We're Getting Married Forever

By Mary Baker

Marriage was created by God to be a forever one-flesh union. It is where we learn forgiveness, grace, and mercy. It is where we become a team and build a legacy for the c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Life Books
• Release date: May 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9798330222070

Book preview

We�re Getting Married Forever

Mary Margaret Baker

Updated Edition: May 5, 2023, Copyright @ All rights reserved. Cover photo copyright @ 2023. All rights reserved. Author photo copyright @ 2019. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9798388433060

Author Introduction Thank you for taking the vital step of building your marriage according to God�s design.� I am so thankful that you have purchased �We�re Getting Married Forever,� I pray that you will find Christ-centered encouragement to create a �forever� marriage. I believe that marriage is one of the most treasured gifts God has given us.� Through God�s grace and sovereignty, I have traversed through three challenging seasons of marriage.� When I first wrote this book, my current husband and I were married 23 years ago; now, we have celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary.�

After my second marriage, I remained in El Paso, Texas.� There, my life changed as I submitted my life to Christ and was born again.� During that time, I was a single mom of four children.� God allowed me to return to school and complete my bachelor�s in business administration and Computer Information Systems.�� I began my journey as an author with my first book in 1998 titled, �God�s Answers to Single Parenting.� I started self-publishing in 2014 and have published ten books so far. My husband, my two daughters, and I reside in Southwest Houston. We have seven children: two daughters and five sons, two grand cats, and we have had two grand dogs.� I love writing and pray that this book will lead many to establish their �forever� marriage.�

Acknowledgments

I am so thankful for the patience and long-suffering of my dear God and Christ, my Savior, who has continued to guide me through this writing adventure.� Greg and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary in January 2019.�� Our marriage was rocky, and I doubted we would go the distance. I finally found out what our marriage was missing�the absence of the Holy Spirit and a lack of commitment to being married forever, as God intended.

I am so thankful for all that God has taught me through these years, so I am sharing these insights with others who are considering marriage, who may have just married, who are having difficulties in their marriage, and who have allowed God to build their lives on His precious Holy Spirit.��� I hope you will be encouraged through this book and will create a �forever� marriage.

I am thankful for those who have stood by me, encouraged, challenged, and walked with me as I worked through writing and publishing this book. I am grateful for my husband, who gives me good, godly advice, and my daughters, Krystal and Tereny, who let me know when something needs to be changed. I am also thankful for these dear sisters, Karina Garcia, Phyl Thomas, Alicia Hanning, and Nataliya Scheib, who prayed for me and encouraged me.�

Thank Nataliya for challenging me to make changes and design a book cover that represents the message of this book. I am grateful that God had so many wonderful people to cheer me on in establishing Inspiring Life Books and the projects He would put on my heart to write.

Table of Content

Chapter One - Why Forever?............................................1

Chapter Two - Preparing for Forever �������..8 Chapter Three - Love�������������..21 Chapter Four � Joy��������������..38 Chapter Five - Peace�������������...48 Chapter Six � Patience���������.���.. 58 Chapter Seven - Kindness����������.�..67 Chapter Eight - Goodness����������.�..77 Chapter Nine � Faithfulness�����������85 Chapter Ten � Gentleness� ����������..97 Chapter Eleven � Self-Control���������..108 Chapter Twelve � Forever Intimacy�������..116 Chapter Thirteen � Divine Sexuality�������126 Chapter Fourteen - Forever Honeymooners����.136 Chapter Fifteen � Getting Married Forever����.144 Keep In Touch������������..���.159

Chapter One

Why Forever?�For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become �one flesh�.� (Genesis 2:24)

Nothing hits a person like a smackdown reality check, especially when people of faith discover that we are gravely misrepresenting God and the Gospel of Christ in marriage. Marriage is symbolic of the body of Christ for those who are Christians. When we uphold God's principles of marriage, it is to us a fountain of blessings.�Friends and family support the bride and groom as they unite their lives and celebrate the mystery of becoming one flesh.

