Selfish Transformation
The real transforming work of marriage is the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment. This is the crucible that grinds and shapes us into the character of Jesus Christ… Marriage calls us to an entirely new and selfless life… Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.
—Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan)


Through Heaven's Eyes
You may ask how you can see your spouse as God does. This perspective comes only from prayer. Concern for my wife's spiritual journey leads me to pray regularly for her, asking that I will be able to discern the Spirit's presence and activity in her life and thereby support, never obstruct, the Spirit. The more I pray for her, the more I see her as God sees her—through eyes of love and concern for her spiritual growth.
—David G. Benner, Sacred Companions (InterVarsity Press)


Pleasing To God?
If I believe the primary purpose of marriage is to model God's love, I will enter this relationship and maintain it with an entirely new motivation, one hinted at by Paul: "So we make it our goal to please him" (2 Corinthians 5:9).

For the Christian, the first question we should ask ourselves when doing anything is, "Will this be pleasing to Jesus Christ?"

The first purpose in marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God.

The challenge, of course, is that it is utterly selfless living; rather than asking, "What will make me happy?" we are told that we must ask, "What will make God happy?"
—Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan)


Time After Time
Becoming married takes time. It doesn't happen on the wedding day. The wedding is only the beginning of a relationship that can be expected to endure and grow. What happens is that over time God's grace becomes visible in the marriage relationship. It becomes visible and real to the married couple, of course, but in a wonderful way it also becomes visible to the people who are touched by the relationship, to family and friends, to neighbors and fellow church members.
—Douglas J. Brouwer, Beyond "I Do" (Eerdmans)


In the Image of God
When was the last time you looked at your mate watching TV, maybe with a beer in his hand, and thought, He is made in the image and likeness of God?

When was the last time you sat across the dinner table and didn't stare down into your plate, but into the eyes of someone reflecting the image and likeness of God?

When was the last time you pressed warmly against your mate, knowing she is made in the image and likeness of God—and not just a body there for your amusement?

What a difference a divine image can make in a marriage. When you begin to relate as males and females according to your super-natural image, you move past the popular illusions and begin to pay attention to what is essential, spiritual, eternal, and even holy about your mate. Hanging bellies, thinning hair, or sagging breasts no longer become your standard for your mate. Your perspective changes from carnal to spiritual: you cease to see your mate as just an object whose sole purpose is to attract you or satisfy you.

When you begin to see your mate as the image and likeness of God, your marriage, no matter how exiled, will instantly realign to God's order. After all, how can you disregard the image and likeness of God? Can you really justify impoliteness or cruelty to the image and likeness of God? Is it possible not to find something beautiful or handsome in the image and likeness of God—regardless of what someone actually looks like? How could anyone, in good conscience, cheat on the image and likeness of God?

In fact, devotion, respect, kindness, caring, consideration, adoration, honesty, nurturing, chivalry, trustworthiness, truthfulness—a list as infinite as the Infinite One—are the only ways to treat the image and likeness of God.

When you correctly view your mate—not according to the warped, twisted, politically correct, fly-by-night, and faddish standards of a fallen world—but as God created that person to be, you set your marriage on the high road.
—Michael Shevack, Adam & Eve: Marriage Secrets from the Garden of Eden (Paulist Press)

Dating:

2 Corinthians 6:14-15
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs19:22a
What a man desires is unfailing love;

1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."

1 Timothy 5:1,2
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

2 Timothy 2:22
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Revelations 14:13
Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them."

Song of Solomon 2:7
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
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.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God..