Marriage is joined upon a field of great spiritual battles. But it rests within a war that is already won. Our real opponent is not on the opposite side of the bed, but within our hearts. Our enemy is the desires of our flesh that oppose the desires of the Spirit. This is the fiercest and only true enemy of our marriage. We must know this enemy well.
This stunning discovery of the true nature of indwelling sin is not the end of our marriage battles, but it is an important beginning...It means there are no lost causes or hopeless conflicts...marriage battles are no longer merely something to fight our way through, hoping we can come out on the other side with the relationship still intact. Instead, even our conflicts have redemptive possibilities because the war with sin is won in Christ, by the grace and power of our Sovereign God.
--Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say "I Do": Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage
