What is the secret to a strong marriage? Pastor Chris and Mona Chia share from their 38-year journey at D6 conference

As far as meet-cutes go, Rev Dr Christopher Chia and his wife Mona have a rather adorable one.

First meeting as six-year-olds, the Malaysian-born couple recount how they would run away from geese that used to chase them in their preschool compounds.

Growing up together, they went to the same schools, all the way from kindergarten to secondary school. 

But it was only when they were pursuing further education overseas  –  Ps Chris in Australia and Mona in England  –  that they came to know Jesus.

“Each of us has a story under God’s sovereignty,” said the Senior Pastor of Adam Road Presbyterian Church (ARPC).

And for both, that has included 38 years of marriage to one another, two children and two grandkids.

Ps Chris and Mona both went to a Catholic kindergarten.

“We stand here, sinners saved by grace,” said Ps Chris, speaking to those who attended their workshop at the recent D6 Singapore Family Conference 2025 that was themed “As We Go”.

“We’re not holding out to you the perfection of our marriage. We’re holding out to you us being perfected by Christ. And you and I are on the same journey.”

While secular talks on marriage might expound on different factors that make a strong marriage, Ps Chris had a singular message for his Christian audience.

“The number one ingredient for strong marriages and families is God,” he affirmed.

“Once we take God out of the whole equation of life, the whole equation of marriage and family, it weakens.”

But what does having God in our marriages look like? Here are 7 things that Ps Chris shared.

1. Remember God’s good design

“Marriage is God’s idea,” emphasised Ps Chris, showing from Scripture that God created the institution of marriage out of good intentions.

Beginning from the first marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24, he explained: “God made us in His image to rule the world on his behalf. And from that relationship would come children.”

Tracing the theme of marriage to the end of Bible, Ps Chris then fast-forwarded to Revelation 21-22.

“The Bible begins with wedding bells … and ends with wedding bells. And now the Bridegroom is Christ and the Bride is us, the perfected Bride through Christ.

“That’s the picture of the end. Satan and sin will no longer separate us from God. We will be one with Him in Heaven, forever and ever.”

The gist of marriage is oneness and unity, summarised Ps Chris. 

“The truest expression of love is oneness,” he said. “And an institution that carries that love expressed in oneness is marriage and family.”

When the couple were joined in holy matrimony.

2. Recognise Satan’s evil design

Citing Genesis 3, Ps Chris pointed out that “the marriage institution has been under attack” since the Fall of Man when Satan tempted Eve.

“That’s life after the Fall – broken relationship with God, broken relationship with one another.”

Coming against God’s benevolent design is Satan’s malevolent design, he warned.

“Every single sin is a unity breaker,” said Ps Chris. “The spirit of sin under Satan breaks up the first couple with God and with each other.”

It also breaks up the first family, he noted. Sibling rivalry began when Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4).

“Our greatest spiritual battles are fought in our hearts, in our marriages and in our families. The Bible is filled with this.

“The devil is the master of turning our beautiful oneness into ugly separateness … but Jesus is the master of turning ugly separateness into beautiful oneness.”

3. Prioritise your personal walk

Sharing that it is essential to have the right cornerstone to build a marriage, Ps Chris said: “A strong personal relationship with God is the foundation and the basis of a strong marriage relationship.”

Looking to the example of Christ, Ps Chris noted that Jesus was characterised by his communion with God.

Jesus had hundreds of people waiting for him to be healed, but still drew away from the crowd and to spend time with His Father (Mark 1:35).

Later in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus again retreated to pray, hours before He would fulfil His life’s purpose to die on the Cross at Calvary.

Upon returning to find His disciples asleep, Jesus instructed them to “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Mark 14:38).

Many of us think we can fight against Satan without watching and praying, observed Ps Chris.

“There’s no way you’re going do that. The only reason I stand here – 38 years of marriage, 35 years of pastoring – is the Lord has taught me to watch and pray.”

Underscoring the value of spiritual wakefulness, he said: “You cannot face the Calvaries of your life without Gethsemane. In Jesus’ life, it is Gethsemane before Calvary.”

Spiritual alertness helps us to tune in to spiritual warfare, as we watch and pray for God’s will in our lives, as well as watch and pray against Satan’s will.

“Your priority, your desire, your delight, your desperate need is communion with God through prayer.”

The heart of the matter is this: Nurturing strong marriages starts from nurturing our own walk with God, said Ps Chris.

4. Establish spiritual habits

To cultivate our personal walk, developing daily spiritual habits is crucial.

Ps Chris described this as NUT (non-negotiable, undistracted and total devotion to God) time.

He remarked: “No NUT – your whole life will go nuts.”

We need to honestly ask ourselves: Is Jesus a part of our lives or is Jesus our lives?

“If Jesus is a part of your life, you are at the centre … If Jesus is your life, He is at the centre and you revolve around Him.”

“You must never get used to living without Jesus … You’re absolutely not okay without Jesus,” declared Ps Chris. “Without Jesus, we’re nothing.”

Just like how a petrol tank always has to be topped up, we need to be continually recharged with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, he added.

“If we get this right, we will be a vessel of a godly marriage.”

5. Practise godly habits

“Is your life Pilgrim’s Progress or Pilgrim’s Regress?” asked Ps Chris, alluding to John Bunyan’s famous allegory.

