What Do You Value More: Faithfulness or Getting What You Want?

That’s the question. And Jesus didn’t ask it with words, but He asked it with His life. And He pressed it on everyone who would dare to follow Him. Because it’s a question that cuts deep:

Do you want to be faithful to God and others, or do you just want to get what you want? That tension lives inside all of us. There’s a pull toward selfishness, toward comfort, toward escape. And when life gets difficult, when our desires scream louder than our commitments, it’s easy to look for the nearest off-ramp.

But the heart of the kingdom of God isn’t built on convenience. It’s built on covenant.

And covenant doesn’t ask, “What do I want?”

It asks, “What does love require of me?”

That’s where we begin. And to get us there, let’s go back to a moment—a simple but striking story—about a young couple, a blank laptop screen, and some surprisingly honest fake wedding vows.

Writing Vows in a World That Doesn’t Keep Them

A young couple was preparing for their wedding. Like many couples, they were in premarital counseling with a minister. At the end of their final session, the minister asked them a simple but important question:

“Do you want to write your own vows, or use the traditional ones?”

They hadn’t talked about it, hadn’t even considered it, but it felt right in the moment. “Let’s write our own,” they said—thinking it would be more romantic, more intimate, more meaningful.

But as soon as they got in the car, panic set in. They were both nervous speakers, and now they had to write personal promises and read them in front of a crowd. Determined not to procrastinate, they got home, brewed some coffee, fired up their laptops, and tried to get started. And nothing came.

After twenty minutes, she looked up and said, “This is going terribly. How are you doing?”

“Still staring at a blank screen,” he replied.

She admitted that she’d written some lines, but they sounded like clichés from a bad Hallmark movie. Then she paused and said something revealing:

“You know why this is hard? Because I’ve seen so many people say vows like this—but not mean them. They didn’t live them. So now, writing vows feels… empty. Like they don’t matter.”

That’s when he had a brilliant idea.

“Let’s write the kind of vows people actually live—funny vows, sarcastic vows—the kind we see in the world. Then we’ll write the real ones. And that’s what they did.

He started:

“I promise to hold your hand and watch movies with you—unless we don’t like the same shows. Then I’ll find someone more Netflix-compatible.”

She replied:

“I promise to stand by you in sickness and in health—unless your sickness is contagious or causes us to meet our deductible three years in a row.”

He followed with:

“I vow to be honest with you—unless it’s during the game or before I’ve had coffee. Then I’ll lie just to avoid talking.”

She responded:

“I vow to grow old with you—unless your version of ‘old’ includes ear hair, cargo shorts, and Velcro sandals.”

And finally, he closed with:

“I promise to be faithful—unless someone at work is hotter than you and laughs at my dad jokes instead of rolling her eyes.”

They laughed and laughed. But their laughter faded into something serious.

Because in that moment, they saw the world for what it really was: a place full of conditional love, casual commitment, and throwaway promises. And they decided they wanted something different.

They wanted vows that meant something.

They wanted to live the kind of love that lasts.

They wanted to be faithful.

The World’s Love vs. God’s Love

That story hits close to home because we’ve all seen it—maybe even lived it. The world around us is filled with:

• Conditional love: “I’ll love you… if you meet my needs.”

• Convenient love: “I’ll stay… unless it gets uncomfortable.”

• Cancelable love: “I’m here… until I’m not feeling it anymore.”

But God doesn’t love like that. And the people of His kingdom aren’t called to love like that either. Jesus lays it out in Matthew 5:27–37, in the Sermon on the Mount. Three deeply connected teachings—on lust, divorce, and oaths—all circling around one truth:

Faithfulness begins in the heart, not the rulebook.

Faithfulness in Lust: Guarding Your Inner Life (Matthew 5:27–30)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

— Matthew 5:27–28

Jesus starts with a command everyone already knew: don’t commit adultery. But then He takes it deeper. He says even looking lustfully is a violation of faithfulness. It’s not just about physical action; it’s about the heart’s intention.