�God knew this would not be easy and has given us spiritual tools, like prayer and His Word, to guide us.�We would need a supernatural ability to go through the ups and downs, mountains, and valleys of becoming �one flesh.� One of those mountains is to get through our preconceived notions, stereotypes, and expectations of what we each have assumed marriage is.

We would have to develop a Christ-like heart to forgive and endure as we go through the years of letdowns, put-downs, heartbreaks, egos, pride, and the many evils that our sinful nature creates as we undergo the days, weeks, years, and decades of marriage. The bride and groom will go through all the months of wedding planning, spending money to make everything perfect and preparing their bodies

to look their best on that particular day. Does it make sense to abandon your marriage at the first sign of trouble? That is not what God had in mind for the marriage He created in the Garden of Eden. Just imagine for a moment when the words, �I pronounce you husband and wife,� are spoken; instead of the guests seeing two individuals standing side by side or face to face, they see those two people miraculously become one in the flesh.

Isn't this Amazing? Remarkable? Incredible? Impossible?�In Luke 1:37, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that Elizabeth is with child at an old age�, he stated, �For nothing will be impossible with God.� God is the answer to this mystery of marriage, of how two people, who may even be opposites in some cases, can somehow come to be �one flesh.� Ephesians 3:20 teaches us that God �...is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,�. The power that works in us is the power of the Holy Spirit.

He can turn two different people into a �one flesh� union. Faith in Christ can turn those once enemies of God into His beloved adopted son and daughter. That feeling of love that is present during the wedding ceremony is something I love to experience. I love to see that union of man and woman coming together just as God intended. The two become �one flesh,� to be bonded together until death parts their ways. Even in today's anti-traditional culture, the wedding day is still one of the most cherished days of a person�s life. Marriage is still something that should be honored and respected.�

The wedding ceremony is the commitment of both the husband and the wife to build their lives together. The man has decided that this is the woman God has chosen for him to make a life with, and the woman responds accordingly. �They have not only joined their lives together, but they have also joined their families together, their finances, strengths, weaknesses, the past, successes, failures, and everything else that was once a part of their individual lives.�

Some couples will bring into this world the heritage and legacy of the children they conceive together or may have children from prior marriages. They will go into debt together, build a home, nurture children, and experience sickness and hardships together. Having this picture of marriage set before a couple can be overwhelming, even for those who have faith. However, with faith, one knows that Christ will give them the strength to walk through all the twists and turns of marriage, and they will survive as they lay their burdens in His all-powerful hands.

Without faith in Christ, when life happens, times get tough, misunderstandings arise, humanity sets in, hurts and pain occur, and many couples end up in divorce court instead of at the feet of Christ together.�God did not provide the gift of marriage to make an industry for divorce lawyers. He instituted marriage for two people who decided to get married forever. They understand that hard times will come, that feelings will get hurt, and that husbands and wives will not always meet each other's expectations, but Christ will always be faithful to give them the peace and direction they need to minister to each other�s needs.

One of the things I have learned in my 27 years of marriage is that we can always choose to forgive. It is a choice to model the forgiveness that Christ has given to us. It is a choice that says, �The result is not about me.��The result of our marriage is learning to become �one flesh� and to be an example of Christ's relationship with the church. It�s a great reminder that we love who we are together, who we have become together, and who we will become together. �

Being married forever is a marriage based on a covenant with God. We commit to each other as God in Christ has committed to us when He says He will never leave or forsake us. (Deuteronomy 31:8) He will show us how to forgive when hurt. He will show us the way to clarity when we are confused. He will show us how to grace when our expectations are unmet.�He will show us the way to pray when we don�t understand. He will never leave or forsake us because He knows that it is only through His guidance and leadership that we can be married forever.

In Hebrews 13:4-5, God expresses the importance of honoring marriage. �Marriage�is to be held�in honor among all, and the�marriage�bed�is to be�undefiled;�for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.�5�Make sure