Who Is Ready For Marriage?

If you intend to get married, you need to position your heart for the marital journey in a university without graduation.
If you are already married, you need to position your heart to accommodate the components of the journey, enjoy it and finish strong.
Marriage is one of the many good things created by God but it is not a child’s play. If you enter the marital institution with the wrong orientation, mindset and attitude, it could lead to marital crisis and eventual failure. Above all, destinies are truncated against the WILL of the creator.
Therefore, there is a kind of heart required for marriage to be successful.

1. A PREPARED HEART: Many marriages that lack spiritual, psychological and emotional seal are marriages that were entered into without preparation. Some people married their partners because of accidental pregnancies. Some married because they saw their mates do so. Others married without any form of preparations. Some have even married strangers and when these people meet the components of marriage some of which are emotional, they start thinking of jumping out of the institution.
“For Ezra had PREPARED HIS HEART to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).
Because marital relationship is God’s initiative and not man’s idea, you must prepare your heart to operate in it according to the law of God. That is, God’s syllabus or instruction provided in the Holy Bible. If you run marriage your own way, you are in trouble.
As an unmarried person, you might have heard several stories of how marriages are failing and how people have to be ‘smart’ by forgetting about Bible and following the path of sin in their marital relationship. You will not end up like other failures in Jesus name.
Maybe you are even a married person who is currently afraid of what your marital future holds. “If you would prepare your heart and stretch forth your hands towards Him; if iniquity were in your hand and you put it far away and would not let wickedness dwell in your tents; Then, surely, you could lift up your face without spot. Yes. You would be steadfast and not fear because you would forget your mystery and remember it as waters that passed away and your life would be brighter than noonday. Though you were dark, you would be like the morning and you would be secure because there is hope. Yes. You would dig around you and take your rest in safety. You would also lie down and no one would make you afraid. Yes. Many would count your favour” (Job 11:13-19).

2. A PURE HONEST HEART: If you are not ready for marriage, please stop lying to people that you will marry them without intention to do so. If you continue, you are sowing a seed of anti-destiny bullet that will sooner or later, backfire. You must enter the marital institution with a pure and honest heart. When your heart is pure and honest, you will see the hand of God who looks at the heart.
“Blessed are the PURE IN HEART for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
As a husband or wife, let your spouse see your heart from your attitudes and lifestyle. Don’t hide things from your spouse when two of you are supposed to be one. If you defraud, deceive or lie to your spouse, you cannot see the hand of God in that relationship because he abhors sin. God is of honesty and purity and not deceit.
“Blessed are the PURE IN HEART for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

3. A LOVING HEART: You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving. If you have as fiance or fiancée, someone you find it difficult to share confidential information with, there is an issue.
If you have told someone or agreed with someone that you will marry the person and you always struggle to offer material gifts, time and other evidences of godly love to the person, you have to review that relationship. You must approach marriage with a heart of love.
Marital relationship without love is like a car with a weak engine or without any. If you are a married Christian and you find it difficult to forgive offence done to you by your spouse, you have love issues because.
“Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).
“And now, abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love” (1st Corinthians 13:13).
If you claim to be a Christian and you do not love your spouse, you are an enemy of God.
“He who does not love does not know God for God is love” (1st John 4:8). Church title or activity can never break this scripture.
Enter the marital institution with a loving heart and your marriage shall be a blessing and a testimony in Jesus name. Amen.

4. A FAITHFUL HEART: If you believe that it is natural to be unfaithful to someone’s spouse, your heart is not ready for marital success. God is a faithful God and always rewards faithfulness. If you are married and you are unfaithful to your spouse, trouble looms. I pity your future because there is always a future and punishment for wickedness. You seem to have forgotten this.
God will only make a commitment to help you succeed in marriage if you are faithful. This was what helped Abraham.
“You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, And gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart FAITHFUL before you and made a COVENANT with him…You have performed your words for you are righteous” (Nehemiah 9:7-8).
“Good understanding gains favour but the way of the UNFAITHFUL is hard” (Proverbs 13:15).
Unfaithfulness creates hardship in marriage. Your marital vow is not a joke. There are consequences when you break it. One of the consequences is hardship. Unfortunately, this hardship manifests most times, when you approach your old age; when you are supposed to enjoy the peace of retirement; the fruits of your labour of children’s upbringing.
If you are unfaithful to your spouse, you are not prepared to enjoy the full blessings of marriage.

5. A GOD-INCLINED HEART: Because the marital institution is God’s initiative, you need a God-inclined heart to succeed therein. If your heart has been broken severally by members of the opposite sex and you are embarking on marriage with a vengeance mission, your heart is not God-inclined. Therefore, you cannot find joy in marriage.
“Now therefore,’ he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you and INCLINE YOUR HEART to the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 24:23).
Unforgiveness is a foreign god. Fornication is a foreign god. So is adultery. Wisdom of the world in form of deceit and pride are foreign gods. You must put them away from your heart for God to bless your premarital or marital relationship.
If before now, your heart has been inclined towards a foreign god, you need to repent and confess your sins before God. You can possibly fast and pray for forgiveness. Otherwise, your relationship may not be God-inclined (2nd Kings 22:19).

