Men Preparing for Marriage Eph. 5:25 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

Men preparing for marriage should be much more concerned with preparing themselves than with finding a woman.  As a man, here are some practical and spiritual things that you can do to prepare for your marriage, even long before you find the woman that you believe God would have you to marry.

Establish consistent personal devotions – Ps 55:17 David prayed three times a day; Is 34:16 read your Bible daily; 2 Tim 2:15 study the words of God; 1 Tim 4:13 Paul exhorted Timothy to “give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.”  The best way to prepare yourself to love your wife is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul.  Jesus loves the church and we are to love our wives the way that Christ loves the church, Eph 5:25.  Your love for your wife should always be secondary to your love for the Lord.  If, therefore, you don’t love the Lord very much, you won’t love your wife very much either.  Or else you will end up loving her more than you love the Lord and that will cripple your marriage.

Find and do the Lord’s will for your life – Phil 2:12-13 that way when you meet your future bride, you won’t be pulled away from the Lord’s will by trying to appease her.  1 Cor 11:3 the head of every man is Christ.  Therefore, you have to be under his authority if your wife is ever going to be under your authority.  Many a man has left the path of the Lord’s will for the sake of the woman he wanted to marry only to find that he could never get back to the Lord’s will because she wouldn’t let him without making his life miserable or without threatening to divorce him.

Develop strong convictions – 1 Tim 4:12 – as the old saying goes, “a man that will stand for nothing will fall for anything.”  There is some truth to that statement.  You have to know where you stand and then you have to stand there.  That will make it easier for you and your bride to determine whether you are agreed on important matters.  If not, then you’ll find yourself giving ground that you cannot recover just to keep your marriage together.  Like Amos asks, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”

Be very faithful in church – Heb 10:25 – attend all the services faithfully [i.e., Sunday school, preaching morning and evening, and prayer meeting].  Occupy your time with things in the ministry.  Learn to be a helper and concentrate your efforts on getting lost people saved and in church.  That way it will be natural for your family to grow together in church.

Rule your spirit – Prov 25:28; 14:29 – loving relationships between men and women involve emotions.  Therefore, you have to have control of your spirit and your emotions to keep from rash statements and actions that will hurt your spouse.  One thing with which women have a hard time is forgetting things that hurt them.  Many men have hurt their wives because they lost their temper at a time when they should have maintained control.  Their marriages have suffered from then on to some degree.

Control your eyes – Ps 101:3; Job 31:1 men have a terrible time with this problem, particularly today.  You have to be disciplined to keep from developing an attitude about women that they are simply objects for your personal pleasure.  So, don’t watch TV, watch few movies [be sure there is nothing suggestive or explicit that you will view], don’t surf the internet, don’t lust after women [Matt 5:28].

Control your thoughts – 2 Cor 10:4-5; Prov 16:3 – once you have an image, you have an imagination.  And the trouble with our imagination is that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth,” [Gen 8:21].  You have to control your thought life.  If you don’t you could very easily end up marrying the wrong woman for the wrong reason and be very miserable in your marriage.  Furthermore, with an out-of-control thought life, you will not be satisfied with the wife of thy youth [Prov 5:18-19] and before long you will be looking for pleasure from other women.  Follow Phil 4:8 and not the philosophy of the world.  Fill your mind with good things.

Keep yourself pure – 1 Cor 7:1 keep your hands to yourself.  2 Tim 2:22 says to flee also youthful lusts.  The best way to avoid trouble here is don’t play the dating game.  And covenant that you will wait till you are married before physically loving your wife.

Conclusion: If you will follow these practical yet very important steps, you will find that preparing for marriage is superior to falling in love and soon falling out again.