Covenant Marriage is a God ordained institution.
Contract: What I do and what I get in return.
- Transactional
- Time-bound
- Active until completion or breach
- Negotiated
- Legal & financial consequences
Covenant: A sacred bond before God built on love, grace, and a shared journey.
- Relational
- Perpetual
- Seldom dissolved
- Given/surrendered
- Moral & relational challenges
Sacrificial love shows the depth of His love, the ultimate example of covenant.
- Romantic passion (Eros)
- Soul connection; brotherly love (Phileo)
- Unconditional, selfless, sacrificial love (Agape)
Ephesians 5:25 KJV
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it
There is no 50/50 contractual expectation.
Our love for our spouse is based on God’s agape LOVE for us.
God-established marriages are founded and maintained on the same kind of agape love.
Ephesians 5:30-31 NKJV
30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Ephesians 5:32-33 MSG
This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
A woman’s greatest need in a marriage is love.
A man’s greatest need in a marriage is respect.
Genesis 2:21-22 NLT
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
Woman was taken from the man’s side to stand equal with him in their relationship with the Creator, not from his foot to be beneath him, nor his hand to be controlled by him.
Genesis 2:23 NLT
“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’”
The greatest expression of the very essence of God is found in the union of man and wife. Nothing in all creation compares to it.
Proverbs 18:22 NKJV
He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the LORD.
Proverbs 31:10-12 NLT
10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies.
11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life.
12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
1 Peter 3:7 TPT
Husbands, you in turn must treat your wives with tenderness, viewing them as feminine partners who deserve to be honored, for they are co-heirs with you of the “divine grace of life,” so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
TIFAW
I actively live out my covenant with God through sacrificial love for others.
This is the defining characteristic of my life.
Because I value what God values, His goodness, grace, and favor are mine.