Yesterday, westarted on the topic “How to tend your marriage” and we talked about one major way to make your marriage enjoyable. That is, to know the difference between a garden and a farm.
Our marriage should be viewed as a garden, not a farmland.
Below are few ways we can tend our marriage.
1. First discover the type of person your spouse is. Is your marriage a garden or a farm land?
2. This discovery has to be done by both of you discussing it.
3. Know what your partner requires you to make your marriage work.
4. Set out to learn about these requirements.
5. Never assume you know all it takes to make your marriage work.
6. Be focused on making it work.
7. Be ready and humble enough to learn.
8. Always take your spouse along and check with each other if you are making progress. For example, the proof you are on the right track is when you see the flowers in your garden blossom.
9. Don’t stop doing those things that produced the results.
10. Master the technique and do it over and over again, till it becomes part of you.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage will blossom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the wisdom I need to tend my marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Son 4:16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.
The contradiction that man is constantly subjected to is that he is a spirit but he lives in a body. He is more conscious of his body because of the five senses and he is prone to be less conscious of the spirit realm, and yet he is supposed to get strength from the spirit, not from the body.
It was a dilemma that God resolved by sending the one and only son He had, Jesus Christ, to take our place.
I remember the first time I watched the film, Jesus of Nazareth (not even as brutal as Passion of the Christ), I couldn’t handle the kind of love Jesus had for humanity. As the big spikes were driven into his palms and legs with a gigantic, wicked-looking hammer, tears welled up within me. I was just nine years old! I asked my mum why he had to die, and my mum, who wasn’t born again at the time simply said, “He was crucified so we wouldn’t have to die.” He took our place!”
That answer made it worse for me as I began to wonder what kind of love that was. I went and hid at the back of the door and I wept there silently. They looked everywhere for me for hours, but I stayed there, weeping silently.
Finally, my mum located me, and tried to cheer me up, that He resurrected after all! That didn’t console me. My young mind couldn’t handle the wickedness meted out to Jesus, and come to think of it, He was innocent! I determined I would be His friend.
Uhhmnn…Jesus, the one who loves us, took our place, took the disordered mess of humanity and cleared it on our behalf, took sicknesses and diseases on our behalf so that we might be healed!
Rom 8:1-3 MSG (1) With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. (2) A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. (3) God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.
This was God’s answer to our failing and frail humanity. He sent his son, who is as much God, to come and die for us. After he was resurrected, Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit will come and indwell us!
That sounded crazy! The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity will now live in our body! Our body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost! Divinity is domiciled in humanity!
1Co 6:19 MSG Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you.
What does this mean to us as believers and how does it concern our relationships?
Join me as I conclude tomorrow.
CONFESSION FOR TODAY I embrace and celebrate the one who loves me.
PRAYER FOR TODAY Lord, help me to understand your love for me.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY 1 John 3:1(ERV) The Father has loved us so much! This shows how much he loved us: We are called children of God. And we really are his children. But the people in the world don’t understand that we are God’s children, because they have not known him.
Presenting Your Body As A Living Sacrifice was taught by Rev. Dunamis Okunowo on the 18th day of July 2021 at Shouts of Grace Center, Joke Plaza, Beside Trans Amusement Park, Bodija-UI Road, Ibadan.
In his teaching, Rev. Dunamis made mention of the following important points:
Acquisition of knowledge is not enough; understanding is what empowers you to do. The degree to which you understand a thing is the degree you enjoy the benefits of that thing
If you don’t present your body as a living sacrifice, you will never be all that God has created you to be.
How Do You Present Your Body?
You present your body by killing it; by deadening it.
For if you live according to [the dictates of] the flesh, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever.
Romans 8:13 (AMP)
You do not retrieve your sacrifice. Each time you go back to your sins, you are contradicting your destiny. Dead people don’t fornicate. Dead people don’t retaliate.
Your flesh has a voice, and if you lack self control, you will follow whatever it says.
