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# Purify Your Marriage A few years ago, Dino came to me with a repentant heart of confession. He was terrified, of course, as is the case when we are confessing, not knowing how I would receive it or respond. In spite of the uncertainty, he was honest and vulnerable, and I was just so thankful. We’ve agreed that honesty and transparency are a gift to our marriage. It’s when we bury our sins, lying to ourselves and hiding them from our spouse and ultimately God, that we build a wall around ourselves. In doing so, we deny ourselves the very intimacy we truly desire, both with Christ and our spouse. On the other side of confession, it is the receiver’s job to respond with forgiveness, not holding on to grudges and dragging them along as baggage through our years of marriage. We have found that in all things, the best way to start things off is with a clean slate. The first thing we are going to focus on is confessing sins and asking forgiveness from our spouse for the things that we have brought into our marriages that shouldn’t be there. Today, pray like the psalmist that the Spirit will “point out anything that offends” God—any actions or words that you need to repent for—and then repent. First confess to Christ your shortcomings, and then go to your spouse...and bring everything into the light. Note the connection Paul makes between sexual impurity and covetousness in Ephesians 5:3. Experience tells us that this is not a coincidence. To lust or long for anyone other than your spouse is to covet that person. All physical acts of sexual impurity devastate a marriage, but the mental and spiritual sin always precedes the physical, and is no less damaging.