Preface: A Marriage That Reflects God’s Love
Let me start by telling you something that thrills me and fills me with excitement and joy: your relationships with God, and with your spouse, are about to go through an amazing and fantastic transformation. To start, every single couple has the potential to experience incredible joy, love, and blessing through their marriage. No matter where you are right now—whether you’re newlyweds brimming with excitement, long-term partners feeling strong and steady, or a couple working through challenges—you’re on the edge of something spiritually amazing in your marriage. This isn’t just wishful thinking or a feel-good idea; it’s a promise of transformation that I’ve seen come to life, it’s available to you too, and by reading this book, you are about to experience it.
The journey you are now starting on is one where God Himself will show up and bless what you’re using to worship Him—your marriage. As you invite Him into your relationship in a new and intentional way, He will fill it with more joy, love, and connection than you can imagine. Even if you’re already happy, get ready, because it’s about to get even better! This is for every couple, no matter your story. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been together for years, God’s blessings in your marriage have no limit. The more you love each other and use your relationship to honor Him, the more He fills it with His presence, and the joy, love, and closeness you’ll experience will only grow. Get excited—this journey isn’t just about improving your marriage; it’s about celebrating it and watching it flourish beyond anything you thought possible.
Years ago, my wife and I were far from having the kind of marriage we enjoy today. In fact, like many modern marriages, we had struggles. Like so many other couples, we were just trying to make it through each day, barely keeping our heads above water. It at times felt like roommates sharing a home, not a devoted, deep love. We weren’t on the same page, and that deep, unshakable connection we had hoped for? It felt out of reach, like we were stuck in a rut that just kept getting deeper. But, through intent work and focusing on God—today, we have the most beautiful, joy-filled marriage imaginable. And I don’t say that lightly. Our love is real, it’s deep, and it’s absolutely the most amazing relationship anyone on earth has ever had. It’s the kind of marriage that not even the best Hallmark movie could dream up. I have the most amazingly happy marriage on earth, and I want you to have it too, and you can, and by the end of this book, you will.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: “Perfect? Really?” It sounds like a pretty big claim, right? While my wife and I are far from perfect people—we make mistakes, we have our flaws—our marriage, despite our imperfections, has become something truly unusual to most people. It’s filled with a love that is richer, more real, and more fulfilling than anything I ever thought possible. A marriage like this didn’t just happen to us by chance. We didn’t stumble into this kind of love or “get lucky.” No, we fought for it. We made it happen by doing one critical thing: we intentionally put God at the center of everything. Every decision, every conversation, every act of love—we made it all about Him. And in return, God has filled our marriage with blessings of love in abundance, more than we could have ever imagined. By using our marriage as a way to honor and worship God, He has taken the love in it and multiplied it beyond measure. He will do this for you, too.
It wasn’t like we discovered some hidden secret or magic formula that suddenly made everything easier. The transformation came from something much more powerful: the intentional, everyday decision to lean into each other and, more importantly, to lean into God. We didn’t just wake up one morning and find ourselves with a perfect marriage—it was cultivated with intent, one choice at a time, one prayer at a time, one act of kindness at a time, through every struggle and every victory. And that’s the beauty of it. We made the decision to make our love not just an emotional bond but a spiritual one. That’s where something special happened—when we realized that marriage is so much more than an emotional connection or a shared life. We started to see it as a sacred opportunity to reflect God’s love every single day. Every moment of our marriage became a chance to glorify Him, and as we did, He poured more love and more joy into our lives. This is what makes our marriage so powerful, and it’s what can make your marriage just as incredible.
One of the things that changed for me was realizing how powerful the habit of prayer is within marriage. In the beginning, being incredibly introverted, I prayed alone, quietly asking God to help me, to guide me, to show me how to be the husband I wanted to be. Those private prayers were like laying bricks, slowly building a foundation for something greater. As time went on, and I continued focusing my prayer on how to be a good husband, our relationship with God deepened, and our bond with each other strengthened in ways I hadn’t expected. It wasn’t just about asking for blessings; it was about aligning our hearts with God’s purpose for us. When you pray together as a couple, you aren’t just asking for help—you’re inviting God into the center of your marriage.
