Taking Care Of Your Lover/Spouse Okay, so you are in love. Butterflies are flying in the tummy, your heartbeat accelerates, and there are twinkling little stars on your face. How do you take care of each other? Or you are married, somehow the butterflies have decided to rest, the heartbeat is stable and the stars have hibernated. How do you take care of each other or probably rekindle this love?
Here are some ideas for singles and married couples.
1. Communication Stay in touch. Words are powerful; use them to your advantage. As singles, don’t let your courtship season be a memory of fights, quarrels, and arguments. Be mature with each other. Avoid being incommunicado.
Make it a rule; we must keep talking. That can also be a powerful principle to live by as a married couple. The devil feasts on silence; assumptions will persist and complicate the issue because assumptions are the lowest form of knowledge.
What is a man looking for? Respect! What is a lady looking for? Love! If you learn to communicate this, there will be less tension!
Singles should however note that it is wrong to say you are showing respect while you are disobeying God’s injunctions! More aptly put, you are not showing respect to your fiance by cooperating with him when he asks for pre-marital sex.
2. Spirituals Oh, pastor, what has this got to do with being romantic? It’s got a lot to do! Somebody said, to be romantic, read the book of Romans! Your spiritual life as single or married can determine the success of your relationship or marriage. There are two elements to your spiritual life: reading God’s word (which also includes study and meditation) and praying to God. If you can make this regular and consistent, some order will enter your relationship/marriage.
A man ought to be responsible. As a single man, how many books have you read or are you reading to prepare yourself? Who is your mentor? Who are you talking to? You need a mentor in your relationship to avoid the tormentors of marriage!
Are you a man who fears God? If you have the opportunity Joseph had, to have sex so easily, will you run? The fear of God is something that cannot be negotiated.
I know a lady whose husband has been abroad for seven years and was lonely. There was this brother who got careless and visited her at home all alone in the name of being her cell leader. First mistake. They sat down to watch a film. Second mistake. Then the film got to some romantic part, and the lady stood up, went inside the room, and started crying because she was sexually moved.
The brother could hear her sobbing. He went to her to console her. Third mistake. You see that was not part of cell leadership. He put his arm around her and consoled her and they ended in sexual sin.
Fast-forward; to a year later, they’ve had several sex romps. Fast-forward six months; the brother was dead! Cold dead! Nobody knew what killed him. It was the lady herself that narrated this to me!
You see, God is not a killer, but the devil is! You need to know that! What would have kept that brother from being trapped is the fear of God!
Go for the fear of God! That is what will keep you from cheating on your wife. It is not because you are a worker, leader, or pastor. There are a thousand and one leaders, workers, and pastors messing up by the day. The only reason you won’t mess up is because you have the fear of God.
The fear of God can be understood. It can be learned. It can be cultivated. You need it to stay faithful. You need it not to pounce on that little girl when you are alone. You need it not to falsify documents. How do understand the fear of God?
I will show you one way, and we will conclude with that this morning. I want you to read it slowly and let it settle in your spirit.
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; THEN SHALT THOU UNDERSTAND THE FEAR OF THE LORD, and find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:1-5 KJV)
The more of God’s word you read, study, and mediate on, the more of the fear of God you are going to have!
You can either learn through wisdom or from experience. Learning from experience comes with its downside. You would have made so many mistakes. Yes, God forgives, but the consequences of the mistakes will stare you in the face and you might have to live with them for a long time.
Let me give you an example. David went into an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. He later admitted his error when God sent Prophet Nathan to him. God forgave him, but two things happened. The son from the adulterous union died, despite David’s pleading. Sword was never to depart from his house. That was a consequence that stared him in the face all through his lifetime.
Yes, God restored and even blessed their union eventually when Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon who later became a king, but there were issues in David’s family!
What I am saying to you this morning, is that the best way to go is the way of wisdom!
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7 KJV)
My dear, go for wisdom. That is how to get the best of relationships and marriage. It is not tantalizing yourselves alone or having outings that will sustain a relationship.
Next verse says: Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. (Proverbs 4:8 KJV)
So one of the things to watch out for in a spouse is how passionate he or she is about learning and going after the things of God.
You don’t want to get involved with someone not spiritually minded.
Look at a scenario, you are married and it is Sunday morning. It doesn’t happen, but you don’t feel like attending church. Your wife will either say, “It’s okay, even me, I want to rest,” or “ No, dear, we have to go to church.”
That is why the scripture calls a wife a helper. You see, there is a difference between a wife and a knife! A helper is an encourager, a factor you need for functioning well for total productivity.
That is why as a man, you should never lift your hands against your wife. You don’t beat your helper. It is not done!
A man would beat up his wife and then say it was the devil. Why didn’t the devil push the man to go and beat up a soldier? Just wondering!
We have probably all been there. You have tried all you know and yet nothing seems to be working.
You have prayed, fasted, and even sowed seeds, and yet, the heaven seems closed.
God seems silent to all your inquiries and you are not getting anything. Your prayers seem to be bouncing off the ceiling.
What could be happening?
Well, a lot of things can be happening why this is so, but this morning, I want to point to singles and couples alike why this could happen.
Let’s take our text below:
Rom 4:21 (KJV) And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
The text used “fully” persuaded. That means persuasion can be measured. You can be half persuaded or a quarter persuaded! But the text says he was FULLY persuaded.
Are you fully persuaded concerning what you trust God for or ask Him to do?
Why must you be fully persuaded?
The answer is in below text:
Jas 1:6-8 (KJV) But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. [7] For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. [8] A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
A person who is DOUBTING is like a wave. Verse 7 says that man will not receive anything from God.
Every time things seem not to be working, check your heart if there are doubts concerning God’s promises to you or concerning His instructions.
As you learn to be fully persuaded, you get more results in your walk with God either as a single or couple.
I pray for you this week, God will reach out to you and send you help in every area you need Him in Jesus’ name!
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 KJV)
Here, we see God giving an instruction once marriage is in view. There must be “leaving” and a “cleaving” before any marriage can be successful.
A lot of people leave without cleaving. It won’t work. A lot more try to cleave without leaving. It won’t work either.
It has to be a “leaving” and a “cleaving.”
The word “leaving” is very interesting. There are two particular words or meanings I am interested in. They are the words ‘relinquish” and “commit self”
Pastor, you mean I must relinquish relationship with my parents? It doesn’t mean you disconnect from them or cut off from them, it only talks about where your focus should now be as a married person. After God, the next most important person in your life is your spouse. It doesn’t mean you should not take care of your parents any longer, it just means there should be more emphasis on your spouse.
And then the word “commitment!” Leaving to cleave involves commitment! A person that goes into a relationship or marriage without the willingness to commit to the relationship is just playing around. You need to pray as a single that your path will not cross with such people because they would waste your time, energy and resources. Yorubas call such people “alawin”
It is not God’s concept to have several people on your list that you are dating at a time. If God wanted some form of double dating or polygamy, He would have created Eve, Eva and Evelyn for Adam. Remember Adam still had ribs remaining!
But God created only one person upon whom Adam should focus on. And that is the biblical standard! In that one person is packaged everything you need to be complete. Couples who constantly fight and quarrel are missing out a lot because they are never complete that way. Their agreement would be broken and prayer would be hindered.
