Devotions for a Sacred Marriage : A Year of Weekly Devotions for Couples

by Gary Thomas, Bestselling Author of Sacred Marriage

• ISBN13: 9780310255956
• ISBN10: 0310255953
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

This book of 52 devotionals is a companion to Thomas's "Sacred Marriage," which enables couples to think and act upon the premise: "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?"

Table of Contents

Introduction	9	(2)
The God-Centered Spouse	11	(2)
A Prayer to Remember	13	(3)
Keeping the Focus Where It Belongs	16	(3)
Growing Old Together	19	(2)
God's Son, God's Daughter	21	(2)
The Gift of Fear	23	(3)
Don't Look Back	26	(2)
Fame Is Trumped by Intimacy	28	(3)
A Soul Filled with God	31	(3)
The Foundation of Fellowship	34	(3)
The Heart To	37	(3)
The Preyer	40	(2)
Love Mercy	42	(3)
One Bad Habit	45	(3)
Soul Mate or Sole Mate?	48	(3)
Enjoying Each Other	51	(2)
Thoughtlessly Cruel	53	(2)
You Deserve a Break Today	55	(2)
Shaped by Sharing	57	(3)
I Hold You Responsible	60	(3)
The Big Picture	63	(3)
If It's Not Sin ...	66	(3)
Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts	69	(2)
You're Prime!	71	(3)
Marital Ruts	74	(2)
To Make Her Holy	76	(3)
Marriage Is Movement	79	(2)
Earthly Education for Heavenly Heights	81	(3)
One	84	(2)
The Happiness That Follows Holiness	86	(3)
Running from Yourself	89	(2)
Good in Bed	91	(2)
Divine Detachment	93	(3)
Make Someone Happy	96	(2)
I Love Him Anyway	98	(3)
A Spiritually Tight Marriage	101	(4)
The Great Escape	105	(3)
Sanctuary	108	(3)
Real People	111	(3)
A Difficult Road	114	(4)
The Ministry of Noticing	118	(3)
One Day at a Time	121	(2)
You Don't Understand: Role Reversals	123	(3)
Worth the Pain	126	(3)
What Do You Do?	129	(2)
Open Marriage	131	(3)
The True Image of Love	134	(3)
A Call to Listen	137	(3)
The Estate of Marriage	140	(3)
Passive Persecution	143	(3)
Kindness Matters	146	(3)
Oases of Sanity	149	(4)
Notes	153	(2)
Acknowledgments	155

Excerpts

Devotions for a Sacred Marriage
Copyright © 2005 by Gary L. Thomas
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Gary (Gary Lee)
Devotions for a sacred marriage : a year of weekly devotions for couples /
Gary L. Thomas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN-10: 0-310-25595-3 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25595-6
1. Married people—Prayer-books and devotions—English I. Title.
BV4596.M3T45 2005
242'.644—dc22
2004026272
This edition printed on acid-free paper.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Michelle Espinoza
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 /. DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The God-Centered Spouse
Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body
and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
2 Corinthians 7:1
Greg Nettle, pastor of the RiverTree Christian Church in Massillon,
Ohio, was walking to his car after a golf tournament when he realized
the remote trunk opener wasn’t working. Neither were the automatic
door locks. When he finally got inside the car, he saw the fuel
gauge reading empty, even though he had filled up on gas less than
twenty-four hours before. More frustrating yet, the car would turn
over but then immediately die.
After a tow truck delivered the disabled vehicle to the dealership,
a mechanic came out to Greg and told him the problem: a bad BCM.
“What’s a BCM?”
“The basic control module. It’s essentially the car’s brain, and
once it goes bad, everything starts malfunctioning.”
Greg could have insisted on “fixing” the trunk, the door locks,
the gas gauge, and any number of problems—but those were merely
the symptoms of an overall malfunction.
How often do we do the same thing with marriage! We focus on
the symptoms:
• “We need to improve our communication.”
• “We need to get better at handling conflict.”
• “We need to show more appreciation for each other.”
• “We need to have a more unified plan with the children.”
• “We need to work harder at keeping the romance alive in our
relationship.”
We can spend a lifetime focusing on the symptoms, or we can replace
the BCM—the basic control module. I believe the BCM for marriage
is our spiritual motivation.
It all comes down to this: Are you a God-centered spouse or a
spouse-centered spouse? A spouse-centered spouse acts nicely toward
her husband when he acts nicely toward her. She is accommodating,
as long as her husband pays her attention. A spouse-centered husband
will go out of his way for his wife, as long as she remains agreeable
and affectionate. He’ll romance her, as long as he feels rewarded
for doing so.
But Paul tells us we are to perfect holiness out of reverence for God.
Since God is always worthy to be revered, we are always called to
holiness; we are always called to love. A God-centered spouse feels
more motivated by his or her commitment to God than by whatever
response a spouse may give.
Spouse-centered Christians try to make excuses to stop loving
their spouses because of their spouses’ sins. But if this were a valid
excuse, every one of us could avoid the call to love, since every one
of us married a sinner!
One woman came up to me after a seminar and said, “It would
be easy to be married if my husband were half as holy as you.” I managed
to contain my laughter and pointed out that she had no idea
how “holy” I was; my wife feels pushed beyond her limit in many
areas while trying to love this sinful man.
But that’s not the point! I am not called to love my wife because
she is holier than other wives (though I’m deeply thankful for her
godliness). I am not called to love her because she makes me happy
(though I am grateful for the many good times we share). I am not
called to love her because she makes me go all gooey inside (though
sometimes she still does). I am called to love her out of reverence for
God. Any other motivation is less than Christian.
If I am to rid myself of anything that may contaminate body or
spirit, then I can give no place in my life to jealousy, bitterness,
resentment, or selfishness. I am always called to practice gentleness,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Someone else’s
sin—even the sin of my spouse against me—never gives me the
license to respond with sin. I am called to just one motivation, and
one only: reverence for God.
In one sense, what my spouse says or does or doesn’t do is almost
irrelevant. Every decision I make, every word I utter, every thought
I think, every movement I perform, is to flow out of one holy motivation:
reverence for God.
Are you a God-centered spouse?
A Prayer to Remember
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a
life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:1–2
When I come into town for “Sacred Marriage” seminars, I often get
taken out to dinner beforehand. The organizers sometimes invite an
engaged couple to join us. I always like this, particularly if I feel tired
from traveling, because I know I can ask one question of the engaged
woman that will reward me with a good rest. I know this because she
will likely take at least ten minutes to answer. The question is this:
“Tell me about your future husband.”
The bride-to-be’s eyes light up, and she starts to gush with enthusiastic
and unqualified praise: “Oh, I so appreciate this about him,
and he’s so good at that, and he’s so wonderfully thoughtful in this
area, and in that area he’s absolutely the best . . .”
Then, later in the weekend, I’ll be with a group of wives and say,
“Tell me about your husbands.” I still get a rest, but I don’t find it
nearly as pleasant. The chorus goes like this: “He doesn’t do this. He
never does that. He wouldn’t know how to spell ‘spiritual leader,’
much less act like one.”
I go back to my hotel room and ask myself, “Where is the bridge
that leads a woman to stop defining a man by what he is and start
defining him by what he is not?”
The sad answer, unfortunately, is marriage. All our hopes, expectations,
dreams, and ideals get poured into this real relationship.
Because we marry a

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Excerpted from Devotions for a Sacred Marriage: A Year of Weekly Devotions for Couples by Gary L. Thomas
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