A Yeshua-Centered Marriage

The benefits of a Yeshua-centered marriage provide a greater probability of success. A couple can work towards achieving marital success through intimacy with Yeshua individually and collectively. The importance of serving Yeshua as a unit indicates the essence of having and maintaining a Yeshua-centered marriage. Yeshua-centered marriages provide the foundation for marriage and allow for a more intimate relationship. Couples should be real and honest in their relationship, embrace reality, and flee superficial thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Serving Yeshua together is essential for each party to attain the desired results independently and jointly. Making a lifetime commitment to Yeshua through the cultivation of the marriage will promote growth unending and thus provide greater security and sustainability. Les Parrott and Leslie Parrott in their book “Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts,” relate: “You are not just husband and wife. You have given birth to a marriage that is very much like a living being, born from you both. And the soul of your new marriage needs nourishment.”

When adversity comes the couple should be armed with scriptures committed to memory to ensure adequate and protected nourishment of the mind, body, and spirit. Having the word of God bound in their minds, hearts, and souls will allow successful navigation through the inevitable storms of life. In addition, a couple should identify scriptures that each deems beneficial to the marriage and apply them daily. Couples who seek to sort out problematic areas in their lives should encompass goal clarification (short-term/long-term), gradual approaches, manageable solutions, and Yeshua-centered resolution or compromise.

Similarly, Everett Worthington in his book “Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling,” opines on the meaning and significance of spiritual intimacy and asserts:

“Spiritual intimacy is a feeling that partners experience a sense of unity in all things spiritual- such as worship, prayer, private devotions, spiritual issues, ways they react emotionally to spiritual things, ways they use their faith to cope with adversity, ways they use their religious beliefs and values in daily life and the amount of emphasis they place on religion in their family and in their private life.”

Applying Worthington’s philosophy would enable a couple to share quality time with the Lord together and alone. This would ensure a committed relationship with Yeshua. Attending church together might also help the relationship. Scriptures that could assist a couple in spending time with Yeshua include Ephesians 5:21, I Corinthians 7:27-28, Proverbs 18:22, Ephesians 5:25-33, Matthew 19:4-6, I Peter 4:8, and Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

The Bible stresses the importance of love between husband and wife and provides guidelines for goal attainment. Colossians 3:18-19 offers guidance and states: “Wives, subject yourselves to your husbands, as is appropriate in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don’t treat them harshly.” (CJB)

What should a biblical approach to consummate love entail? Do I have all the answers? No, I do not. However, I submit that some of my suggestions might work if applied. I developed a love chart recipe that provides ingredients for couples seeking a Yeshua-centered marriage. The ingredients include: 1) love, 2) respect, 3) submission, 4) surrender, 5) positive thinking, 6) effective communication, 7) good listening, and 8) commitment. All ingredients are related to the essence of love based upon give and take. In other words, both partners must contribute to the mixture for the recipe to turn out its desired consistency.

Love Chart Recipe

Combine the following ingredients and achieve results with scriptures.

• • Love (John 13:34-35)
  • Respect (I Corinthians 7:3)
  • Submission (Ephesians 5:22-33)
  • Surrender (Colossians 3:18-19)
  • Positive Thinking (Ecclesiastes 9:9)
  • Effective Communication (Ephesians 4:29)
  • Good listening (James 1:19)
  • Commitment (Proverbs 5:18-20)

Stir together and serve one another throughout life and your marriage might turn out well done! Results will vary for every marriage. Keep striving for a Yeshua-centered marriage. Serving up a successful marriage takes time.