A Buddies Weddin

Marriage… I’ll be honest on this one, and say, “I never had much of a HIGH view of marriage before.” Matter of fact, with a divorced mother, broken family I could not stand watching it nor ever think that I, myself would want to get involved in such a type of “relationship” that would bind someone to another person for life!

Now of-course all of that line of thinking is one, unbiblical and two, before I became a believer. Fall of 2003 I walked onto the campus of Baptist Bible College with hardly any intentions of anything (honestly). Never in the slightest did I believe that I would ever have a best friend, let alone a roommate that would then begin to walk through a spiritual journey of seeing my every move I made in life. Fortunately God new exactly what I needed and who I needed in my life. With ups and downs, watching each others mistakes in life, to watching the beauty of the Gospel mold each others life closer to the form that Christ has given his church has been amazing. Now, Early fall of 2008 I am watching my buddy get married in less than 24 hours. However my view of marriage has changed 180 and degrees. The past 5 years, Christ showing myself through his Scriptures a view that is like none-other.

So, these are my prayers for my dear friend, old roommate, and my dear brother in Christ.

My Prayer for your lives together
Ruth 1:16-17
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.
“Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

My Prayer for your marriage together
Song of Solomon 2:10-13
My beloved responded and said to me,
‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along.
‘For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
‘The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.
‘The fig tree has ripened its figs,
And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along!’

My Prayer for your ministry together
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.
For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?
And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

My Prayer for your love together
I Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Lastly, My Prayer for what you and your wife will represent together
Ephesians5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and give himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.