The Gospel as Our Covenant Template

Have you ever felt like you keep an Excel spreadsheet in your head to measure who does more around the house? Sometimes, without even realizing it, we turn our marriage into a commercial contract. We start thinking: 'If you treat me well, I will treat you well. If you wash the dishes today, I might decide to be nice tomorrow.' It is so exhausting to live keeping score of everything!

A commercial contract is simple and cold: it says 'if you do your part, I will do mine.' It works great when renting an apartment or buying a car, but it is an absolute disaster for sustaining a home. When we live by that rule, at our spouse's very first mistake, we feel completely entitled to withdraw our love and punish them with our indifference.

But God did not design marriage as an exchange of benefits, but as an unbreakable covenant. And to understand what that covenant looks like, we do not have to search through psychology books, we just have to look at the cross. The covenant says: 'I will do my part regardless of what you do.' It is a promise based on identity and not on the other person's performance.