That’s what I want to share with you—you can have this too, and by the end of this book, you will. We’re not special. We didn’t have something other couples don’t. We simply chose to make our marriage about one thing—a tool for worshiping God. Every single day, we make the decision to treat our marriage as an act of worship. And that’s what transformed everything for us. It can transform everything for you, too.
Let me take you back so you understand how this adventure to God, and an amazing marriage started.
Years ago, without realizing it, I was on two paths that were going to come together and were about to change my life. These paths ran alongside each other, each as important as the other. The first was a journey to find more of God. I knew deep down that I needed Him closer in my life, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to reach that closeness. I had this intense, burning desire to know Him, to feel His presence in my day-to-day life. For years, I have been absolutely craving more of God in my life. I would read the Bible and pray for God to come close to me, but I couldn’t feel Him. It was almost discouraging at times.
When my wife and I got married, she came from a very religious family, and I was very excited to join this family. I knew they had helped build a church, a Christian camp, and more. I was really excited about finally having someone in my life who would teach me about the real Jesus, so I could understand Him more than just trying to interpret Him from the Bible on my own. Marrying into this family, I was expecting someone excited to show me an example of real Christianity.
What I didn't expect, though, was to be outcast and rejected from day one. It was very clear I wasn’t welcome from the start. When I joined this family, my views on Christianity didn’t exactly change, but it did get confusing. These were the people I thought were going to hold my hand and walk me to meet Jesus in my life. But instead, I was met with a wall. I felt outcast, judged, and left out from day one. They didn’t just keep me at arm’s length—it was like they already decided I didn’t belong. I remember sitting alone at family gatherings, watching them laugh and share their stories while I sat there, a stranger in the room. And they’d brush it off, saying, “Oh, Jeremy’s just an introvert.” And I am, but the truth is, I had learned to stay quiet, because every time I tried to be a part of the conversation, I felt shut out.
But over time, I began to see something unexpected—a blessing hidden in that hurt. With no outside guidance, my search for God became completely my own. My journey was lonely at times, sure, but it was pure, unfiltered by anyone else’s opinions. Just me and God. That space became something beautiful. It was like God was inviting me into something deeper, just between us.
At the same time, I was facing challenges in my marriage that at times felt overwhelming. Our relationship wasn’t thriving like I thought it should be. Things would be great, then not, then good, then worse. It was like problems just kept coming from random directions. I remember thinking about our relationship at that time and feeling like we just couldn’t seem to get on the same wavelength. We weren’t trying to give each other problems, we both wanted to be happy, but it just wasn’t happening.
In the first couple of years of our marriage, I remember a moment where I was sitting in our room, feeling frustrated and honestly a little angry. I was thinking, “She’s not doing her job of making me happy.” I was putting in the work to make her happy, or at least I thought I was, so it felt like she needed to be doing her part to make me happy too. Marriage was 50/50, right? I was giving my 50%, but I felt like I wasn’t getting it back. I wasn’t happy, and I thought it was her fault for not making me feel fulfilled.
And then, I had this realization: I’d been looking for happiness in the wrong place. I shouldn’t be putting the responsibility for my personal happiness on my wife; real joy was something I needed to find through God. I recognized that there was a hole in me, and I had been trying to fill it with my marriage, expecting my wife and our relationship to somehow complete me. But in that moment, I realized—it wasn’t a marriage-shaped hole I was trying to fill; it was a God-shaped hole. I was looking to my wife to do something only God could do, trying to fill that emptiness with expectations I’d placed on her, rather than turning to God. That realization felt huge, like I’d just uncovered something really important. I didn’t fully understand it yet, but I knew it mattered. This was the moment the mindset shift started to happen.
Suddenly, I felt this deep, unrelenting pull that God was the key to more than just my relationship with Him—He was also the key to my own happiness and to a healthy, thriving marriage. I didn’t know yet how to connect those two paths, but I knew one thing for sure: God was there. For the first time I started to think that He was searching for me just as much as I had been searching for Him, and if I trusted Him, He could do something incredible in my life.
