What motivates you in how your react to and treat your spouse? Do you have a marriage that is centered on the 50/50 principle where you treat your spouse according to the way your spouse treats you? It’s the principle of:

“You-scratch-my-back and I’ll-scratch-yours” — “But if you don’t, I won’t scratch yours either.”

By the world’s standards that sounds pretty reasonable. But think about it, since when did God call His children to live by what is reasonable by the “world’s standards?”

The Bible says in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

What is God’s “good, pleasing and perfect” will, when is comes to marriage? How do we “transform” our thinking and our actions to God’s way of conducting ourselves in marriage rather than to the “pattern of this world?”

It’s a matter of flipping our vision around so we no longer look at our spouse through the “world’s” eyes, but rather through our Heavenly Father’s eyes— that’s what is truly non-conforming and transforming about it. It’s not something that comes naturally to us, but Super-naturally, through God’s transforming, resurrecting power.

It’s also a matter of seeing our marriages beyond our own comfort zones, and viewing them as “platforms for evangelism” as author Gary Thomas talks about. In that way, our marriages “can draw people into a truth that points beyond this world into the next.”

Have you ever viewed your marriage in this God-centered way?

To help with this, we have provided two web site links below, which will lead to different articles written by Gary Thomas (who is one of our favorite authors). We believe they will give all of us a unique God-centered way to view how we look at our spouses and our marriages.

Please click onto the links below to read:

• THE GOD-CENTERED SPOUSE

• FINDING GOD IN MARRIAGE

Dr Gary Chapman asks himself, “How did I miss what Jesus had to say about me and my marriage?” To read the answer he finally arrived at, please click onto the following Marriage Partnership Magazine web site link:

• THE GOSPEL TRUTH

If you have additional tips you can share to help others in this area of marriage, or you want to share requests for prayer and/or ask others for advice, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.