6. AN UNDERSTAINDING HEART: “The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness” (Proverbs 15:14).
If you do not have an understanding heart, do not bother to marry anybody. The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary describes the word “Understanding” as “knowledge about a subject, situation, etc, or about how something works.”
It is also “a positive, honest, sympathetic relationship between two people or groups.” It is equally “an informal agreement between people.” Again, it is “the ability to know how someone else is feeling or what the person’s situation is and can forgive the person if the person does something wrong.”
From the above explanations, it is right to say that the word MISUNDERSTANDING means that someone “missed to understand.” So, when there is a conflict in a premarital or marital relationship, what is needed is that each party should seek to understand the other party rather than embark on blame game.
“Good UNDERSTANDING GAINS FAVOUR but the way of the UNFAITHFUL is HARD. Every prudent man acts with knowledge but a fool lays open his folly” (Proverbs 13:15-16).
As a single person that aspires to get married someday, if you want your marriage to be outstanding, you must seek some level of understanding of the institution before you enroll in this university that has no graduation date.
Today, many young people have the ambition or desire to get married and be successful in marriage. Ironically, many of them are not interested in gathering and research on this subject. If you are single and intend to have a joyful marriage but you are not interested in reading marriage books, attending marriage seminars or even interacting with the married, to gather experiences, you are deceiving yourself. You don’t even want to know what the Bible says about marriage? Sorry!
There are too many things you need to understand about marriage before you embark on premarital relationship. You need to understand God’s prescribed procedures and processes of choosing a life partner. Is courtship and engagement possible without sin of fornication? How? What about the viruses that can ensure failure in marriage such as wrong orientation or mentality, addiction to public opinion, disobedience to God’s word, bad habit, religious ignorance and so on?
If you jump into marriage without understanding, you will distort your destiny, deny yourself of all gains and favour that God has packaged for you, and expose yourself to unnecessary hardship.
What is your purpose of wanting to get married? Does it align with God’s purpose for inventing marriage? Marriage is not man’s idea. It originated from God. Every brand new car comes with a manufacturer’s manual. Any attempt to operate the car outside the manual’s specifications will lead to problems. In the same vein, any attempt to operate marriage outside the standards of its originator as specified in his word will result in challenges.
As a married man, you need to understand your spouse if you desire to have the gains and favours that marriage offers.
“Good UNDERSTANDING GAINS FAVOUR but the way of the UNFAITHFUL is HARD. Every prudent man acts with knowledge but a fool lays open his folly”.
A lot of things that your spouse could do that offends you, might not annoy you or mean anything to you if you have understanding. For instance, you both work. Your wife combines her rigorous office duties with domestic responsibilities. On this particular day, because of the pressure of work in the office, she could not meet up with getting the meal ready as usual. If you shout and make trouble after she has apologized for this incident, you lack understanding.
Your husband recently invested in a private business from his salary as agreed by you both. As a result, he now struggles with certain financial responsibilities like buying you clothes and shoes. If you make any trouble out of this development, you lack understanding.
Without understanding, there can be no gain or favour in marriage. The truth is that many people love marriage but they are not ready to do what successful marriage requires. Many have failed due to simple ignorance.
Without understanding, there can be no gain or favour in marriage. The truth is that many people love marriage but they are not ready to do what successful marriage requires. Many have failed due to simple ignorance.
“…the way of the unfaithful is hard.” Unfaithfulness creates hardship and indicates lack of understanding.
When you commit adultery, you violate the wedding vow, which was a covenant made before God at his altar. He can never forget the covenant. Let me remind you: “I Brother/Sister ABC do accept you, Brother/Sister XYZ as my wife/husband to have and to hold, for better for worse. I will love you in plenty, in poverty, in good health and sickness. I will nurse and honour you according to the will of God till death do us part.”
Your marital vow is not a joke. There are consequences when you break it. One of the consequences is hardship. Unfortunately, this hardship manifests most times when you approach your old age; when you are supposed to enjoy the peace of retirement, the fruits of your labour of children’s upbringing.
If you are married but lack enough understanding of this institution you have entered, seek understanding. No marriage can ever be outstanding without understanding.

7. A PATIENT HEART: If you have an impatient heart, you may not succeed in marriage. Marriage requires patience. You need patience to wait for wedding day before having sexual intercourse with your partner. You need patience to be able to devote time to courtship, prayers and observation of certain characters of the person you intend to marry. In fact, patience is result of a test of your faith in God regarding your marital relationship (James 1:3).
Maybe you are married but you are beginning to feel that you should leave the marriage because you have waited for so long in vain to see changes. You are wrong, you know. Allow patience to complete its work. It takes time sometimes. That is why it is called patience.
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4).
As a marriage teacher, I can tell you from experience that there is nothing you are experiencing in your marriage that someone has not experienced before and overcame or came out of it.
If you are born again and you have involved God in your marital relationship right from the level of premarital relationship and yet, you are experiencing some terrible challenge that you see now, it does not in any way, suggest that God has failed because he can never fail. The presence of a challenge does not always mean the absence of God’s presence.
Apart from the possibility of spiritual attacks on your marital relationship, God has confidence in you as a Christian that you can stand this temptation and overcome it. Otherwise, he would not have allowed it. Read the story of Job, a righteous man. You will confirm this. You need more grace for a patient heart. Receive it in Jesus name!
““No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1st Corinthians 10:13 NIV).
Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit which every born again Christian is expected to have. If you do not have patience, you are not prepared for a successful marriage at all because your patience MUST be tried in marriage. Do you desire a lasting marriage? Draw closer to God and develop the spirit of patience. Your marriage shall be a blessing and a testimony in Jesus name.

FOR PRAYERS, QUESTIONS, COUNSEL, CONTACT
Pastor Albinus Chiedu
+234 8038117704
[email protected]