As I pursued both of these journeys—seeking to grow closer to God and trying to figure out how to help my marriage be stronger—while reading my Bible something clicked. I realized that my marriage wasn’t just a relationship between two people; it was a way to worship God. In Ephesians 5:25, the Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” I had read that verse countless times, but for some reason, this time, it hit me differently. I started to see that the way I loved my wife was directly connected to my relationship with God. When I was feeling close to God, my marriage was great, and during the times my marriage was great I would show gratitude to God during those good times. It wasn’t just about being a good husband.I was learning that I can use my marriage as a gift to offer God.
What does it mean to love your spouse as Christ loves the church? A lot. For one, it became clear that this kind of love is sacrificial. It means putting aside my own desires, my own needs, and my pride. It’s a love that asks for nothing in return but is given freely, just as Christ’s love for us. This wasn’t always easy—there were times when I felt tired, frustrated, or unsure if what I was trying to figure out was real, or just a silly idea. I was putting in 100% trying to figure out how to love my wife as Christ loves the church, but I couldn’t find anything that told me what that even means. There was no book with steps on how to do this. Yes, there are some wonderful books that are great for helping marriages be better, but, I was wanting to offer my marriage as a gift to God, to use it as something that was direct worship to Him. This felt different than the other books I had already gone through, granted they are all wonderful. But each time I intently chose to love my wife in this way, I could feel a tangible shift in our relationship. Every act of love, whether big or small, became an act of worship. When you love your spouse like this, you invite God’s presence into your marriage in a powerful, transformative way.
I began to realize that loving my wife was more than just showing up or doing nice things for her. It was an act of worship—a way to honor God in my everyday interactions with her. My mindset was starting to develop. It wasn’t just about making her happy or avoiding conflict. It was about reflecting the love that God has for us in the way I loved her. And let me tell you, once I started loving her with that perspective, things inside of us began to change in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
I started trying to pray about how I could remove myself and put God as the center of our family. Not me. Not my wife. But I felt like God needed to be the One that our daily life needed to revolve around. Everything we do in our family as it pertains to how we talk to each other, how we treat each other and the things we do for and with each other, should be centered around worshiping and honoring Him. When God is the head, everything else falls into place. Every decision, every conversation, every act of love becomes an opportunity to glorify Him. And that’s what made all the difference in our marriage.
Loving this way requires humility. It meant stepping down from the need to always be right or to have things go my way. It wasn’t about power or control—it was about surrender. I had to learn to let go of my own will and put it all in God’s hands. I realized my role was to serve, to love my wife the way Christ loves the church. And in that shift, something incredible took place—my wife began responding with that same love.
At that point, I hadn’t even told her about my journey to draw closer to God through our marriage as a form of worship. But even without knowing, she started coming closer to God on her own, and as a result, coming closer to me. A marriage grounded in service to God and to each other creates this cycle of love that builds on itself, growing stronger with each day.
Once I began loving my wife with that mindset, things changed in ways I’d never expected. Our marriage went from just barely surviving to truly thriving. The more I poured into loving her with the intent of honoring God by offering grace, patience, and selflessness, the closer I felt to God. And the closer I pursued God, the deeper our connection became. That’s the beauty of it—when you love your spouse as an act of worship, it strengthens both your marriage and your relationship with God. It’s this incredible, continuous cycle that just keeps building and deepening over time.
So, I want to encourage you. I believe with all my heart that the same transformation is possible for you and is about to happen for you. No matter what season your marriage is in right now—whether you feel disconnected, stuck in a routine, or just already happy—you can have the kind of marriage that fills your life with joy, love, and peace. And it all starts with one simple idea: your marriage is an opportunity to worship God. Every single day.
This transformation is possible not because of anything extraordinary about us, but because of God’s extraordinary love. As I was working on and developing my mindset of how to worship God by using my marriage as a tool to honor Him I started realizing that marriage isn’t about balancing each other out or giving 50/50. It’s about both of us giving 100% all the time. Marriage, when centered on worshiping God, becomes a relationship where both people pour into each other from the overflow of God’s love. It’s not about waiting for your spouse to fulfill your needs first. It’s about stepping out in faith, serving, loving, and honoring them as a reflection of how Christ loves and serves us. This perspective shift, this change in mindset, takes the pressure off of trying to get everything perfect. It’s about letting God be perfect in your marriage.
