In a marriage...

"YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD

WITH ALL YOUR HEART,

AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL,

AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND."  Jesus

In a marriage, it's not a matter if you claim to be a Christian, if you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, you will love your wife at a higher level.  Mandatory.  It's automatic.  This is the month Jane and I celebrate our fifty years together.  The reason why we've been able to get along for fifty years and love each other now more than ever before is I am fully convinced she doesn't love me as number one and I don't love her as number one.  As long as she knows that I love God more than I love her and I know that she loves God more than she loves me we are safe and secured in the eternity of God.  I would never leave that woman because I could never guarantee that I could find someone else who loves God more than me.  She promised God that she would stay with me forever and she is accountable to Him so I am safe, and visa versa.  If you understand this, you understand the key to a long marriage.  Love God.  Make Him the passion that is above and beyond all other passions - the passion that won't die and the automatic result is the love for God comes back to you and spills over into your relationships with others.  So, that when you misspeak, when you say something nasty, when you do something wrong, the conviction level causes you to make it right because the love of God, to use Paul's language, constrains you, it's a tether that holds you to where you should be.

D. Richard Kennedy (My Pastor)