A transformed marriage

Lately I've been thinking about how we have assurance of our salvation.  Now, bear with me because assurance isn't my topic today, but how I got to my conclusion starts here.  So, how do we know we are saved?  Well, there are many thoughts and ideas on this and friends and I discussed this thoroughly.  What is absolutely clear is that when Christ saves a person they become new, they are transformed and continue to be transformed by Christ to be more like Him.

The pastor of a church Andrew and I attended for the first time last Saturday preached on this transformation.  He spoke of how we ought to be so reflecting Christ that people ask us what makes us so different or "weird".  He talked about how our purpose is to bring glory to God and we do that by living a life that is transformed by Christ to reflect Him, a life that points to Christ.  Simply put:

Purpose: Glorify God
How: living a life that reflects Christ
How: allowing the Him to transform us

Now, onto the topic, a transformed marriage.  Andrew and I are reading through Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll.  It's a really great book and I definitely recommend it.  In the book they point out that the purpose of marriage is to glorify God and reflect Christ and the church.  As Andrew and I discussed this we asked, "How do we have a marriage that obviously glorifies God?"  The answer we came to was that in the same way that we need Christ to daily transform us to be more like Him, we also need Him to daily transform our marriage to reflect Christ and His church... that is how we have a marriage that glorifies God, a marriage that is different enough that others ask us why it is different.

Marriage takes work and commitment.  Just to keep it going takes lots of hard work, determination, and commitment.  To have a marriage that is constantly being transformed by Christ takes Christ, because we can't do it with out Him.  Just as we can't truly change our own selves with out Him, our marriage cannot grow and change without Him.  It is only through Him that we are transformed and our marriage is transformed.