Read Malachi Chapter 2
Part 1 – Do Not Marry Non-Believers in Christ.
This chapter says a lot about marriage that challenges Christians to approach it NOT from a worldly perspective but approaching it from God’s perspective.
God’s perspective: Marry someone of the opposite sex, and marry someone who is following the Lord God. Those who don’t, God calls it an abomination, vs 11.
Worldly perspective: marry someone who’s going to make you “happy!” This usually means, spiritual outcomes are ignored and eternal things are not taken into consideration. Instead, the emphasis is just on the temporary “pleasures” of the world.
God’s perspective takes into consideration the spiritual consequences of the children. God says in verse 15 that he desires godly children who are following the Lord. Take church for example, one spouse goes to church taking one child with them, while the other spouse stays home with one child with them. There are a lot of mixed messages being sent that shouldn’t be. One message being sent is that Church is not that important. It’s hard to establish a commitment for the Lord amongst your children when you have one spouse not committed.
A worldly perspective tries to justify both positions so that a commitment from the one is not necessary.
Is our marriage establishing an environment that promotes Christ and his Godly values? Does our marriage promote salvation and spiritual growth and development? Or are we establishing an environment that promotes sloppy Christianity. To be honest with you, I feel like this world has enough sloppy Christians and not enough God fearing Christians, willing to take up their cross daily so that others might know him, especially our families!!
