Be a Long-Term Premarital Counselor
I was only eighteen when I asked Luella to marry me. I really loved her, but I didn’t yet know how to love her. I was a committed Christian and wanted to do marriage God’s way, but I lacked wisdom and maturity.
Love. Know. Speak. DO.
I knew what was written within the pages of Scripture, but I needed someone to apply those biblical principles to the realities of this particular area of my life. Thankfully, I received much counsel in my early years as a husband.
But still, more than fifty years later, others continue to help me learn a little more each day about what it means to love Luella “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
I am still asking Luella to forgive me. I still need to be rebuked and still benefit from accountability. Others still help me identify areas of spiritual blindness and alert me when I step outside God’s boundaries.
Change constantly requires a deeper understanding of the things of God and a more careful application of those truths to our lives. And since sanctification is a lifelong process that won’t be complete until we are in the presence of the Lord (Philippians 1:6), we must never abandon our commitment to grow in understanding and application.
The Apostle Paul helps illustrate this principle beautifully in 2 Corinthians 11:1–3.
“I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (ESV).
For Paul, the only way to go through life properly is to understand that we are engaged. We have been betrothed to Christ, and our life now is preparation for the great wedding to come.
In other words, your whole life is premarital counseling! You belong to a groom whose name is Immanuel, and God is preparing you for the wedding for which you were created and redeemed. Everything you face today is premarital preparation, living “now” with “then” in view.
In the same way, as God calls you to disciple and minister to others, you must operate as a premarital counselor—helping others change “now” because of their wedding to Christ “then.”
We all need help in this way because sin produces in all of us a tendency toward “now-ism,” which means we forget three things:
1. Who we are (betrothed to Christ)
2. What he is doing now (preparing us for the final wedding)
3. What we are supposed to be doing (remaining faithful to him)
God’s primary goal is not changing our situations and relationships so that we can be happy but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy: “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44).
God calls you to love others by coming alongside of them and exposing their spiritual nearsightedness. He calls you to disciple brothers and sisters by reminding them that everything they experience “now” is preparation for the wedding “then.”
Remind those you are ministering to that the difficulties and disappointments, suffering and blessings of today are for Tomorrow. Lovingly confront wandering hearts, foolish minds, and the ways they trust their passions more than the principles of his Word.
Call others to forsake their own glory for his. Remind them that the idols they pursue will never satisfy. Present wisdom as beautiful and alert to the dangers of a lurking enemy. Encourage them to live for treasures that moth and rust can’t destroy and that thieves can’t steal.
And don’t be surprised when this process of change is slow, and the need for change is ever-ongoing!
A Prayer for Today: God, please help me to be a loving instrument of change in the lives of others you have called me to disciple and minister to. Would you work in and through me to care well for others by pointing them to you, and would you grow and change my heart in the process of working with them? Thank you for loving me enough to change me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
God bless,
Paul Tripp
Discussion Prompt for Children:
How can you help other young people to love and live for God? Why do you think change is so hard for people and why do you think it takes so long for people to change? How has God been patient with you as you’ve been slow to change?
Reflection Questions
1.In what ways have you abandoned your commitment to grow in understanding and application of Scripture? Be specific. Looking back on your Christian life up until now, what have been some major milestones in your life when God has sanctified you in obvious ways? Again, be specific. Now take a moment and thank God for how he has worked in your life and extended patient grace to you in your relationship with him.
2.Who is the person (or people) God has placed on your heart to potentially disciple and minister to? In what ways can you be an intentional “pre-marital counselor” for them? How can you help others experience their “nows” as preparations for their upcoming “thens?”
3.What are the situations and who are the people God wants to use in your life as he works through them to change you? As you’re working to be faithful and help be an instrument of change in the lives of others, how might God use those others to help change you and your heart? Where is God calling you to forsake your own glory for his?