Journey to Surrender

My last two posts (Marriage: Made for Glory and The Glory in Your Spouse) explained how the glory of God is available to infuse you, your marriage and your spouse with divine blessing and power.

If you came away from those posts thinking, “That sounds just too good to be true,” then you need to understand a little more about grace.

God’s grace is the mechanism by which the glory of God is made available to us. By definition, grace comes to us as a free and undeserved gift from God (free to us because of the costly sacrifice of Jesus!).

It can be difficult to get a grasp on this extravagant grace. We want to think that we have something to do with it. We want our own efforts to count for something. But the truth is that our own human striving means nothing when it comes to filling your life and your marriage with the glory of God.


Filling your marriage with more of God (his power, his peace, his love, etc.) is a fairly simple two-part process.

First, we get to know who God is – his nature, his attributes, his emotions, and his acts. We can look to Jesus to see the Father (2 Cor 4:6-7). We can study the Word. We can talk with Him in prayer. We can ask for revelation by the Holy Spirit Ephesians 1:17-23, Ephesians 3:16-21). We can worship.

As I said before, I think getting to know God is the most important priority in our lifelong spiritual journey. And this knowing is more than just head knowledge. It is a deeply intimate and experiential understanding that goes deeply into our soul.

Then, because we have been given a new nature and are now one with Christ, we can believe that all these things that are found in God are also available to us. We can appropriate God’s glorious power to fill our marriages.

Remember, this glory comes by grace, not by human effort. Our effort is not in doing good or by trying to earn God’s favor with our behavior. Our effort is in getting to know him and in believing what he says about us and about our marriage is absolutely true.


Now, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that you don’t do good things for your marriage or your spouse. Of course you do. If you read hear at all, you’ll see I strongly believe in doing things to strengthen and grow your marriage. What I’m talking about is the heart behind the doing.

Many who struggle with grace fear that an overemphasis of grace will encourage people to selfishly do whatever they want. To me, that is grace without glory. That’s why I prefaced this grace post with two about glory.

When you truly experience the glory of God, when you see his infinite and sacrificial love, his blessings and promises, his extravagant goodness toward you, it is life changing. It is radically transformational.

This transformation, this renewing of our minds through the knowledge of God, is our motivation for doing rightly in our marriages. It’s not to earn bonus points with your spouse or God. It’s not giving in order to get something in return. It’s not even doing things because you know they are the “right” things to do.

You do things that bless your spouse and marriage because of grace you have been given. You love your husband or wife because you are filled with God’s nature, and he IS love. You lay your life down for your wife because Jesus laid his life down for you. You honor your husband because in God’s eyes he is worthy of honor.

All of this comes to us by God's grace. Freely. Extravagantly.

It is the free gift of God that gives us whatever we need in order to love, bless and honor our spouse in the way God calls us to do it. It is by God’s grace that his glory can shine forth in your marriage.


Do you believe it?

Last time I focused on the amazing truth that your marriage was made to carry the glory of God. As a believer, you and your marriage have free access to the infinite resources of our infinite God!

Today I want to examine another aspect of glory: seeing the glory in your spouse.


We are all a work in progress. Those of us on a spiritual journey are seeking to become who God has designed us to be, to reach our full potential, by gaining a deeper understanding of who we are in Christ. This is a journey not of human striving but a work of grace done by the Holy Spirit. Our part is but to learn to look on the face of Jesus and allow Him to transform us into a reflection of His glory (2 Cor 3:18, 1 Cor. 4:6-7). You were made for glory.

As hard as it can sometimes be to see our own life in the context of this journey into glory, it can be even harder to see your spouse in the same way. But I’m convinced that this is how God sees us.


It’s really easy to look at your spouse and see what’s “missing.”

It’s a lot harder to look at your spouse and see what’s there but has not yet been revealed in fullness. That’s what learning to see with the eyes of heaven is all about. That’s how God sees us, and that’s how we should see each other.

There are several key things we can do to shift our perspective to be more in line with heaven’s.

First, as I explained in my previous post, we have to get to know the glory of God, his nature, his attributes and his promises. Next, believe that as a Christ-follower your spouse is a glory-carrier. They have been given a new nature in Christ and are on a journey toward walking in that new nature. Thirdly, ask God to reveal to you the “real nature” of your spouse – who God created them to be. Also, pray for your spouse, that they will be able to walk in the fullness of their God-given destiny.

Finally, rather than taking the easy way out of criticizing your spouse for what you see as their shortcomings and misdeeds, speak to them of their potential. Tell them of the glorious nature and promises of Christ that we all have access to. Learn to speak to that which you want to see rise up in him or her.


Let’s say your wife is deeply discouraged over some parenting issues and is acting out of her frustration. Rather than criticizing her for being emotional, remind her of her spiritual authority as a parent. Go together to God in prayer and ask for the wisdom that God promises he will provide if we ask.

Maybe your husband is full of anxiety about your financial future, maybe even with good cause due to your circumstances. Don’t join him in worry, criticize him as a lousy provider, or accuse him for his fearfulness. Instead, remind him of God’s unrelenting faithfulness and speak to him of the perfect love of God that casts out fear.

I’m not saying this kind of thinking is necessarily easy. It goes against our unredeemed human nature to see with spiritual eyes. The good news is that Jesus died to give us a new nature and gave us the Holy Spirit to renew our minds.

Speak into your spouse’s life in a way that encourages them toward glory rather than accuses them with shame. Shame is ultimately a terrible motivator. But glory truly has transformational power.