Jesus said, "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'" (Luke 14:28-30)
The context is clear as to what He was referring. However, an application can be drawn from this and applied to marriage. I do not want you to misunderstand me here; this passage is not speaking with regard to marriage, but it does have an application than can be used toward marriage.
In today's society, little to no consideration is put into marriage. People enter into it blindly, thinking that it is somehow supposed to be a fairy tale romance with a happy ending and no problems along the road whatsoever. They are blinded and self-deceived. They stand at the altar vainly and emptily utter those sacred covenant committing vows, "to love, honour, and cherish, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health," yet when the first sign of trouble comes along, or something pathetically unimportant (such as leaving the toilet seat up or hair in the drain), they run for divorce. Just to give you a bit of a wake up call here in order to save you from loads of embarrassing disappointment, you are never going to find a relationship where problems do not exist! Ever! The two of you are both selfish, self-centered individuals. You are going to clash. There is no one whom you are compatible with. You need to learn to be compatible; you need to learn to be one, rather than two; you need to learn to love each other; you need to learn to give of yourself sacrificially to each other; you need to learn to reconcile through apology and forgiveness; you need to learn to be gracious and merciful toward one another in love. These things do not come easily.
When it comes to marriage, you need to take it seriously. You need to take a good hard look at it and ask yourself if you truly love the other person or if it is merely lust, infatuation, or the love of them fitting a certain mould you have created for them in your mind. Remember, life happens. For example, what if your spouse has gorgeous hair and they get cancer and then lose all of their hair. Are they going to somehow be different in your eyes now? Less beautiful than they once were? What if your spouse is involved in a terrible car accident that either renders them without the use of their legs for the rest of their life or they go through the windshield and their face is horribly cut up? Do you honestly love them enough to fulfill your vows of covental commitment "for better or for worse" and to remain with them? Or will you run for the door like a coward, proving you never truly loved them to begin with but merely loved a mould you had for them in your mind as long as they fit it?
This is where the application can be drawn from Jesus' words and applied to marriage. Count the cost! Marriage is not something to be taken lightly. It is a serious matter. It is for life! It is not a car that, when you get tired of it, you can just trade it in. That is the most awful and unloving manner in which you can look at your spouse. It says that they have no value in your eyes other than a particular role they fill. The above examples are just some of the ways in which you need to seriously count the cost of what it means to get married. You need to count the cost of what freedoms as a single person you will be giving up. You need to count the cost of the various bumps in the road that you are going to experience and have to deal with. You need to count the cost of what it is going to mean when particular troubles rear their ugly heads. Talk to married couples and find out what obstacles and hurdles they have had to face in their marriages and then count the cost in regard to the possibility that those same things might occur in your own marriage.
Even the most perfect marriage on the face of this Earth has its disagreements and arguments. Marriage does not come easy; it requires hard work from which you are never allowed a vacation (i.e., you cannot clock out on your marriage). You have to continually put effort into it to make it what you desire it to be. If you think it should be a fairy tale romance, then you have a ton of work that you need to put into it to make it so. Until the both of you learn to co-operate and agree and work together, you will always clash because you are both sinful, selfish, self-centered, individually minded people who have your own ideas of how things ought to be. You need to communicate with each other, you need to sacrifice every now and then, and you need to grow in love, grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness, etc., etc., toward one another. You need to display toward your spouse what Christ Jesus has already displayed toward you.
Marriage is not for the faint of heart. It is a serious covenantal commitment for life. If you enter into it lightly with no concern for the gravity thereof, statistical chances are that you are going to ruin someone else's life. What is your purpose and/or desire for wanting to get married? Examine your heart motive and make sure that it is a godly response and not a selfish one. If you cannot come up with a good response, then you should not be married—or you are not ready to be married. Count the cost of it!
The context is clear as to what He was referring. However, an application can be drawn from this and applied to marriage. I do not want you to misunderstand me here; this passage is not speaking with regard to marriage, but it does have an application than can be used toward marriage.
In today's society, little to no consideration is put into marriage. People enter into it blindly, thinking that it is somehow supposed to be a fairy tale romance with a happy ending and no problems along the road whatsoever. They are blinded and self-deceived. They stand at the altar vainly and emptily utter those sacred covenant committing vows, "to love, honour, and cherish, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health," yet when the first sign of trouble comes along, or something pathetically unimportant (such as leaving the toilet seat up or hair in the drain), they run for divorce. Just to give you a bit of a wake up call here in order to save you from loads of embarrassing disappointment, you are never going to find a relationship where problems do not exist! Ever! The two of you are both selfish, self-centered individuals. You are going to clash. There is no one whom you are compatible with. You need to learn to be compatible; you need to learn to be one, rather than two; you need to learn to love each other; you need to learn to give of yourself sacrificially to each other; you need to learn to reconcile through apology and forgiveness; you need to learn to be gracious and merciful toward one another in love. These things do not come easily.
When it comes to marriage, you need to take it seriously. You need to take a good hard look at it and ask yourself if you truly love the other person or if it is merely lust, infatuation, or the love of them fitting a certain mould you have created for them in your mind. Remember, life happens. For example, what if your spouse has gorgeous hair and they get cancer and then lose all of their hair. Are they going to somehow be different in your eyes now? Less beautiful than they once were? What if your spouse is involved in a terrible car accident that either renders them without the use of their legs for the rest of their life or they go through the windshield and their face is horribly cut up? Do you honestly love them enough to fulfill your vows of covental commitment "for better or for worse" and to remain with them? Or will you run for the door like a coward, proving you never truly loved them to begin with but merely loved a mould you had for them in your mind as long as they fit it?
This is where the application can be drawn from Jesus' words and applied to marriage. Count the cost! Marriage is not something to be taken lightly. It is a serious matter. It is for life! It is not a car that, when you get tired of it, you can just trade it in. That is the most awful and unloving manner in which you can look at your spouse. It says that they have no value in your eyes other than a particular role they fill. The above examples are just some of the ways in which you need to seriously count the cost of what it means to get married. You need to count the cost of what freedoms as a single person you will be giving up. You need to count the cost of the various bumps in the road that you are going to experience and have to deal with. You need to count the cost of what it is going to mean when particular troubles rear their ugly heads. Talk to married couples and find out what obstacles and hurdles they have had to face in their marriages and then count the cost in regard to the possibility that those same things might occur in your own marriage.
Even the most perfect marriage on the face of this Earth has its disagreements and arguments. Marriage does not come easy; it requires hard work from which you are never allowed a vacation (i.e., you cannot clock out on your marriage). You have to continually put effort into it to make it what you desire it to be. If you think it should be a fairy tale romance, then you have a ton of work that you need to put into it to make it so. Until the both of you learn to co-operate and agree and work together, you will always clash because you are both sinful, selfish, self-centered, individually minded people who have your own ideas of how things ought to be. You need to communicate with each other, you need to sacrifice every now and then, and you need to grow in love, grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness, etc., etc., toward one another. You need to display toward your spouse what Christ Jesus has already displayed toward you.
Marriage is not for the faint of heart. It is a serious covenantal commitment for life. If you enter into it lightly with no concern for the gravity thereof, statistical chances are that you are going to ruin someone else's life. What is your purpose and/or desire for wanting to get married? Examine your heart motive and make sure that it is a godly response and not a selfish one. If you cannot come up with a good response, then you should not be married—or you are not ready to be married. Count the cost of it!