To Have Peace and Love in Marriage…

January 5, 2012

Many times, especially after a meal, we will all gravitate out to the hammock, which has a swing opposite of it.  I’m usually the first one out there, and then slowly I am joined. I don’t mind sharing.   On this particular Sunday afternoon Olivia brought her camera out and snapped some pictures while we relaxed. Yes, one of the benefits of living in the south is that you can enjoy December afternoons with mild temperatures.

To have peace and love in a marriage is a gift

that is next to the knowledge of the gospel.

~Martin Luther

“The Puritan ethic of marriage was to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment, but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, and then to proceed with God’s help to do just that. The Puritan ethic of nurture was to train up children in the way they should go, to care for their bodies and souls together, and to educate them for sober, godly, socially useful adult living. The Puritan way of home life was based on maintaining order, courtesy and family worship.  Goodwill, patience, consistency and an encouraging attitude were seen as the essential domestic virtues.” ~Erroll Hulse, Who Are the Puritans?

“The first negative judgment we find in Holy Writ is a judgment on loneliness.

God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”” R.C. Sproul

“The wonder of marriage is woven into the wonder of the gospel of the cross of Christ, and the message of the cross is foolishness to the natural man, and so the meaning of marriage is foolishness to the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14).” ~John Piper

“Marriage has all kinds of purposes: it provides the environment in which children may be born and properly reared. It provides the context in which the sexual instincts can be exercised in a God-intended way. But first and foremost, Genesis teaches us, it provides a very special friendship. In marriage a man and a woman can become the best of friends, knowing each other to such a depth that only God knows them better! This, too, is a gift from the Creator.”  ~Sinclair Ferguson, A Heart for God

“We should not make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.”  ~Sinclair B. Ferguson, Discovering God’s Will

Let the wife make her husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave. ~Martin Luther

“Marriage is a call to die to self… Christian marriage vows are the inception of a lifelong practice of death, of giving over not only all you have, but all you are. Is this a grim gallows call? Not at all! It is no more grim than dying to self and following Christ. In fact, those who lovingly die for their (spouses) are those who know the most joy, have the most fulfilling marriages, and experience the most love.” ~R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man

“Take every opportunity which your nearness provides to be speaking seriously to each other about the matters of God, and your salvation. Discussing those things of this world no more than required. And then talk together of the state and duty of your souls towards God, and of your hopes of heaven, as those that take these for their greatest business. And don’t speak lightly, or unreverently, or in a rude and disputing manner; but with gravity and sobriety, as those that are discussing the most important things in the whole world.” ~ Richard Baxter, The Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives Towards Each Other

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