What 3 things most impact a marriage?

I could provide you with a lengthy list of several things that can have a dramatic impact on a marriage.

You could do the same for me.

That’s because it’s not just one or two things that make or break a marriage from successfully being a life-long, loving relationship.

With that said, in more than three decades of counseling couples as either a minister or a counselor, there are three things I’ve observed that have the greatest impact upon a marriage. If these three things are solidly foundational components to a marriage, that bond will usually thrive for a lifetime. But if these three things are missing, or lacking, it could result in a poor relationship or even bring an end to the marriage.

What are these three primary components to a marriage?

1. The Lordship of Jesus Christ. Who Jesus Christ is in the lives of husband and wife matters more than anything else. If you’re living by the flesh, you’ll battle selfishness all the days of your marriage, because if Jesus isn’t the primary focus of your life, you will be. You’ll either live for self, or die to self and live for Christ. If you live a life where you have been buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life as a new creature in Christ, THAT will dramatically impact your life in every way, especially your marriage.

2. Love. Marriages don’t fail because of an abundance of love, too much love, or consistent love. Marriages can fail when one or both partners fail to love the other consistently. That’s because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) and always acts in the best interest of the other person.

Just imagine, for a moment, being married to yourself. It would take a lot of love to put up with that, right? That’s the point Kent Crockett makes in “I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint”:

Let’s suppose that everyone on this planet is an absolutely identical clone of you. You all have the same preferences and opinions. Everyone thinks the same. Each individual sees from your viewpoint.

Now imagine — hypothetically, of course — that you are married to you. Would you have a perfect marriage? Would you ever argue with yourself? What if you both wanted the last piece of chicken? Suppose neither of you wanted to take out the trash. What if you were both in bad moods?

Yes, you would still have arguments with yourself if you were married to you. You would find out how difficult it can be to live with yourself. You might even ask yourself for a divorce!

It will take love to be married to you … and for you to be married to another sin-broken human being. But love covers a multitude of sins.

3. Genuine commitment. Love is a covenant relationship that is a commitment to maintain the relationship until only death parts one spouse from the other. In all of the married couples I’ve counseled who had terribly wrecked their relationships, regardless of the amount of damage done I knew as long as there was a sliver of commitment left, there was a greater chance for reconciliation. Clara Gantt demonstrated a rather undaunted commitment to her husband, as reported by nbclosangeles.com:

There was a very unusual military funeral in California in December of 2013. Sgt. First Class Joseph Gantt, who fought in both World War II and the Korean War, was laid to rest. He had been captured in Korea in 1950 and died the following year. But his body was not returned for many years, and his death was never confirmed by the North Koreans.

His wife, Clara, waited for decades for her husband to come back. She regularly went to meetings with government officials seeking information about what had happened. Clara even bought a house and had it professionally landscaped so all Joseph would have to do when he came home was go fishing. She was ninety-four years old when his remains were finally brought home for a military funeral with full honors. It wasn’t the homecoming she dreamed of, but she finally knew his fate. Clara told a reporter who interviewed her, “He told me if anything happened to him, he wanted me to remarry. And I told him ‘No, no.’ Here I am, still his wife, and I’m going to remain his wife until the day the Lord calls me home.”

A FINAL NOTE
It’s not just that these three things have the greatest impact on a marriage, we need them in the order presented. By dying to self and making Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives, the One who IS love enables us to love our spouses sacrificially as He loved us. And when we sincerely love someone, we will be committed to sticking with them through the end.

What are the three things that have the greatest impact on your marriage right now? Are they the Lordship of Jesus Christ, love, and genuine commitment? If not, how could your marriage be impacted if you made these three things the foundational components to your marriage?

Scotty