Our book ends with Sanctified Marriage. That includes our relationship with our Abba Father through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, our spouse, and each other. That is a life changer. From the start of the book, it made no sense to describe a godly marital relationship with a spouse without first understanding and having a robust relationship with our Abba Father.

This book started when one of my flock asked me to do their premarital counseling. The times cry out for the godly “sanctified marriage.” It is time for the church to identify its version of godly marriage as designed by our Abba Father. Each denomination can tailor a Scripture-based vow to their needs that the couple makes to our Abba Father directly and then add any vows a couple wishes to make to each other. But the only hope for a believer in marriage is to bring our Abba Father directly into the marriage covenant. He is not famous for fixing the enemy’s world; he mostly leads his people into his world and away from the enemy. That is the premise of this book.

I started my pre-marriage research by surveying the world of godly marriage counseling. Much of the study looked to God, but it still focused on human behavior, which did not fit what I was looking for, all the glory to our Abba Father. An amazing revelation began with the presentation of Jesus as the Groom and the church body as his bride. I have read those verses with no profound reaction many times, but this time it was different and lit me up as only the Holy Spirit can. I realized that the only difference between our Groom-bride relationship with Jesus and the call to a husband and wife is the blessing of the intimate marriage bed, which should only glorify our Abba Father in marriage.

Several years ago, I started thinking about the need for the church to create what I call “sanctified marriage” to elevate godly marriage vows above secular marriage contracts as secular marriage continues to deteriorate into a meaningless godless exercise in our postmodern society. The church does not own the word marriage and can only define it for believers. The Scripture does not describe government-sanctioned marriage. The subject of marriage will benefit significantly if bifurcated (divided) with the addition of “sanctified marriage” in the church.

Using both a sanctified marriage vow to our Abba Father and a civil marriage contract was always the correct answer for marriage in our postmodern progressive society, and it is not too late. Existing believer couples can easily lift their existing “for better or worse” marriages into “sanctified marriages” and glorify our Abba Father in them. At the time, I envisioned that Staples might create a written marriage contract that addressed a few prenup issues. People could buy a Staples marriage, perhaps a Walmart or Office Depot marriage, a Harvard Law School marriage, or a Rainbow Marriage, as a way to separate secular marriage from sanctified church marriage.

Almost everything our Abba Father says about husband and wife applies to all believers in their relationship with him and each other. As a result, this book first highlights the earth-life bias (ELB) that weakens our relationship and then follows with chapters that build our faith and relationship with our Abba Father. We close with what sanctified marriage might look like. Only then are we ready to experience an incredible sanctified marriage with our Abba Father, our spouse, and each other.