Does the institution of marriage mean enough to you that you would be willing to do something? Something to help? Anything? Pray? Counsel? Something more than just say you are pro-family? Would you put your words into action and make a difference?

I know you know divorce rates are high. You may see countless children growing up in broken homes. Years ago, when I lived in Pleasanton, California, I saw one family after another in our neighborhood fall to divorce. The lady across the street was left by her husband and raised her son mostly alone. Two doors to the right, a family moved out and a young couple with small children moved in. Shortly after, they divorced and sold the house. Across the street and to the left one house, a couple about my age had a teenage daughter and three younger children, and they divorced, and a real estate lady moved in who was a divorced Christian living with a boyfriend, and they became convicted of sin and he moved out while she remained. Two doors to our left, another couple with children split up. And then one day at work, I logged into my computer to see my wife having a conversation with a man about an affair. That was confronted and forgiven, but it would be only a few months before she would divorce me for another man.

So, there is the pattern. It happens to other people all around you, and then it happens to you. Or your son. Or your daughter. Or your parents.

The time to do something to save marriages is always now. Yesterday is never enough. Tomorrow is too late.

The person to do what it takes is always “me”. It is never “him” or “her” or “you” or “someone else”. Say the three words out loud — It—Is—Me. If you don’t do it, someone else won’t do it for you. When was the last time you did anything to help save marriages? Today? Awesome! Your own marriage counts. Your children’s marriage counts. It is not selfish to do something to shore up any marriage.

There is work to be done in the legal community. There is work to be done in the church. There is work to be done in the schools. My goodness! Did you know the homosexuals and the pedophiles probably do a million times more to break down marriages than Christians do to help save marriages? We better pray!!!

I don’t say that to rip into Christians or condemn Christians, but we need to stop trying to be more sincere and learn to be sincere at all. I mean it. Is that unfair?

Little children are growing up in broken homes because more of us would rather spend our time watching the TV and we would rather spend our money on sinful pursuits than on saving marriages and families. Few of us have ever led one person to salvation through Jesus Christ and most Christians don’t even know how to obey this basic commandment of Jesus Christ to take the Good News to all the earth. We need to be revived ourselves before we can hope to bring revival to others.

Wedding Vows

Is the value of your wedding vows so great that your spouse can expect you to stand by them?

Do you have the courage and integrity to back up your wedding vows with accountability and legal assurance your family will not be deprived of their right to live together full time and enjoy the shared family home and possessions by anything you do?

If so, you may be ready for a Sincerity Marriage.

What is a Sincerity Marriage? 

A sincerity marriage is what every marriage should be.  It is a marriage where the people are telling the truth when they declare that the marriage is binding.  It is a marriage for the honest, for the true, for the loving, for the sincere, for the courageous.  The insincere will not find this concept pleasant.

The Sincerity Marriage is the expectation of marriage written into the hearts of every human by the hand of God, and it is why people naturally become angry when the sanctity of marriage is violated.

It is a commitment for life.  Nobody has a right to make wedding vows and then rip the marriage to shreds at everyone else’s expense, and no honorable government would ever rush to protect the unfaithful from responsibility for their bad choices.

A Sincerity Marriage Plan

A plan for a “sincerity marriage” would contain the following assurances of success in marriage:

• Premarital counseling consisting of homework with questions to help the couple get an assessment of differences, expectations, and plans for resolving potential conflicts in a healthy way.
• Determination of whether there are any moral or legal obligations tied to any previous marriages that would prohibit a legitimate marriage from taking place.
• Confirmation of the understanding, sincerity, and depth of the commitment to a lifetime of supporting and benefitting this marriage for the sake of the family.
• Prenuptial agreements drawn up to protect the family from suffering robbery of the right to live together and enjoy the shared family resources because of the unfaithfulness or abuse of one spouse, to oversome some of the adverse affects common to unilateral no-fault divorce laws.  These are loving prenuptials to provide security and assurance of one’s faithfulness and willingness to accept responsibility for any unfaithfulness.
• Prenuptial agreements should contain an identification of common problems in marriage and an agreement regarding the remedy for those problems in advance.
• Followup assessments and review of things learned in premarital counseling after marriage.

