Many married couples today miss the mark on what marriage is about. Many married people today think of marriage as: an achievement that needs no more effort once it is achieved through the wedding; a struggle that is meant to be survived day by day; and the forerunner to having children and that's that.

Sadly, many fail to see the beauty of marriage.

My fellow married Christians, we would do well to know that marriage isn't about ourselves. It's not about the marriage itself. It goes beyond the day-to-day budgeting and chores, the child bearing and rearing, and the growing old together. It goes beyond that.

God made marriage to be so much more than what many of us know and think about it today. To help us see the beauty of marriage, here are a few things that God has purposed for it.

1) He wants Godly offspring through it

In Malachi 2:13-17 we read of a passage where God rebukes the priests for not treating their wives faithfully. There He points out that He does not accept the offerings they give because of their unfaithfulness to the spouses that God gave them. Their marriages aren't able to give God what He wants.

And what does God want from their marriages? Godly offspring.

"But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth."

2) He wants His children to subdue the earth through marriage

Genesis 1 tells us that God created man to have dominion over all that He created on earth. Part of that was to let man "fill the earth and subdue it" (see Genesis 1:28). How does man do that? Through the marriage relationship.

Let's read the whole passage in context so we can understand it.

"Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."" (Genesis 1:26-28)

If we are in Christ, we are His children (see John 1:12). He wants us to fill and subdue the earth with His Gospel - first to our own children, then to the world. (see Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:18-20)

3) He wants our marriages to reflect His love for us

It can sometimes be overlooked, but one of the most important purposes of marriage is to reflect God's own love for us.

Many of us understand that God wants all of us husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church, and that He wants all wives to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ, but not many of us see the picture that marriage paints for us married couples and those who are unmarried yet: Christ's love for all of us. Ephesians 5:21-27 tells us,

"...submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."

All husbands will agree that it's very difficult to love sacrificially. All wives will agree that it's difficult to submit to an imperfect man who can be insensitive and undeserving at times. But the Bible teaches us that God's love is just like that: a love that gives itself up, even when the love interest (that's us) is totally undeserving. Romans 5:8 tells us,

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

In closing

Friends, God has very great and wonderful purposes for our marriages. Let's all learn to pursue them as we love God and our spouses.