In today’s world, it can feel like marriages are crumbling all around us. So many couples are hitting walls and thinking they’ve reached a point of no return. But here’s what I want you to hear: there is always hope. God didn’t design marriage to be something we just survive. He designed it to be a blessing—a source of joy, growth, and deep connection. And if you bring Him back into the center of your relationship, you can experience a marriage that’s not just good, but truly extraordinary.
Now, a mistake made by most of us, myself included, is that we have tried to make our marriages work on our own. We’ve left God out, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Maybe we’ve gotten so caught up in the busyness of life, in the distractions of daily routines, that we’ve forgotten to invite God into one of the very things He created for us—our marriage. Maybe it is just the culture straying further and further away from God. But here’s the good news: it’s not too late no matter where you are in your relationship. I believe that God has decided to start stirring something in all of us right now—a hunger for His presence, a desire for deeper connection with Him. And that desire, that hunger, it’s calling us to bring God back to the center of everything we do, especially in our marriages.
That’s the beauty of God’s grace—it’s never too late. Even if you feel like your marriage has drifted or you’ve lost the connection you once had, or you are planning your 50th wedding anniversary and want to become even closer to both Him and each other, God is always ready to meet you where you are. All it takes is intent. A decision to invite Him back into the center of your relationship, and your life. You don’t have to wait for a crisis to start praying together, serving each other, or making your marriage an act of worship. It can start today, right where you are. The more you allow God into your marriage, the more He will transform it—not just in the big moments, but in the quiet, everyday choices that build trust, love, and connection.
This book is my way of sharing what my wife and I have learned on this journey. For years, this has been my spiritual adventure. I have been giving every moment I can to learn to know how to fully give my marriage to God. I have done the work to create a path for you so that you do not need to take the same amount of years to get there that I did, and you and your spouse can have what my wife and I have, today, now. These are the exact steps we took to move from surviving to thriving, from routine to worship. From looking for God to experiencing His presence. And it’s not just about making your marriage better—it’s about building a relationship that reflects God’s love and brings you closer to Him. It’s about creating a marriage that becomes a living testimony of God’s faithfulness, His grace, and His love for us.
So we are clear, this isn't a quick fix, it will take intentional, but so incredibly rewarding work. It’s not a magic formula that will instantly transform your marriage. It takes work. It takes intentionality. It takes commitment. But I can promise you this: if you are willing to do the work, if you are willing to put God at the center of your marriage, you will experience a transformation that is beyond anything you can imagine. The love, joy, and peace that God wants to pour into your marriage are limitless. And the best part? It’s available to you right now. Literally. Right now.
You got this book because you want what my wife and I have. A close, personal relationship where God is with you in every moment of your day, and for your marriage to be a light that is so bright it can show the world the way to God. God sees you, and He’s about to walk this journey with you. It’s time to step into the fullness of what God has designed for your marriage. I believe with all my heart that the best for you is yet to come, and I can’t wait for you to experience it.
So, where do we go from here? How do you begin to take the first step toward transforming your marriage? It starts with a simple, but profound, shift in your mindset. You have to see your marriage not just as a relationship between two people, but as an opportunity to worship God every day. When you start viewing your marriage through that lens, everything will start to change.
Here’s how it worked for us. When I made the decision to love my wife as an act of worship, I started to realize that all those little things that used to frustrate or annoy me weren’t as important as I thought. Suddenly, the focus wasn’t on how she could make me happier or meet my needs. The focus was on how I could serve her, love her, and honor her in a way that reflected God’s love for me. But still, even though this was not about her. It was about God, and how through serving my wife I directly served Him. I began to see our marriage as holy ground—a place where God was at work, molding us, shaping us, and drawing us closer to Him and to each other. It wasn’t about keeping score or balancing who did what. It became about living out grace every day with each other.
