Marriage’s Highest Priority

Read I Corinthians 7

“Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved
because of you? And don’t you husbands know that
your wives might be saved because of you?”
(I Corinthians 7:16)

Food For Thought… What would happen in our marriage relationships—in all of our relationships, for that matter—if the primary motive was to introduce our significant other to Christ?

I am not talking about badgering a spouse into the kingdom through a non-stop, hard sell verbal witness. I’ve known spouses who have done that—and it rarely leads their mate to Jesus! It often leads them to bitterness and greater resistance to the Good News.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “It is right…that we should be much concerned about the salvation of those we love. But we must be careful not to…demand that their salvation should conform to some ready-made pattern of our own.”

What I am talking about is offering your loved one the real Jesus. I’m talking about showing them what authentic salvation is all about. I’m talking about living every dimension of your life in such a way that Jesus shines through. That’s really what Christians are meant to do, after all. We are to make the Savior attractive (Titus 2:10) to those who are far from him by the way we live—how we respond, how we serve, how we give, how we navigate disappointment, how we suffer, how we freely forgive, how we love proactively and how we extend grace unconditionally.

Who wouldn’t be attracted to Christ when we are living that kind of winsome witness.

And even if our loved one already knows the Savior, our assignment is no less. We are to be Jesus to a believing spouse as well. Our living witness to a loving Savior should be the very thing that makes our loved ones want to go deeper in their own relationship with the Lord.

That’s our job—to be Jesus to the people we love. We may be the only Savior they’ll ever see!

Prayer… Dear God, my prayer this morning is simple: Help me to so live that my spouse sees you when she sees me. When I speak, in my body language, in my actions, in my attitude, help me to be the Gospel in the real world of my everyday relationships.

One More Thing… “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now…. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” —C.S. Lewis

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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