When a Common Girl Marries the King

Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father’s house. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.

Psalm 45:10-11

Have you ever known anyone who got married but then kept living with mommy and daddy? It normally doesn't work out well, because that isn't how marriage was designed to work. "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). This is God's design for marriage. The passage above reminds us that it is also His design for Christians (the bride of Christ) as we commit ourselves to Him.

Psalm 45 presents the Davidic King as a magnificent, just, and prosperous man (Psalm 45:2-9). He is the ideal man, really. From a New Testament perspective we look back and know that Jesus fits this bill better than anyone else. In fact, even though this psalm was almost certainly written for one of David's descendants around the time of his wedding, it appears to point intentionally forward to Jesus when it says, "God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy" (Psalm 45:7).

Since this is true, then Psalm 45:10-11 gives us insight into our spiritual life as well. Many times in the Bible the church is called the bride of Christ. Christ has committed Himself to and given Himself for the church. Thus, when believers accept Christ they are not merely receiving a gift from Him, but are confessing Him as Lord, committing themselves to Him as a bride to her husband. We must "forget our people and our father’s house." Grabbing hold of Christ requires a forsaking of all else. 

Let's return to the metaphor in Psalm 45. When a common girl marries the King, she must move off the farm and into the palace. It simply will not do to have her slopping the pigs in the morning and dining with the King in the evening. She must live in the palace, be dressed in fine clothing, undergo beauty treatments, and learn how to dine with the King. So it is with us. We are common people, sinners, who have been redeemed by a great King and married to Him. It will not do for us to continue wallowing in the mud of our sin day after day and then show up to church on Sunday to dine with the King partaking in the Lord's Supper. To do so is shameful and it belittles our King. 

Committing oneself to Christ requires that we move out of our old trappings, our old way of living life, and yes, even some of our old relationships. We must forsake the relationships and patterns of living that drew us into sin and begin to live with the King, daily dining on His Word and learning how to walk in His steps. You can still be a witness to these people, but the way you relate to them must change. Jesus comes first now, everyone and everything else comes under Him. 

So what do you need to forsake for Jesus? Who do you need to leave behind? 

For further reading...

• Psalm 45- Read the entire psalm.
• Luke 14:26-27- Jesus said to be his disciple you must hate your father and mother.
• Matthew 10:34-36- Jesus said "I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother..."