(1 Corinthians 13:7-8) Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

1. Make a covenant commitment.

2. Celebrate differences.

3. Work on communication.

4. Feed the romance.

5. Put Jesus at the center.

(Psalm 127:1) Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.

In order for relationships to work, let the God who designed them, define them.

Covenant Relationships

(Malachi 2:13-16) You flood the LORD’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the LORD Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

(Luke 22:20) In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

+ Covenant is based on mutual commitment.

– Contract is based on mutual distrust.

+ Covenant surrenders rights and assumes responsibility.

– Contract protects rights and shirks responsibility.

+ Covenant has the interest of the other in mind.

– Contract has personal convenience in mind.

2 Final Principles
” Love is not a feeling; it’s a choice.

(Colossians 3:14) And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

” The capacity to love comes from receiving love.

(1 John 4:19 NLT) We love each other because he loved us first.

(Ephesians 3:17-18 LB) I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your heart, living within you as you trust Him. May your roots go deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love, and may you be able to feel and understand…how long, wide, deep, and high His love really is, and experience this love for yourselves.