Since tomorrow is Easter, I thought it would be most appropriate to write something about it. After all, this is the day when Christians celebrate the fact that Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years ago, completing the process that God set in motion to free us from our sin!

Easter gives us more of a reason to celebrate than any other holiday of the year. It means the triumph of good over evil because Jesus rose and defeated death, which is Satan’s favorite invention. It means freedom from sin because Jesus took it all for us and left it behind in his empty grave. It means we can receive the gifts that God promised to us; peace, joy, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life to name a few of the best. It means that we, too, will never have to face death because even when our bodies die our souls will live forever with God in Heaven. That’s a seriously awesome reason to celebrate!

But as amazing as all of that is (so amazing that we can’t truly comprehend it the way God does), it isn’t exactly breaking news. We’ve celebrated Easter for a very long time and I fear that everything I’ve said may not make any impact because it’s become so clichéd. “Yeah, yeah, Jesus rose from the dead. We get it.” Even though it’s amazing, the sheer repetition of it may have some of my readers bored.

So instead of just blathering on about Jesus’ awesomeness (which would be way too easy), I’ve decided to go back to the roots of my blog; marriage. Specifically, I wanted to try to write about what the Easter message means for marriage! Think that sounds like a stretch? Well then read on!

I think that the overall theme of Easter is freedom. Again, this is the day that Jesus rose from the dead and proved once and for all that sin and death have no place with his children. So what if, in our marriages—including future marriages for those of you who aren’t married and other close relationships for those of you who don’t plan on ever getting married—what if we acted on this? What if we lived with an eternal perspective, focusing on the big picture instead of the little things in our day-to-day lives? What if we treated our spouses like the precious and eternal beings that they are? What would that change?

Well for one thing, you can be sure that we wouldn’t argue over stupid little things like how he didn’t clean the dishes well enough or whether or not we should buy a new toaster. We would probably relax just a little bit and realize that not everything has to be perfect or go our way. I’m thinking we would be a lot more joyful because of the awesome fact that no matter what happens to us here on earth, it will all just be a tiny blip on the map of our indescribably perfect never-ending lives in Heaven. And that kind of joy emanating from both people can only improve a marriage, if you ask me.

Not only that, but I think that if we saw our spouses closer to the way that Jesus sees them, we would treat them differently. One of the promises that Jesus gave us right before He died was that if we asked for things in His name, then he would enable us to do them. He even promised us that we could do even greater things than He did if we let the Holy Spirit work freely in us. One way that we can take Him up on that promise is by letting Him work in us every day to become more loving, gentle, and self-sacrificing spouses. How can we do that? It’s all about spending time growing closer to God through reading His word, prayer, worship, fellowship, etc. and then listening to the promptings that the Holy Spirit gives us. It’s so much easier to hear God when we have a close relationship with Him, and honestly I believe that that is the key to cashing in on all of the wonderful gifts He wants to give us, including awesome, joy-filled marriages.

The freedom that we celebrate on Easter is something that we can live in every day. We can live in freedom from our struggles and trials in life by knowing that there will come a day when all of the pain of life ceases to exist. We can live in freedom in our marriages when we see everything from God’s perspective, and know that we don’t have to let little issues get in the way of satisfying relationships with our spouses. We can be the freely loving, gentle, forgiving, and passionate husbands and wives that God intended us to be, because Jesus gave us the power to. We are free to enjoy our marriages as a wonderful gift from the God of love! Thank you Jesus!