“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honor one another above yourselves.”
(Romans 12:10)

“Honor is one of the most important values missing in marriages today.” (Gary Smalley)

We believe one of the main reasons so many marriages are unhealthy is because husbands and wives have stopped honoring one another. We seem to honor each other before marriage. And in our wedding vows we promise to honor one another “until we’re parted by death.” But then as we look at married couples all around us, there’s so much “DIS -honoring” going on. The question we’d like to ask is, “Why do spouses forget to honor one another after marriage?”

There can be a million and one reasons why husband’s and wives stop honoring one another. At this point, we can almost hear some of you saying, “If he/she would give me something to honor about them, then I would.” Cindy and I have also “been there, and said that” ourselves at different points in our own marriage, so we understand how that thought process can come about.

But the Lord has been very direct with all of us on this matter. The fact is we’re told in the Bible to unconditionally honor one another above ourselves. No matter what reason we can come up with, the Bible doesn’t give us excuses to act any other way. It doesn’t say, “honor each other above yourself UNLESS… this or that.”

There isn’t an “unless” clause in the Bible on this subject. God has never told us that we’re allowed to rewrite the commands of the Bible because we feel we have a good reason to. As it says in Proverbs 16:25, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (And this could also include the death of a marriage.)

In his “Secrets to Lasting Love” video series, Gary Smalley says there are three steps to building honor in your relationship:

1. Raise the value of your mate as high as possible and choose to value your mate just a little above yourself.

2. Increase the brightness of honor through observing your mate’s best qualities. A good start is by listing on a piece of paper the five qualities or character traits you most admire in your mate.

3. Shine your mate’s “light” for others to see by praising your mate to others. (Someone once said, “Accolades before audiences are care packages for the heart”.)

It’s our prayer that when you will read this, you’ll ask the Lord to talk to your heart, showing you what He wants to tell you on this area of your own marriage. Ask Him to show you how to honor your spouse in a way that won’t be hypocritical but God-honoring.

We pray you’ll make the decision to raise the value of your mate as high as God would have you. As Gary Smalley suggests, look at your spouse as if they’re “autographed by God.” That’s because they are. God created them in His image and it’s our responsibility to find that image and honor it.

Our love and prayers are with you as we work together to make our marriages living testimonies to the fact that we serve a God who can teach even ordinary people how to truly love one another.

In Christ,
Steve and Cindy Wright