For most of us, somewhere along the way in our Christian lives we come to the realization that there’s no limit to all the good that we can do. There are countless responsibilities that we have to specific relationships, to ministry, and to serving, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day to be a part of all of it. This is where the biblical concept of temperance comes into play. Temperance is working through the process of figuring out what things—even good things—we need to say “no” to so that our lives are positioned to bring God the maximum glory. In other words, it’s learning how to say “no” to some good things so that we’re able to say “yes” to the best things. All the good that we know to do has to be tempered, otherwise we’ll fail at everything we do.
Of course, there are certain good things to which we know we can’t say “no.” First and foremost, we know we can’t say “no” to responsibilities that have to do with our relationship with God, such as reading the Bible, praying, and witnessing. But there’s another relationship that we’re responsible for that also can’t be dismissed: our marriage relationship. Outside of our relationship with God, the most important relationship in our lives is our relationship with our spouse. Sadly, this relationship tends to be one of the first things we put on the shelf to make room for “good things” that aren’t necessarily the “best things.” God very calculatedly designed marriage to be a beautiful picture of His love relationship with the church, and He intends for us to be ministry partners together with our spouse as we put that picture on display for the world to see. That’s the significance that God places on our marriages. So when we display temperance in our lives and choose only the “best things” out of a whole lot of “good things,” it is imperative that our marriage relationships are included in the “best things.”
It’s important for us to understand that our marriages—as well as the other “best things,” for that matter—will require diligence and intentionality or they will never be what God has called them to be. It’s not going to happen passively. In Psalm 119:4, the psalmist says, “Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.” As we seek to follow God in our marriage relationships the way that God has commanded us, that “diligence” that this verse refers to is essential. Without it, we might as well resign ourselves to the fact that our marriages will be deficient at best. It’s worth asking ourselves: “What am I doing in my marriage relationship to give it the diligence and intentionality that it needs in order for it to be all that God designed it to be?”
It’s essential that we evaluate this now instead of later. As Benjamin Franklin famously expressed, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Oftentimes people wait until an abundance of damage has already been done to their marriage and they’re forced to dig it out of a hole. But it is a lot easier to prevent a disaster than to clean up after one, and we see this practice all over the Bible both in principle and narrative.
One of the places we find the principle is in Isaiah 3:
Isaiah 3:10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
And I get it—within many of our marriage relationships, it isn’t that we’re intentionally doing “wicked” things, it’s just that we’re not intentionally doing “righteous” things. And we will eat of the fruit of our passivity within our marriage relationships. The pursuit of righteousness in our marriages is the prevention of disaster so that there’s nothing to clean up. It’s the prevention so that there’s no need for a cure.
In narrative, we find this same principle in the life of Daniel.
Daniel 1:8 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Daniel was actively pursuing righteousness, so much so that he purposed in advance that he was going to do righteously. Instead of eating the king’s meat and the fruit of that wicked decision, he ate the fruit of a righteous decision. What do you think would have happened if Daniel had chosen to eat the king’s meat? We could probably come up with some likely repercussions, but we have no way of knowing how far-reaching those effects in Daniel’s life could have been. And that’s the beauty of pursuing righteousness—because preventative measures were taken, you never have to find out the consequences of a passive, wicked decision. Diligently and intentionally pursuing righteousness in our marriages is essential to fulfill our responsibilities to one another as husband and wife, and it will keep us from having to dig ourselves out of a hole that could have been avoided altogether.
These biblical principles that I’m sharing with you are some of the reasons that my dad instituted the WedStrong Marriage Conference and why it has been carried on since he went home to be with the Lord in 2021. Though we have busy lives and live in a world with no limit to the good we can do in any given day, God designed it so that our marriages should never be what gets put on the back burner. We must diligently and intentionally pursue righteousness in our marriage relationships so that we may eat of that fruit and take preventative measures to avoid marital deficiencies and failures. Though this conference isn’t the only way to accomplish this in your marriage, it is undoubtedly a great way to positively contribute to it. If you’d like to join us in 2024, you can find the details below. I hope to see you there.
Thursday, December 5 – Saturday, December 7, 2024
Sonesta Nashville Airport Hotel: 600 Marriott Dr, Nashville, TN 37214
Justin Trotter is the senior pastor at Callie Harbin Baptist Church in Villa Rica, GA.
