It is “unmerited” favor. This is the source from which forgiveness springs. We should be committed to marriage because we are committed to one another.

A marriage covenant is characterized by total, exclusive, continuing and growing commitment. Starting next month we shall take a brief look at each of these four basic characteristics.

by Don Callander

58 So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?”

“I will go,” she said.

59 So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men. 60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you increase
to thousands upon thousands;
may your offspring possess
the gates of their enemies.”

I am sure you are asking; “How do you get commitment in marriage from those verses?” You know the account; Eliezer, Abraham’s servant is sent to find a wife for Isaac. When both Eliezer and Rebekah realize the earlier events had been orchestrated by God they both moved quickly. Now her response to being married to a man she has never even laid eyes on yet was: “I will go.” Now THAT is commitment! The modern day equivalent is standing at the altar and saying “I do”.

Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary describes commitment as: To give in trust, to put into the hands or power of another, to join or put together, a decision that cannot be recalled.

Look at that last one: A decision that cannot be recalled. Isn’t that powerful?

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) This decision is presented as a once-and-for-all experience. Jesus said, “Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

Married people have to spend a minimum amount of time together, occupying the same space, doing things together. The flow of communication should be such that they are seldom guessing what is going on inside the other. When the flow is blocked, commitment means recognizing this, deciding it is unacceptable, and taking action to dislodge the impediment.

Commitment to marriage implies that a person accept the problems brought into the marriage by their spouse as mutual problems. Just as your spouse’s physical problems become yours to share, so do their habits, quirks, and psychological faults. We usually find it less difficult to share dental bills and offer condolences when our spouse’s head aches, than to deal with chronic lateness or explosive anger. Commitment calls us to find our role in coping with every problem that arises in marriage, whether the problem is generated within our spouse or ourselves.

by Don Callander

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman, for she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The key appears to be verse 24. The leaving is a response of independence from parents with both an emotional and financial detachment. This is not a loss of respect but a shift in loyalty. The united (cleaving) is a response of allegiance, loyalty and recognition to my spouse. It is decision making with “us” in focus and requires a deathblow to ourselves. The become one flesh is a continual process of inseparable, life-long commitment and fidelity to each other, a nourishing of your own flesh of which your spouse is a part and involves an growing intimacy of our mind, will, emotions, body AND spirits.

Marriage is a DIVINE INSTITUTION Contrary to some contemporary opinions; marriage is not a human institution that has evolved over the millennia to meet the needs of society. If it were no more than that, then conceivably it could be discarded when it is deemed no longer to be meeting those needs. Rather marriage was God’s idea, and human history begins with the Lord Himself presiding over the first wedding.

It would be my hope and prayer that you reflect and ponder on the above this coming month. It certainly is not always easy but always very rewarding to follow the biblical pattern for marriage.

Next month; Genesis 24:58-60 Commitment is essential to a successful marriage.

by Don Callander