And that grace—that’s a key. Grace is the heart of a worshipful marriage. Just like God extends grace to us every day, we’re called to extend that same grace to our spouse. That means forgiving quickly, letting go of offenses, and choosing love even when it’s hard. It’s not always easy in the beginning. There were days when I had to remind myself over and over again that this wasn’t about getting my way or proving a point—it was about reflecting God’s love. And here’s what I found: the more I leaned into grace, the more grace came back to me. The more I focused on loving my wife selflessly, the more love I felt in return. It was like God was multiplying the love in our home like loaves and fish in a basket. That is really the best analogy I can think of. Remember when God took five loaves and two fish and fed the 5,000 plus women and children? That is what the love in my marriage was like. Five loaves and two fish in a basket. And now, that basket overflows with abundance.
Now, I want to speak to the men reading this for a minute. You may have heard it said, as I mentioned earlier, that the man is supposed to be the head of the family. But I want to challenge that idea. I truly believe that God should be the head of your family, not you. When we try to take the lead without surrendering to God’s authority, we’re setting ourselves up for frustration and failure. But when we let God lead—when we submit to Him and allow His wisdom, His love, and His guidance to shape our family—that’s when we experience real family leadership, peace and joy.
One of the most beautiful things about letting God lead is that it takes the weight off our shoulders. We no longer have to carry the burden of trying to control everything or make everything perfect. Instead, we get to walk in the peace that comes from knowing that God is in control. And when you live in that kind of peace, your marriage becomes a safe place—a place where both you and your spouse can grow, thrive, and become the people God created you to be.
That’s what I want for you. I want your marriage to be a place of peace, joy, and love—a reflection of God’s love for us. And it all starts with inviting God into the center of your marriage. It starts with making the decision to treat your marriage as an act of worship.
Now, you might be wondering, what does that actually look like on a day-to-day basis? It looks like choosing love when it would be easier to choose frustration. It looks like speaking words of life and encouragement to your spouse, even when you’re tired or aggravated from the day. It looks like serving your spouse, not because you want something in return, but because you’re doing it to honor God. It looks like praying together, seeking God’s wisdom together, and trusting that He is working in your marriage, even when you can’t see it.
There’s a passage in Ecclesiastes that says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” That’s what happens when God is at the center of your marriage—He becomes that third strand. And when God is holding your marriage together, no challenge is too big. No obstacle is too great. No hardship can break the bond that He is strengthening between you and your spouse.
This kind of marriage doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t happen by default. It happens through intentionality. It happens when you decide, every single day, to show up for your spouse, to love them, to forgive them, to serve them. It happens when you commit to making your marriage a reflection of God’s love. Before long, even though it does feel like work in the start, it will become a habit, much easier, and much more fun.
If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your spouse, if you’ve been feeling like your marriage isn’t where you want it to be, I want you to know that it’s not too late. It’s never too late to invite God back into your marriage. It’s never too late to start treating your marriage with intent as an act of worship. And when you do, I promise you—you will quickly begin to see changes. You will begin to feel the love, joy, and peace that comes from a marriage centered on God.
This book is filled with practical steps and biblical principles that my wife and I have learned through our journey. But more than that, it’s a testament to what God can do in a marriage when we surrender it to Him. These are the steps we took to move from surviving to thriving, from routine to worship. These are the lessons we learned as we started to invite God into the center of our relationship. And if He can do it for us, He can do it for you too.
You don’t have to settle for a marriage that’s just “good enough.” You don’t have to settle for a marriage that feels disconnected or routine. You don’t even have to settle for a marriage that is already amazing! You can have a marriage that’s filled with the love of God , passion, joy, and peace. You can have a marriage that reflects God’s love in such a powerful way that it impacts not only your life but the lives of everyone around you.
So wherever you are in your marriage right now, I invite you to walk this journey with me. Let’s explore together what amazing things happen when we make our marriages an act of worship. Let’s discover the beauty and joy that comes from a marriage centered on God. I believe with all my heart that when you do, you’ll experience more joy, more love, and more fulfillment than you ever thought possible.
You have just started an amazing, life changing adventure with learning a new way to worship God by using your marriage as an offering to Him. The best and most joy filled days of your life are about to be here soon. Want to know how you can have this amazingly personal and intense relationship with God and your spouse? Come and See.