 
This vision of a Sincerity Marriage is still in the infancy state of development. However, awhile back I purchased the domain “sincerity-marriage.org” in hopes of building up a website for this purpose.

It is very difficult for me to run these web sites without support and encouragement and prayer, and I have to accept the reality that people don’t support saving marriages at this time very much. People get hurt and look for help urgently for a little while, but then it all goes into a period of grief and loss and recovery, and after that point, helping others avoid trouble in marriage brings back painful memories, so most people would rather accept having others go through it over and over again with a fatalistic attitude that it could not be prevented and that a person who would try would find themselves living a life of pain and futility.

And that is pretty much what it has felt like for me. I see others take a different approach. They go out and get a gun or a bomb, and they kill someone or a few people and often they kill themselves. In fact, one of the highest correlations in statistics is that between suicide and divorce. Here in America, people do it all the time, and many people wonder how it was even possible that such a kind, gentle, sincere, loving person would snap and do something so unexpected.

Truth is, abandonment, adultery, divorce, followed by a heavy dose of robbery, extortion and injustice in the courts will do crazy things to people, and if we don’t want to see those things happening in the news now and then, we have to make some changes.

But, for the

Sincerity Marriage Concept originally appeared on Save Marriages on October 3, 2006.

After Jesus was resurrected, He asked Peter, “Do you love me more than these?”  And, Peter answered something much less enthusiastic, like “Yeah, l’m convinced you’re a good guy” or “I like you”.  But, that wasn’t what Jesus was asking.

Jesus wasn’t feeling insecure and needing assurance.  He was interested in the condition of Peter’s heart.  He was searching Peter’s heart, not to learn something, but to reveal something to Peter and bring him to repentance and healing.  So, Jesus proceeded to ask Peter, “Do you love me” again.  if He asked only, “Do you love me” the second time, that was probably already a painful question because He no longer was asking, “Do you love me more than these?”  He was no longer asking if He was first place, but whether Peter even loved Him at all.  And, again, Peter answered, something more akin to “Yeah, you’re a good bud”, or “Yeah, I like you”.  Then Jesus used Peter’s words and asked, “Peter, do you like me?”  Then Peter said, “Lord, you know that I love you”, and then Jesus said, “Feed my sheep”.

But, this is a question Jesus asks us all.  He lays out all our desires, dreams, lusts, cravings, addictions, sins, and asks us, “Do you love Me more than these?”

In prayer recently, I felt the Lord confronting me about this issue personally and helping me realize whenever I am faced with a decision whether to sin or not, I am given a choice whether to love Jesus more than my sin or whether to love my sin more, and giving in to sin is such a serious thing because it tells Jesus I don’t love Him enough to give up that sin and that I would rather hurt Him than to give up the sin.

Christianity begins with faith that brings us God’s grace to overcome these sins.  Christianity begins with surrender, repentance, giving up these sins.  Every time we justify, excuse, or rationalize our sins away as insignificant, we justify, excuse, and rationalize hurting God.  It is a very serious matter.  It is as if to look into the eyes of Jesus on the cross and say, “Your love and Your sacrifice for me is not enough to convince me to give up my sins against you.”  It is a very serious matter.

When we rationalize and say we all sin because nobody is perfect, we criticize the quality of God’s creation in us and we blame God for failing to give us grace that is sufficient for us.  Furthermore we make Him out to be a liar in that God has told us in scripture that His grace is sufficient for us.

The question Jesus asks each of us today is, “Do you love me more than these?”

It is sad when He has to ask us, “Do you love Me at all?” or “Do you think I’m important enough for lip service only?”

When we receive Jesus as Lord, Jesus is first — not second or third.  Jesus called Peter and invested time and effort into Peter, and yet Peter’s denial of Jesus proved without a doubt that even though Peter had thought of himself as fully Christian or committed to Christ, cowardice ruled over Peter’s life.  I don’t mean to be hard on Peter because that is probably true for nearly everybody.

But, as long as there is anything or anyone who can take the Lordship over our lives away from Jesus, that thing is our lord — not Jesus.

Will you make a commitment today to have no other Lord other than Jesus Christ?  Jesus asks, “Do you love Me more than these?”

Do you love me? originally appeared on Save Marriages on December 8, 2006.