Our Vows

Joshua-

As I make this commitment to you today, I recognize that my actions are fully dependent upon God’s immeasurable grace and the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of sanctification in my life. Today I make a covenant that I can keep only if God keeps His promises to me, and I know He will. So if I fail, the fault is all mine. But if I succeed, all the glory belongs to God.

I, Joshua, commit to you, Alyssa Joy, my life, my love, my wealth, my talents, my time, my strength, and my ministry for as long as we both live on this earth.

I promise to love you as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. I will love you as my own body, and I will not be bitter toward you. As the leader of our home I will seek to emulate Christ; but as an eternal brother in Christ, I will submit to you in the fear of the Lord. I will strive to love you without hypocrisy, to abhor what is evil, and to cling to what is good. I have chosen to love you not because of who you are but because of the love that God has bestowed on me. Therefore, my love for you and my joy in life will never be dependent on you but upon God.

I promise to leave my father and mother and be joined to you while maintaining a relationship with both my parents and yours, loving them, honouring them, and seeking wisdom from them as we go through life together. Your family shall be my family, and our God will always be the God of the Bible.

I promise to be the husband of you only, and I will seek to rule our children and our house well. I resolve never to flirt with, lust after, or desire the attention of another woman. I will live with you with understanding, giving honour to you as to the weaker vessel while still speaking highly of you and listening carefully to your thoughts, ideas, and wisdom. I will strive to make my expectations clear, and I will consider it my duty to give you 100% of myself.

I promise not to speak evil of you or our marriage either behind your back or in your presence. I will defend you and not allow others to speak poorly of you. Although God is still growing me in this area, I will seek to use speech that has grace and is seasoned with salt. Rather than allowing corrupt communication to proceed from my mouth, I will strive to say what is good for necessary edification so that it may impart grace to you. I will pursue a relationship with you that is free of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, and malice. I will be kind, tenderhearted, and forgive you even as God has forgiven me for the sake of Christ.

I promise to make you the second most important relationship in my life because God will be first. I will encourage you in your walk with Christ as I already know you will do to me, and I know that we will draw closer to each other as we draw close to God. I will pray with you and for you without ceasing. I will rejoice with you when you rejoice, and I will weep with you when you weep. As much as depends on me, I will live peacefully with you.

I promise to make the glory of God the first priority in our marriage because that is why we stand here in the first place; we recognized that we could serve God better together than alone. I am resolved to work together with you to make disciples of all nations, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with people who love God and want to reproduce themselves. I will serve the Lord beside you in times of abundant fruit and in times of spiritual famine. I will be abased with you, and I will abound with you. When you suffer, I will suffer with you and comfort you. I will serve with you when ministry is hard and when things do not go as planned, but I will not allow ministry to take me away from you or our family.

Neither life nor death, nor spirits nor humans, nor things present nor things to come, nor successes nor failures, nor wealth nor poverty, nor parents nor children, nor ministry nor sin of the highest degree, will separate you from my love and commitment.

My prayer for us as a couple is Romans 12:10-13: I pray that we will be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

My prayer for you as a daughter of God is Philippians 1:9-11: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” I have prayed this for you many times, and I will continue to do so.

I promise to love you on earth as my wife and for eternity as my sister. But you will not simply be my wife. You will be my best friend for life, and I will gladly lay down my life for you because Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Just as God promised to always be with us, I too will never leave you or forsake you.

Today I make this commitment to you in the presence of God and our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ as witnesses.

 

Alyssa-

Today, I stand before you and our friends and family to make promises that will last for the rest of our lives. I know that I will fail and disappoint but I will seek your forgiveness and ask for God’s grace to move on. In whatever I do, I want to do it to the glory of God.

I, Alyssa, commit to you, Joshua, all that have, all that I am, and all that I will be until one or both of us joins our heavenly Father.

I promise to choose to love you. I know that love is an action and that I have to choose to love you, even when sometimes I don’t like you 😉 I promise to love unconditionally, just as God the Father loved me enough to send His Son to die in my place.

I promise to leave my family and become one with you. I will still respect and honor them but I will be joined to you as a new family, ready to follow in the direction God leads you.

I promise to wait patiently for your timing and not get frustrated when you do things differently than I would. I will hear you out before making rash judgments and responding out of frustration. I will strive to live out a life that shows that love is patient.

I promise to use words and responses that reflect God-honoring character and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. I will not say things to intentionally harm or hurt you and I will keep my words full of grace and seasoned with salt.

I promise to focus on what I have and to be grateful for who and what God has given me both at home and in our ministry together. I promise to focus on loving you and you alone as my husband and not seek the attention of other men.

I promise not to parade my success over your success or failures. I will not put you down to make myself look better. I will not seek to compare myself to you or others because I know that without Christ, I am nothing. I will seek to point you back to Christ when you do fail or disappoint and not focus solely on the mistakes made. God has forgiven me of so much and I will choose to forgive you.

I promise to have a proper view of who I am in Christ and know that He is still at work in me. I promise to be willing to take correction from you on areas where I need to grow and improve. You will be my helper, completer, and leader and you already know where I struggle (and will discover my other failures as we live life together from here on).

I promise to be polite when I am with you and when we are apart. I will practice love that is not rude. I will treat cultures with respect and will not seek to offend others.

I promise to be open to your opinions, ideas, and ways of doing things. I will not force you to abide by my opinion. I will humbly accept your thoughts and perspectives. I will practice love that does not insist on its own way.

I promise to choose joy and positivity with you over negativity and frustration. I will look for ways to encourage and support you as your wife. I will seek to be your partner in ministry, ready to celebrate what God is doing and ready to cry with you when life is tough. I will seek to make you look good and not talk badly to others about you behind your back.

I promise not to dwell on what you may have done wrong in the past. I will look forward with positivity to what God will continue to do for us in the future. I will trust that God’s plans for us are perfect and that He will work all things together for our good and His greatest glory.

I promise not to rejoice when you do wrong or receive consequences for your choices. I will look out for your best interests and encourage you to do right, first as your wife but also as your sister in Christ.

I promise to be excited and celebrate God’s truth and His Word with Joshua in the days, months, and years ahead. I will practice love that rejoices in the truth.

I promise to love you unconditionally as Christ loved the church, to be your supporter, your encourager, your helper, and your partner through all of life’s struggles and successes.

I choose to love you actively and not just rely on my feelings to dictate how I love you.

You are my beloved and you are my friend. I love you, Joshua Jordan, and I am ready, with God’s strength to live life with you through whatever God has ahead for both of us.