“Are you making progress in love, in humility, in forgiveness, in purity? Or are you regressing?”

To progress, we need to unlearn our bad habits of self,  selfishness and sin, then learn Christ-like habits.

Ps Chris shared that without breathing in Christ through our devotional time with God, we cannot breathe out Christ to our spouse. All event photos © The Bible Society of Singapore

This will change the way we live because “we are a series of habits”, he said.

The way we think, speak and act are influenced by our sinful nature, our personality and our family background, among other factors.

To learn Christ-like habits, we need to turn to the Word of God, said Ps Chris. 

Ephesians 4 and 5 gives us a few examples of what that looks like, such as humility, gentleness, long-suffering, patience and love.

“Every day, you pray Scripture. You pray the virtues of Jesus to cancel the vices of your habits. And you re-learn them every day.”

Encouraging couples to depend on Jesus for help, Ps Chris also shared daily love habits that he practises: 

• Pray a loving prayer.
• Think a loving thought.
• Say a loving word.
• Do a loving deed.

We may try to save our own marriage and family, but self-effort, self-reliance and self-sufficiency will lead to self-destruction, said Ps Chris.

“Unless you breathe in grace, you cannot breathe out grace.”

6. Be quick to confess and repent

Will we still fail? For sure.

But when we do fall, we have to learn how to CRY: Confess our sins, repent and yield to Jesus. 

“The sooner you confess your sins willingly and quickly, the sooner Jesus takes over your heart, your marriage, your family,” explained Ps Chris.

“The sooner you repent, the sooner your marriages will be on the right track. The sooner you surrender this area to Jesus, the sooner you are stable.”

We also need to know where we are the most vulnerable.

Whether it is the roles of husband and wife, money or parenting, it is important to identify our triggers and coping mechanisms.

“Whatever is the strongest sin from your past to your present will become your weakest link, and Satan will keep pouncing on it,” said Ps Chris.

The problems that we have come from the evil inside of our hearts, he continued. 

To tackle this, we need to rely on the finished work of Jesus on the cross and the ongoing work of the Spirit in our lives.

Common areas of disagreement will end up becoming targets for Satan’s attacks, cautioned Ps Chris.

7. Take up your cross daily

“The sooner you die to self, the sooner you live by Christ,” said Ps Chris.

“The sooner you die to anger in that moment, the sooner you live by Christ … The sooner you die to lust, the sooner you live by Christ.”

This is what it means to live by Christ – moment by moment, he said.

“Your whole life is sliced into moments. Either this moment is given to Jesus or given to Satan.”

But as we invite Christ to come and live in us every day, we will be amazed by the transformation work He does.

“You never know how loving you can be, how long-suffering you can be, how patient you can be, how strong you can be,” encouraged Ps Chris.

Echoing her husband, Mona shared: “I think that is the most difficult thing – dying to self.”

But throughout their 38 years of marriage, she has also learnt that God fills you “with more and more grace, more and more forgiveness and mercy”.

In the early years of marriage, Mona said that learning to adopt a new identity as a wife was hard.

Admitting that she still struggles with dying to self, Mona revealed: “We’re all works in progress. There are still the stubborn bits that I couldn’t see earlier but seem to see now.

“And the good thing is that God is gracious – He doesn’t show you everything all at once. He gives you time and He gives you space to change.”

In summary, strong marriages are built on strong personal relationships with God, said Ps Chris.

“If your relationship with your husband or wife is strong because each of you have a living relationship with Jesus, then your children’s relationship will be strong.”

Must couples have children?

Before wrapping up, Ps Chris also addressed a question on whether having children is necessary for a complete Christian family.

“If you go back to Creation, God gives us two purposes for marriage,” he said.

But between the two Cs – children (procreation) and companionship – the focus seems to be increasingly on the latter, Ps Chris noted.

“We always have to sort out our hearts under God as to why we want to do things or why we don’t want to do things.” 

Is it because we desire more freedom? Or because we are afraid of commitment or climate change?

Ps Chris urges couples to ask themselves: Is it biblical?

Singling out the concern of overpopulation, he pointed out that back when there were fewer than one billion people in the world, there had already been talk about the Earth reaching its limits. However, our global population has now grown to eight billion.

And in Singapore’s case, since we are among the countries with the lowest fertility rate in the world, “if we don’t replace ourselves, we will die (out)”. 

Believing that Christians should be at the forefront of this, Ps Chris shared an anecdote of how one of his members recalled that he used to preach from Genesis so often in the early days of the church (1990s).

When ARPC started, the church did not even have a Sunday school. But today, it has 1,000 children. 

“By God’s grace, we’ve grown. I preached it for many years: Go forth, multiply, fill the earth,” he quipped.

Acknowledging that some couples may not be able to have biological children, Mona added that they can “still go forth and multiply – make disciples”.

Fundamentally, we must be able to trust God’s sovereignty, said Ps Chris. “Don’t try to be God. God knows how to provide.”

This article is part of a series we are running from the D6 Singapore Family Conference 2025. Look out for more stories on discipling the next generation in our churches and homes.  

For more details about next year’s conference, do head over to biblesociety.sg/registration, which is now taking early bird registrations.  

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