“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5 (NIV)
Dearest Daughters,
I’ve often been asked what the purpose of marriage is, and my heart longs to answer in a way that reaches deeper than duty or romance or even companionship. To truly understand marriage, we must begin not with ourselves, but with God and with the purpose for every relationship He has designed.
You see, from the beginning, God was building a house. Not one of stone and timber, but of human souls. His plan was always to dwell with His people. Not just among us, but inside of us. And so, every Christian relationship is meant to become part of that spiritual structure. We are, as Scripture says, “living stones,” carefully placed and shaped, growing together into a temple where God’s presence rests (1 Peter 2:5).
Through this holy dwelling—His Church—God reveals His wisdom not only to the world, but even to principalities of the heavens. Imagine that! Your faithfulness in friendship, in family, and especially in marriage becomes part of an eternal testimony to angels and powers, a declaration that love always wins over fear, over death, over pride, and over every decay that sin has sown into human relationships (Ephesians 3:10–11).
So marriage was never just about finding “the one” who makes only you feel complete. It was never meant to be only about our self-fulfillment or comfort. Marriage was created for God’s glory. It is a sacred context in which we learn to lay down our lives, to submit not merely to one another, but to Christ. It is a place to unlearn self-centeredness and relearn how to love like Jesus does—with humility, grace, and transparency.
The world tells you to ask: What will this relationship do for me?
But the better question is: What is this relationship asking of me? What is God forming through it?
If we want to be part of the spiritual house that He’s building, we must allow Him to dismantle the selfish scaffolding we’ve built around ourselves. That can be uncomfortable. But to the one who longs for Christ to be formed in her, it is holy ground.
Scripture speaks clearly: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. . . . As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:22-24). But hear me: this is not about inferiority or blind obedience. It is about coming under God’s mission (submission) and reflecting a transcendent picture: the church responding in love to Christ.
And submission is not reserved for women. All who follow Jesus are called to mutual submission—to live in such a way that Christ is seen in how we yield, how we serve, how we forgive, how we listen.
So ask yourself often: If marriage is a prototype of Christ and His church:
The enemy of your soul will go after that unity. His oldest trick is accusation and suspicion (Revelation 12:10). He knows that if he can divide what God meant to be one, he can distort the very picture of God’s covenant love.
But a marriage that is ordered by God becomes a living parable—a testimony to what real, sacrificial, enduring love looks like, to what Christ looks like. A little piece of heaven on earth. Not...
