I truly love, to truly become one in marriage, we must first learn to die to ourselves. The Word says, though our outward man is perishing every day, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. God builds us and increases us first from the inside out. So many are getting it wrong when it comes to dating. God is love. He placed within the heart of man the desire for love, yet so many of us seek it in the wrong places. Eventually, we come broken, like children who have shattered their favorite toy, hoping our Father can put it back together again. But, what about going to Him first, the one who is love.
I have learned, as someone who has never dated in the traditional sense, that love is not about grand gestures or picture-perfect moments. I have never been wooed, wined, and dined. I have no memories or photos of extravagant vacations with the love of my life, not even from my first marriage. We didn’t celebrate our first anniversary. I have no Valentine’s Day pictures, never danced all night, never stayed on the phone as a teenager whispering, "You hang up first." Yet, I have dreamed of a love that lasts forever—a love that endures all things, believes all things, and conquers all things.
Every since I accepted Christ in my life, I have been dying to live again. Jesus said that whoever finds their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for His sake will find it. I have poured out my life as an offering, believing that God will fill it with the life He always intended for me. William McDowell has a song called Empty Me, where he expresses the desire to be emptied so that God can pour in something greater. In the same way, when we have done whatever Jesus has commanded us to do, He will flood our lives with the new wine—the wine that makes dying to live again worth the sacrifice.
Couples often spend their courtship intoxicated by romance and oxytocin, but real love is built on sacrifice. When you spend the foundation of your relationship laying down your life for one another, discussing the hard topics, and planning with an awareness that every past and present decision will affect your future together, then you begin to understand why you must die to live again. Love, marriage, and unity require the death of self so that something greater can be born. Its about laying your lives down to fulfill your kingdom assignment together.
So many couples struggle because they are unwilling to die to themselves. They hold tightly to their independence, their desires, their way of doing things, and they resist the transformation that love requires. Yet, marriage calls us to surrender—to release selfishness and embrace oneness. It requires forgiveness, humility, and an unwavering commitment to growth. Without dying to self, there can be no true unity.
The breaking, the stretching, and the surrender are not in vain. They prepare us for something greater. When two people willingly die to themselves for the sake of love, they are resurrected into a union that is stronger, deeper, and more beautiful than anything they could have achieved alone. In Christ, in love, and in marriage, we must die to live again.