By Zac Poonen

Here is some advice for a happy marriage:

1. First of all: Remember that your wedding day is less than 1% as important as your marriage itself.  So concentrate on your marriage, even if things did not go exactly as planned, on your wedding day.

     All your married life:

2. Put Christ FIRST always. Put each other second; your children third; and parents fourth.
3. Husbands: Never give up the leadership of your home as its head.
4. Wives: Esteem your husband always and allow him to be the leader
5. Never get discouraged – especially when you discover that you are not perfect and that your partner is not perfect either.
6. When you slip up (as you both will, many times), be quick to ask forgiveness from God and from each other, immediately. And don’t condemn yourself.
7. Be quick to forgive each other; and then put the event behind you.
8. Never remind each other of past mistakes.
9. Remember past kindnesses, and don’t ever forget them.
10. Be thankful to God for the good things you see in each other and for all that your partner does for you. And express your gratitude to your partner as well.
11. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ-like love for each other (Romans 5:5).
12. In provocative situations at home, die to Self – and react as Christ would.
13. Seek to eliminate murmuring and grumbling from your home completely – as otherwise, it will slowly destroy your marriage.
14. Use money and material things – but don’t love them, because that will ruin you.
15. When God blesses your home in some way, give Him alone all the credit for it.
16. Develop the habit of gentleness in your conversation with each other.
17. Don’t gossip about people’s failures in your home, but learn from their failures as warnings for yourself.
18. Be absolutely faithful to your partner. Never compare your partner with anyone else, even for a moment. Be faithful to each other, even in your thoughts.
19. Remember that God has ordained the physical union of your bodies to be an expression of your pure and faithful love for each other. Keep it that way always.
20. Trust God to see you through every difficult situation.
21. Value fellowship with God’s people in your local church.
22. Remember that the path to a good marriage is a long one. But “the journey of a thousand miles is made one step at a time”. So keep going forward always.
23. Remember that the Lord is always on your side – and He is ever ready to help you.