Pastor Mildred Okonkwo spoke to the singles at House on the Rock (The Refuge) on The Why, The What, The Who, and The How of Marriage. She said that those are 4 questions every single must ask before marriage.
1. WHY (Why do you want to get married?)
Do you want to get married because everyone is getting married, because you want to pepper them because you’re in a competition (a clique of friends and you want to be the first to leave your father’s house)? Do you want to get married because they are stressing you at home?. She said that she knows a lot of girls who are running to get married because their mom is disturbing them at home – “Someone is still telling you to cook and clean. When you get married, “honey what will you eat?” she said.
2. WHAT (What kind of marriage do I want?)
What kind of marriage you want determines how you prepare for the marriage. If you want a kingdom marriage, then you have to run your marriage by kingdom principles. They are two different things. There’s regular marriage and there’s kingdom marriage. Kingdom marriage is what you practice as a Christian because we are from the kingdom of God. What it means is that it’s a marriage influenced by God. God’s domain is in that marriage. Everything you do in that marriage is guided by His principle and constitution in that marriage. So, if the Bible says “submit”, then, submit. If the Bible says “love”, then, love.
3. WHO (You need to determine who)
You can’t marry an unbeliever. If you’re going to have a kingdom marriage, then you have to marry another kingdom citizen. But people take this thing unseriously. “Oh, Pastor M, you can’t understand. He’s so nice”. Nice is not a fruit of the spirit, I know you’ve heard that before. There’s a difference between somebody who behaves nice and somebody who has godly character. There’s a natural change when somebody is born again. When somebody is born of the spirit of God, the spirit of God comes into him and changes his nature. It’s not just about actions, it’s nature.
4. HOW (How do you want to achieve all these things?)
“If you’re a single person and you want a kingdom marriage and a believer, there are 3 simple ways,” she said. You must first have knowledge. My people perish for lack of knowledge. You will suffer because you don’t know. Things are only hard because you don’t know how to do them. So because you don’t know, you haven’t studied about marriage that’s why you think that marriage is hard. Secondly, you have to be mature. If you grow in maturity, it’ll be easy for you to handle the challenges in marriage. That’s what Jesus said. You have to be mature enough. It requires a certain level of maturity and attitude. You have to be mature and know-how. Thirdly, you should seek counsel. In the multitude of counsel, there’s safety. It’s so important that you get counsel. The problem is that you are in love, so anything they tell you, you believe. The easiest way is to get counsel. Do it the right way. “I know there’s a structure in this church. Follow it. Don’t let anybody marry you in secret. Get counsel. There are people that your leaders know things about but they can’t say anything until you come to them to ask. We don’t go about telling other people’s secret,” she said.
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