The divorce rate has gotten so out of hand in this country that there is a jewelry store in L.A. where you can actually rent wedding rings. The message is that your marriage is probably only temporary anyway, so why invest in a ring that you call your own. Just rent a ring and when the marriage ends, which it inevitably will, you can simply return it.

There are those who think that the marriage institution has seen its time and now should be abolished. Nancy Saunders, a prominent psychologist, describes traditional marriage as, “a failing anachronism incapable of binding couples in a lifetime of love and equality” (Nancy Saunders, Heard on the Street). Mrs. Saunders says that “Society can no longer support what we think of as marriage.”

This idea that we have outgrown marriage and that we need to find a better way to establish relationships, has one major flaw (it has many, but one stands out immediately). It ignores God’s will. The marriage institution is not something that man came along and thought up. Marriage is God’s way. “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

Since marriage is God’s way, and God’s ways are higher than man’s ways (Isaiah 55:8), it is impossible for man to come up with a better way for man and woman to live happily together than within the marriage relationship. Make no mistake about it, the ever-increasing presence of divorce, as well as the growing number of couples who are deciding to cohabitate outside of the marriage relationship, is not going to be the savior of this country, it is going to be the ruin of it.

God’s way works! Marriage is a wonderful experience and the best example we have of God’s relationship to his people. However, this is only true when couples follow the principles of God’s Word to govern them in their marriage.

There are many Biblical principles that help to make marriages strong, healthy, and beneficial to both persons in the marriage. At the top of the list you will find such things as the willingness to love unconditionally, sacrifice willingly and forgive regularly.

Love

A loveless marriage cannot succeed. Successful marriages are ones that are full of every kind of love. Agape love is a part of good marriages! This is the love that Paul describes in 1 Corinthian 13. A love that is long suffering, kind and willing to bear all things. A love that always acts in the best interest of whoever is loved. Can you imagine a love like that resulting in a bad marriage? Of course not! Where you have two people always acting in each other’s best interest, you have happiness and peace.

Successful marriages are also full of Phileo and Eros love. Phileo is brotherly love or the love shared between friends. Husbands and wives should be best friends, something that comes about only when they spend time together developing the relationship. Eros refers to sexual love. Any good marriage is a romantic marriage, full of passion that is based on the strong emotional ties between the husband and the wife. Too many marriages are passionless, where husbands and wives simply cohabitate as associates. I know of more than one marriage where the spouses don’t even share the same bed. This is a recipe for disaster in a marriage.

Sacrifice

A marriage full of selfishness cannot succeed. We must be willing to sacrifice if we want to have marriages that are pleasing to God. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, i.e., with a sacrificial love. We can’t always have our way in marriage. We can’t always get what we want. Sometimes we must abandon goals or go without certain things that we desire to make the marriage work. Yes, there are certain needs that we must meet to be happy, but some things we can sacrifice without any real damage to our existence. The problem is that too many spouses are too selfish to sacrifice. A part of being a Christian is being willing to deny self (Matthew 16:24). A little application of this biblical principle to our marriages can go a long way!

Forgiveness

And of course, we can’t have a good marriage unless we have a forgiving heart. There are no perfect husbands or wives out there. We all do dumb things occasionally. We use unwise choice of words. We fail to be thoughtful from time to time. We need forgiveness and we need to be forgiving. If there is any place where grudges shouldn’t be held, it is within the marriage relationship. If our marriages are to succeed, we must have the humility to say “sorry” and the humility to accept an apology.

Let’s all work on our marriages. Wedding rings are not to be rented, they are to be bought. Why? Because marriage in the eyes of God is permanent. I hope it is in our eyes as well.