In Jesus’ day, the religious leaders were masters of loopholes. They’d say, “As long as I don’t physically cross the line, I’m good.” But Jesus destroys that kind of shallow righteousness.

He says, “I’m not just after your behavior. I want your heart.” Then He uses strong imagery:

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out… If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.” He’s not asking for self-harm. He’s asking for seriousness. Take sin seriously. Fight for your soul. Don’t settle for half-measures. Don’t feed what’s trying to destroy you.

For those in the battle for lust, get drastic, but also don’t stop fighting. Don’t get comfortable with your struggle in any battle with sin.

Faithfulness in Marriage: Keeping the Covenant (Matthew 5:31–32)

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you…”

—Matthew 5:31

Jesus continues by addressing divorce—and this is where it gets difficult. Not because what He says isn’t clear, but because so many of us have been affected by divorce. Some have gone through it. Others have family members who have. Some are wrestling with it right now.  So I want you to know it is important to speak the truth that Jesus conveys but to do it with love.

To understand what Jesus taught about divorce in the New Testament, we first have to go back to Deuteronomy 24:1–4, where Moses gives instructions about divorce. But here’s the key: Moses wasn’t giving permission to divorce; he was regulating an existing, broken situation.

“If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her from his house…” (Deuteronomy 24:1)

In that time and culture, only men could initiate divorce, and sadly, some men were abusing that power. They were dismissing their wives quietly, without any formal declaration, leaving the women legally married but practically abandoned. This put the woman in an impossible position: she couldn’t remarry without being labeled an adulteress, but she also couldn’t survive on her own in a patriarchal society. She had no property rights, little economic power, and few places to turn.

So Moses, under God’s direction, allowed for a certificate of divorce; not to encourage divorce, but to protect the woman. By giving her this document, she could prove she was no longer married, which allowed her to remarry without social or legal penalty. The law in Deuteronomy is essentially saying, “If you’re going to break the covenant, at least do it in a way that doesn’t leave her destitute and dishonored.” This was a law of compassion—not a license to discard your spouse.

But over time, people twisted it. They took that regulation as permission to divorce for just about anything. And that leads us into the second part of this—the question Jesus was asked in Matthew 19.

What Jesus Was Addressing in Matthew 19

By the time of Jesus, Jewish teachers had split into two main schools of thought about Deuteronomy 24 and the meaning of “something indecent”:

• The school of Shammai taught that “something indecent” referred specifically to sexual immorality. They believed divorce was only permissible in cases of adultery.

• The school of Hillel, on the other hand, took a much more lenient view. They taught that “something indecent” could be anything displeasing to the husband—burning dinner, being too loud, even no longer finding her attractive.

And guess which view became more popular? The lenient one. People were using Deuteronomy 24 as a loophole to get what they wanted while still claiming to follow God’s law. That’s why, in Matthew 19:3, the Pharisees approach Jesus with this loaded question:

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

They’re not genuinely curious—they’re testing Him. And they’re trying to trap Him into siding with one school or the other, knowing that no matter what He says, someone will be upset.

But Jesus doesn’t take the bait.

Instead of debating interpretations of Deuteronomy, He takes them back even further—to Genesis: “Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4–6)

Jesus isn’t interested in loopholes. He’s interested in God’s heart. He’s saying: Marriage wasn’t made to be broken. It was made to be binding, beautiful, and lasting. It’s not a temporary arrangement—it’s a covenant created by God Himself. Then, in Matthew 19:9, Jesus delivers the heart of His teaching: “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” So what is Jesus addressing in Matthew 19? He’s correcting a culture that had reduced marriage to a contract of convenience. He’s rejecting the idea that people can walk away from their vows for trivial reasons and still claim to be righteous. It isn’t hard to imagine how this law of divorcing your wife for any reason was abused. If a man who was filled with lust for another woman, he had a simple solution without even breaking “the law.”  He could just divorce his wife for any reason and marry the woman that he was lusting after without losing respect in the Jewish community. He could be filled with lust and still be considered “righteous” in the eyes of others. Jesus is having none of it. He’s calling His followers to be people of covenant, people who embody the faithfulness of God in their relationships. Jesus says: That’s not what marriage is. Marriage isn’t a consumer contract; it’s a covenant. It’s not about loopholes; it’s about lasting love.

