Top 5 Christian Marriage Rules

According to the Bible, if you follow these rules for your Christian marriage, you'll put your family on a course for happiness and fulfillment:

1. Put God First

The very first commandment Moses brought down from Sinai was that the people of Israel were to have "no other gods" before Jehovah. How many Christian families forget this, as they elevate work, recreation, TV, money, and a host of other things above God in their day-to-day priorities.

2. Pray Individually and Together as a Family

Paul writes that we are to "pray without ceasing" and James tells us that the "effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." How's your prayer life? Do you pray regularly and fervently to God? And do you pray not only individually, but as a family?

3. Mutual Commitment to Oneness

God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden - at the very dawn of human history. The book of Genesis records God laying out the basic structure of marriage as follows...A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, becoming "one flesh." A true marriage is more than a partnership. It is a "oneness" relationship. Two people literally become one. That should be the goal of every marriage.

4. Choose to Love

We throw the term "love" around very casually, but love is not a feeling. It's a choice. A decision. Because it's so easy to "fall in love," we assume that it should be easy to stay in love. Wrong. Staying in love requires a commitment to stick with your spouse through good times and bad, happy feelings and sadness, joy and hardship. Kind of sounds like the marriage vows. You must choose to love (and see love as the active verb that it is, rather than a passive noun) your spouse each and every day.

5. Be Proactive in Your Marriage

The book of Proverbs teaches us that "a man who has friends must show himself friendly." Above all things, your spouse should be your best friend. And the Bible teaches that friendship is based on initiative. You must show and demonstrate friendship to truly be worthy of friends. Well, let's not limit this to simply friendship, since Paul takes this same theme in Ephesians 5. That's a controversial passage, and this article doesn't have time to get into the theology of it, but suffice it to say, that both the husband and wife are given proactive commands and responsibilities.

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