Journey to Surrender

A Brand New Wardrobe is Yours!  For Free!

It is that time of year when many of us will reflect on 2012 and start thinking ahead to 2013. The coming New Year gives us all time to consider a fresh start.

Whether you make resolutions for 2013 or not, chances are there are things that you want to improve or change next year. I’m hoping that among those is a desire to improve your marriage. No matter how your marriage is today, there is always room to grow.

Today I’m kicking off a series, “Dress for Success,” which will challenge you to consider a new wardrobe for the new year. The great news about this new wardrobe is that it is yours absolutely free.

Dressing for the New You

Want some more great news? You’re dead!

That’s right. The Bible tells us believers that “You died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:3)  The old self is dead and gone, dealt with forever! What a relief!

Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, you and I are completely made new. We don’t have to struggle to renew ourselves because we have already been made into the righteousness of Christ (Phil 3:9). It’s a done deal.

I don’t need to resolve to “be a better person” in 2013. I already am! I don’t have to strive to “be a better husband” in 2013; I just need to walk fully in the new nature that has been given to me in Jesus. My new nature includes all that I need to be the husband my wife needs.

However, I do need to consider what dress is appropriate for this new me. I have to consider what I should “put on” and what I should “take off.”

You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Col 3:9-10

How to Dress for Your Marriage

This concept of how you choose to clothe yourself relates directly to your marriage.

The third chapter of Colossians describes some of the things we should refuse to wear, such as sexual sin, greed, anger, lying, and slander.  Toss out these old clothes! It then goes on to describe our new wardrobe – one befitting our new nature. 

“Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with…”

• tenderhearted mercy
• kindness
• humility
• gentleness
• patience.
• make allowance for each other's faults
• forgive the person who offends you

The passage then concludes, “The most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.” (Col 3:12-14 NLT)

The most amazing part of this whole thing is that this new wardrobe has already been provided to us completely free of charge. All we have to do is choose to put it on! It is not a matter of striving and struggling. Simply choose to put on that which has already been provided!

So what does it look like to “dress for success” in your marriage? I find it fascinating and not a bit coincidental that these verses in Colossians 3 come right before Paul's admonitions for marriage just a few verses later (husbands loving their wives and wives living in submission to their husbands). Clearly, how we "dress" directly and profoundly affects our marriage.

In the coming posts, I’ll be unpacking (pun intended) some of these new clothes that Colossians 3 describes.

Wouldn't you love some new clothes to wear in 2013?


Next up in the series: Put on Love

Do you make the mistake of assuming that just because people go to church they have great marriages that are based on God’s design?

This is the third part in my series on how your marriage can be “salt and light” to those around you, in accordance with Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:13-14. You might want to check out Part 1 and part 2 as well.

Today I’m talking about being salt and light to the other couples in your church.

Don’t Assume

Do you assume that couples in your church know what a biblical marriage looks like?  Fewer than you think actually understand the depths to which marriage is meant to be passionate, intimate, selfless, exciting and enduring. Very few probably know the extent to which God is pro-marriage, pro-intimacy, and pro-sex.

Sadly, too many would probably describe biblical marriage with rules like “don’t get divorced” and “don’t have sex outside of marriage” and “pray together every day.” Sadder still, and maybe because of a lack of understanding of what marriage is really about, the divorce rate among “nominal” Christians is actually 20% higher than those with no religious affiliation.[1]

Christian World View of Marriage

Os Hillman, who I quoted in my first Salt and Light post, explains further our misplaced expectations of the media’s world view this way:

It is unrealistic for Christians to think the national media will report without their worldview eventually showing up in their reporting. The only way to change this is to impact the individual who will then adopt a Christian worldview. Sadly though, less than 19% of the Christian population has a Christian worldview. So, how can we expect the media to have a Christian worldview if we in the Body of Christ do not even have one? We are losing the culture both within the Christian community and outside the Christian community.

I don’t know where his 19% number comes from or whether it’s accurate, but my experience has been that there is certainly not a widespread understanding among Christians of what it means to have a thriving biblical marriage.

Trumpeting the good news of God’s great plan for marriage is the main reason I do what I do here.

Who Owns This Problem?

I’ve said for a long time that Christians should have the most amazing marriages. We have the secret! We know the One who designed it! Yet the contrast between the church and the world is not what it should be.

Barna Research’s Project Director Meg Flammang said of their findings on divorce statistics: "We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting the community, but ... in the area of divorce rates they continue to be the same." Truthfully, the Barna data is misleading in that it doesn’t distinguish between those who are actively practicing their faith and those who simply report themselves as believers (more on the Christian divorce rate myth here).

However, I stand by my contention that there isn’t a big enough distinction between marriages inside and outside the church.

One reason is that most churches focus a lot more on pre-marital counseling and divorce intervention for marriages in crises than they do on strengthening “average” marriages. This is supported by a recent survey conducted by fellow marriage blogger at Mission Husband.  Gerald writes: 

For the most part, most of this survey turned out like I had assumed it would. Sadly, I think ministry to “normal marriages” in the church (ie ones that aren’t falling apart yet) is for the most part coming up very short in most of our churches. From: “The Church and Marriage; Are we doing enough?”

So whose job is it to get those in the church to take marriages to the next level? Pastors? Church leadership? Christian marriage counselors? No! It’s our job, yours and mine. It’s up to everyday believers like you and me, who know and want to share about God’s design for marriage.

But What Can I Do?

The 2011 State of Our Unions report by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia offers some insight into this question. They report that:

Husbands and wives with high levels of social support for their marriage are at least 23 percentage points more likely to report that they are very happy, or almost 50 percent more likely to be very happy in their marriages, when family and friends are invested in their marriages. Moreover, a high level of support from family and friends is one of the top five predictors of marital quality and stability for married mothers in this study.

Simply stated, you can make a huge impact on other marriages simply by providing marital support to your friends. Here a few ideas on how you can impact the marriages immediately around you in your own church.

• Start a marriage small group in your church (or join one).
• Set up a date night babysitting exchange for couples with young kids.
• If your marriage is struggling, find and befriend some couples whose marriages you admire.
• If you have a strong marriage, get together with some couples you think could benefit from your experience.
• Ask your church to plan a marriage-building retreat into next year’s calendar and budget.
• Offer to lead your church’s participation in this year’s National Marriage Week events this coming February 7-14.

What do you say? Are you ready to get engaged for the sake of the marriages around you? Do you have some more ideas on what we can do in our local churches to strengthen “normal” marriages? What have you already done or are you doing? Share your thoughts below!