What About the Exceptions?

Jesus does acknowledge an exception: sexual immorality (Matthew 5:32). And Paul adds another in 1 Corinthians 7:15—if an unbelieving spouse leaves.  He does clearly say that the Lord didn’t say this, but I say it is okay to let an unbelieving spouse divorce you.

There are difficult situations not directly addressed in these passages; like abuse. Many have wrestled with what God’s will is in those heartbreaking cases. While Jesus doesn’t explicitly mention abuse, it’s crucial to remember that the commands were spoken into a male-dominated culture where only husbands could initiate divorce. That doesn’t mean God overlooks suffering. I would have a hard time imagining Jesus telling a woman who is the victim of consistent abuse that she cannot get out of that situation. Again, Jesus doesn’t say this, but we see Jesus’ compassion throughout the gospels and he certainly doesn’t condone slipping out of your vows to chase your lust, convenience, or avoid difficulty, but Jesus never addresses a situation like this directly. The heart of Jesus’ teaching remains: don’t walk away from your covenant just because it’s hard.

The Two Brothers

I knew two men, brothers, who had both been divorced and remarried. When I met them, they had been faithfully following Jesus for many years. But they carried a silent burden. They had, years before, believed they were disqualified from the kingdom of God because of their past. They thought their divorces had permanently shut the door of grace. They believed, deep down, that they were headed for hell.

No matter what they did.

That’s heartbreaking. And it’s wrong.

Listen closely:

Divorce is not the unforgivable sin.

Remarriage does not disqualify you from the kingdom of God.

If you are divorced and remarried, God is not shutting the kingdom in your face.

What does He want now?

He wants you to be repentant and He wants you to be faithful.

He doesn’t want another broken promise.

He wants your heart now. He wants your loyalty and commitment now.

Yes, we’ve all messed up. But Jesus didn’t come to condemn. He came to restore. To make things new. That includes your past. That includes your marriage. That includes your future.

Faithfulness in Integrity: Let Your “Yes” Be “Yes” (Matthew 5:33–37)

Jesus closes this section with a teaching on truthfulness:

“Do not swear an oath at all… All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

—Matthew 5:34, 37

We’re not supposed to need “I swear to God” or “no cap” or “cross my heart.” If we’re people of integrity, our words should stand on their own. Let your “yes” be yes. Let your “no” be no. Be truthful. Be reliable. Be faithful. Because covenant faithfulness doesn’t just apply to marriages. It applies to every promise. Every word. Every commitment.

The Faithfulness of God Is Our Model and Our Hope

Faithfulness is hard.

But we’re not asked to conjure it up from scratch. We’ve already seen it—in Him.

From Genesis to Revelation, God is relentlessly faithful:

• He made a covenant with Abraham—and kept it.

• He made a covenant with Israel—and never broke it, even when they did.

• He made a covenant with David—and fulfilled it in Jesus.

• He made a covenant with us—sealed in His blood.

And even when we walked away, chased idols, and shattered His trust, He didn’t quit.

• He stayed.

• He remained faithful.

• Even to the cross.

Jesus didn’t come just to forgive us. He came to fulfill the covenant we broke. To love us with an unbreakable love. To call us back into relationship. To invite us into His family. And if you’ve fallen, if you’ve wandered, if you’ve failed to be faithful… He is still faithful to you.

What Do You Do With All of This?

If you’re holding tension in your heart right now, you’re not alone. If you’ve chosen what you wanted over what was faithful, there’s still grace for you. If you’re divorced and remarried, God is not standing at the gate with folded arms. He’s open-armed. But He is calling you to faithfulness now. Don’t let shame win. Don’t let your past define your future. Let God’s love draw you in. Covenant faithfulness is the heartbeat of the kingdom.