Marriage is Ministry

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 (New International Version, NIV)

We are all called to be in ministry. Some of us are called to minister in secular arenas, while some are called to full time five-fold ministry. In one way or another, we called to be ministers of the love of God. When we mention ministry, people often think of witnessing or praying over people or running a church, but we fail to see the role of ministry in marriage.

Marriage itself is a ministry- and other than ministering to the Lord, it is the most important ministry we will be involved in on the earth. Yes, it is important to minister to the lost and minister to our children, but our priority must be to minister to our spouse first. God brought you together to be one in Him. When you said “I do,” you signed up for an awesome ministry responsibility. The unity of the husband and wife is extremely powerful in the spirit realm and strategic to the fulfillment of kingdom objectives.

Be willing to serve each other out of respect for Christ. Ephesians 5:21 (Easy-to-Read Version, ERV)

Married couples must be concerned more with the well-being of their mate than with their owns wants and desires. The primary type of love in a marriage is often thought to be an erotic, sexual kind of love, but in truth it is a sacrificial love. When we lay down our lives daily for one another, a marriage grows strong and the husband and wife are secure in the relationship. We should not be as concerned about what we get out of the relationship as what we can give.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-32 (KJV)

When we seek to minister to the needs of our spouse, our marriages become a true picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. We may minister to their physical needs, such as cooking meals, cleaning, working to bring home a paycheck, etc. And, we may minister to their physcial needs through meeting their sexual needs. This can often mean we do this when we are not particularly in the mood for it, but it is a sacrifice. It may mean that we want sex but our spouse is exhausted, so we lay our own deisres aside in order to allow them to rest. We may minister to them by giving them companionship when they need it or someone to talk to. It may means we allow them to vent their frustrations to us or we celebrate their victories with them. There are multiple aspects of ministry in marriage.

The ways we minister are many, but the idea is that we must see ourselves as secondary and our mate as primary. Marriage is ministry, and when we are ministry-minded in the marriage relationship, we bring great glory to God.