In a World of Self Indulgence How Can we Prepare for the Wedding Feast?

This I am sure weighs heavy on many people's minds especially given the kind of selfish and fleshly values we see in mass media. Satan works in this world. His agenda is to be worshiped. He pulls God's people into this realm through false promises. It starts with the promotion of self indulgence in the flesh and fleshly things in and of this world! Which means putting the self first. We are easily consumed by the flesh, by the self. It is largely due to the fact that people have forgotten that we are God's creation and we live because He lives and we live to glorify Him.

What can we do to glorify God? We can empty ourselves to His will. Are we selfish when we marry? Perhaps, we are. In the Bible we can read in 1 Corinthians 7 that it is good for a man not to marry but since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Why this advice? Because, marriage takes away from the individual pursuit of having a personal relationship with God. Family, which includes husband and children are demanding.

"I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world how he can please his wife and his interests are divided. As a married woman is concerned about the affairs this world how she can please her husband. We are instructed to live in a right way in an undivided devotion to the Lord" ~ 1 COR 7: 32-35. 


In that respect, would it be better to remain single to be better able to glorify God? Yes! You would better glorify God if you were able to 'save' yourself (mind/heart) only for God. That is not likely in this fallen world. That is what Paul was relating to us. If you cannot do that, it is better to marry. How can marriage glorify God? There is a set of rules for marriage which when we live by them, we do glorify the God. We can read rules for marriage in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 7 and Romans 7 i.e. Glorifying God in marriage and all earthly relations (parents/husband/children/friends/community) means "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" ~ Philippians 2:3.
Our pursuit here and now is to prepare for His coming ~ the marriage feast with Jesus Christ ~ Matthew 22:11 and Rev. 19:7. And, yes we can prepare for His coming through marriage here and now as long as we understand that our earthly marriage is to glorify God. In that way, we will be prepared for the wedding feast, by our being dressed for it -prepared, we will be ready to experience the greatest love which has no boundaries nor is shackled by selfishness and pride as in 'mine'.

Above all - "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" ~ Hebrews 13:4