Love, Faith, and Loyalty: The Keys to a Strong Marriage

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Dear Boston and Hailey,

You are standing here today to exchange your vows of love and loyalty to each other. What a miracle is taking place right before our eyes! According to God’s Word, the two of you are becoming one flesh—one in mind, body, and spirit. However, your oneness will be tested many times in the months and years ahead. You will face many challenging situations and issues in your marriage and family life. At those times, where will you turn? Where will you look for strength, guidance, and hope to carry on?

Many couples look for wisdom and guidance for their marriage in all the wrong places, and the negative consequences speak for themselves. However, I pray that both of you will always turn to God’s inspired Word for wisdom and will turn to your Lord in prayer for His grace and guidance. These are the lifelines of love we discussed each time we met over the last few months.

In the Bible, God provides us with an inspiring story of two people who faced a critical crossroads. Their God-pleasing decision not only profoundly affected their lives for good but was also used by God to accomplish His much greater purposes, the continuation of the messianic line. It’s the story of Ruth and Naomi.

Though it doesn’t fit the negative stereotype often associated with this relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, theirs is a story of love and loyalty. Their example offers us insights into the kind of faith, love, and loyalty that are so important in forming loving and lasting relationships. Those qualities are especially important for a healthy and enduring marriage.

The story of Ruth and Naomi begins in the land of Israel. Because of a famine in the land, Naomi and her family moved to Moab. There, her sons married women from that pagan land. Over the next ten years, Naomi’s husband and her two sons died. Grief-stricken, she decided to return to her hometown of Bethlehem.

Naomi realized she could not ask these young widows to leave their land, their relatives, and their religion to follow her to a strange land and an uncertain future, so she urged them to go back to their fathers’ homes. Orpah said her tearful good-bye, but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law, not only because of her affection for her, but also because of her faith and trust in the true and living God.

Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16-17).

Although originally directed to her mother-in-law, Ruth’s promise is appropriate for you to promise today at your wedding. For the mutual commitment of husband and wife, as desired by the Creator who made you in His image, is complete in all aspects of your life: temporal (for the rest of your lives on earth), emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual—with Jesus Christ at the center, inspiring you and holding you together, even as it was “God … the Lord” who held Naomi and Ruth together in the most extreme circumstances.

Boston and Hailey, today, you are pledging before God and your loved ones that you will love, honor, and cherish each other for the rest of your lives. You are promising that no matter what situations or circumstances may arise in your life, you are totally committed to your marriage—and totally devoted to each other.

Today, you are standing before God’s altar and asking Jesus, the Lord of marriage, to bless your marriage with His love and unity, His abiding presence, and His peace. And your families and friends are here rejoicing and celebrating with you the wonder and blessing of God’s math, as He re-creates you from two into one, binding you together as husband and wife, for as long as you both shall live.

Now it begins—a marriage perhaps made in heaven but lived out here on earth, with two redeemed sinners amid a changing and challenging world.

There is no magic formula for a successful marriage. But in Ruth and Naomi’s relationship, we discover some key qualities that are helpful for making any relationship stronger and more secure.

The first key quality is love. But not just any kind of love will do. I know you both are in love with one another, or you wouldn’t be taking this step. But I’m talking about a higher kind of love—a gracious, self-sacrificial love. The Bible gives us a marvelous pattern for this genuine and lasting love as we witness, in Word and deed, the amazing kindness that our Lord showers on all those who place their faith and hope in Him.

Christ’s love is different from the world’s. It’s a giving and forgiving love. It required Him to give His very life into death on the cross. And as a result of the cross, He now forgives us every sin. Christ sees us as we truly are, with all of our flaws, faults, and failures, and He loves us with an unconditional kindness and acceptance, nevertheless, exchanging His righteousness for our sin on the cross.

That is the kind of love that our Lord invites you to shower on one another in your marriage, day after day and year after year. For as time goes on, you will see one another as you really are. You will discover and develop a greater appreciation for your spouse’s strengths and unique personality, but you will also start to notice his or her little flaws, faults, and failures. Through the grace and blessings that you receive by faith in Christ, may you also see each other covered with Christ’s righteousness. May you keep on loving each other with a giving and forgiving love that knows no conditions or limits.

The second quality that is vital for a healthy and strong marriage is a shared faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. In recent years, many couples who grew up in Christian homes are neglecting this vital ingredient in marriage. But what a blessing it is when you build your marriage on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ and His sure Word and promises! For when Jesus joins a couple together in marriage, he weaves together the threads of faith, love, and loyalty to form a bond that is rich and enduring. It’s knowing that both of you are sinners redeemed and forgiven by Christ’s death that binds you together in the ultimate way. It’s that bond that enables Christian couples to keep on giving and forgiving, long after others have given up and thrown in the towel.

Every marriage faces challenges, which may test your love to the limit. Through the years, there will be times when you sin against one another, when some of your feelings for each other will change—for better or worse. But when Jesus Christ lives at the center of your hearts and your marriage, He will bring healing, hope, and renewal at those times when your love seems to be fading. He will bring the forgiveness and love needed to sustain your love and forgiveness to one another.

When Jesus Christ and His Word and promises are the source of strength and guidance for your marriage and family life, He will continually refresh your love, deepen your loyalty to each other, and restore your desire to cherish each other and honor your marriage vows, for as long as you both shall live.

Boston and Hailey, may Christ’s love so fill you that your love for one another would never weary but grow and deepen through every joy and sorrow shared! Amen