When your body is presented as a living sacrifice, it cannot dictate to you, rather you tell your body what to do.
Do you want your worship to be accepted by God? Then present your body. Your worship does not exist until your body is presented.
I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1 (AMP)
The fact that you presented your body as a living sacrifice does not mean that temptations will not come; but you do not hearken to the voice of the flesh when it speaks.
There is a relationship between deadening your body and your bank account. If you wish to prosper the God kind of way, then you have to kill or deaden your flesh so that it doesn’t stand as a hindrance to your blessings. Therefore you must work at presenting your body as a living sacrifice.
To listen to messages of Rev Dunamis, go HERE or HERE
Psalm 121:1-2 (NKJV) I will lift up my eyes to the hills– From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.
Nation/Church
Pray for the help of God over your nation and the church – that they will not fall
Psalm 118:13 (AMP) You [my adversary] thrust sorely at me that I might fall, but the Lord helped me.
Pastors/Parents/Mentors
Pray for God’s help for your pastors, parents and mentors to bring blessings to them
Genesis 49:25 (AMP) By the God of your father, Who will help you, and by the Almighty, Who will bless you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings lying in the deep beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
Finance
For the help of God in your finances, begin to praise God.
Psalm 42:5 (NKJV) Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.
Family
Pray that by the help of God, your family will not see shame
Isaiah 50:7 (NKJV) “For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.
Warfare
Declare that the help of God gives you victory over the enemy.
Deuteronomy 33:29 (ESV) Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs.”
Desire for the Month
Pray for your desires this month
Psalm 33:20 (NKJV) Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield.
Psalm 91 Declaration
Psalm 91:2 (NKJV) I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”
Blood Declaration
I declare these words by the Blood of Jesus: I have the help of God
1 John 1:7 (NKJV) But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Ephesians 3:14, 17 (NKJV) For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Healing
Declare healing over that sickness
Psalm 30:2 (NKJV) O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.
Favour/Mercy Today
Pray that by mercy you receive the help of God
Psalm 90:17 (AMP) And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands–yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it.
Couples, Tend Your Marriage. I liketo view marriage as a garden. Your marriage needs time, attention, care, being sensitive and gentle, and above all skill and patience. No matter what is planted in your garden, whether vegetables or flowers, it requires your attention. If you are not ready to give your garden time and attention, don’t bother planting a garden.
You must enjoy and love being around your garden for it to blossom. You can not treat your garden like you do farmland where a lot of farming is allowed. A garden is a personal assignment. You give it the time and attention it requires.
Never use the same principle you use in working the farmland on your garden. It won’t work because they are totally different. Many couples are making this mistake. They love the beauty of flowers but want to apply the method they use in planting cassava.
For your cassava, just make a heap, cut your cassava stem, stick it into the soil and you can go to sleep for the next several weeks. Your cassava does not need any special attention or focus. But not so with your garden.
You know sometimes, I wonder why, some marriages don’t reach their full potential despite the good heart of the couples. Some of them might be anointed. I heard pastor Benny Hinn, a man of God I so much love and respect said the main reason for his divorce was that he didn’t give the marriage the needed attention. Thank Gracious God they are beautifully restored now and doing very well.
I can not but wonder why? how? I guess God is so much principled that He will honor His word. The principle you work is what will work for you. Sometimes we need to slow down and give the needed attention our marriage requires. There is no point wishing your spouse were a ‘cassava’, if your spouse is a ‘rose flower’.
You better change your techniques and tools. If your spouse is a ‘rose flower’, get your hand gloves, hand trowel, watering can and get to work. You may not sweat it out like in the farm but you will be required to gently tend your garden. Each requires different skill.
However, if you stubbornly stick to the farming method you prefer you will not get the best of it.
Tomorrow, I will show us how we can tend our marriages.
God bless our marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage will blossom
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me the wisdom I need to tend my marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Son 4:16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.
