When a young couple in their twenties decides to get married, Christian couples counseling can help them set the tone for their marriage. The goal of Christian counseling for marriage is to help the couple develop faith-based strategies that will strengthen their marriage through better communication, deeper commitment, and faith-based understanding.

Through Christian couples counseling, couples can learn to be intentional about creating a healthy marriage. This is the first step in creating a stable and healthy home. Faith-based principles can create strategies based on God’s word and how to apply Scripture to everyday life as a married couple.

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” – Matthew 19:4-6, ESV

Principles of a Christian Marriage

Preparing for marriage isn’t just about the gowns, venue, and guest list. The most important part of wedding planning is marriage planning. This is not commonly listed on the bride-to-be’s to-do list. Marriage planning is the purposeful decision to seek Christian couples counseling to have a marriage based on Godly principles.

Centering Life on Jesus

Jesus must be at the center of each person’s life for Him to strengthen the marriage. When two people come together in marriage, they bring with them different traditions and cultures. Keeping God in the center of bringing two lives together will define a new life for them as a couple.

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5, ESV

Centering love on Jesus

To love honestly and purely, a person must first love God. When a person knows how to love God, they will learn how to love others, especially their intended spouse.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant – 1 Corinthians 13:4, ESV

Center resolutions on Jesus

Conflicts will come in marriage. The key is to resolve conflicts through faith-based principles. This means that each person will need to examine the role they play in the conflict.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. – James 1:19-20, ESV

Center expectations on Jesus

When people go from being single to married, roles and expectations change. In marriage, each person is expected to love and honor the other in the same manner. By placing Jesus at the center of our expectations, we learn how to walk in the proper roles of marriage.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. – 1 Peter 2:21, ESV

Center communication on Jesus

There is no doubt that communication plays a vital role in marriage. Words can give life, or they can cause death. They can build up or tear down. Positive communication cultivates a healthy marriage.

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. – Proverbs 12:18, ESV

Center finances on Jesus

Finances are one of the most difficult areas of marriage. Keeping a faith-based mindset about money and its intended use can create a strategy for maintaining proper stewardship.

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? – Luke 14:28, ESV

Center community on Jesus

Young couples need to have Godly counsel available. Whether it is through friends or the pastoral staff at church, couples need a Christian connection with other people. It is through community that couples can find support and be challenged in their faith and marriage.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17, ESV

Center intimacy on Jesus

The young couple needs to understand that intimacy is a natural relationship between husband and wife. God wants the beautiful intimacy for them that He created. No matter what is in their past, God can restore their intimate relationship.

I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. – Ephesians 4:1-3, ESV

Support for Young Couples

Christian couples counseling can be a great tool for young couples who are getting ready to start a life together. Through faith-based strategies, the couple can understand how to cultivate a healthy marriage that will last a lifetime.

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