Expecting your spouse to change overnight will leave you heavily disappointed. It is entirely different if either spouse is an unbeliever; change in that sense is possible and can be anytime.
But when we talk about habits, attitudes, and behavioral patterns it can take a while.
Take note of these few points:
1. Patience
You will need to exercise patience! It takes a while. Let’s assume your spouse was twenty-five years old by the time you got married. It means that he or she has been formed into a certain mold for twenty-five years. Coming into marriage and expecting a quick change because you sermonized or lectured him or her will not make a change in a few days, expecting a quick change, may leave you disappointed.
Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud… -1Corinthians 13:4 (CEV)
I think in marriages, you always get to understand that virtue called “long-suffering!”
2. Don’t Lecture Or Sermonize
Your lectures and long talks do nothing at the end of the day; it only turns you into a nag, a domineering spouse, and an impatient spouse.
Between a husband and a wife, one will talk more than the other; don’t ever make the mistake of thinking your ability to package words is effective on your spouse.
It is even much more annoying and irritatingly hilarious if your spouse is a phlegmatic who doesn’t want trouble; he or she will allow you to talk and talk, and then will promise you there is change, only so that you can stop talking!
Only to do the very thing you’ve been talking about again!
You feel like escaping from the marriage, but sorry, you are hooked already!
Trust God that things will get better.
3. Pray Rather Than Talk And Talk
Your most effective and sure way to create any change is to pray. Take it to God and stop wearing yourself out.
Try and think about it, you’ve been complaining about something for seven years, yet no change! and you keep complaining!
Don’t you think in seven years, your spouse has disconnected himself or herself from your complaints?
He or she has mastered the art of closing the gate of his heart; you are only talking to the ears!
It does nothing and it would do nothing!
Pray about it!
4. Get Back Into Dating Mode
You used to love yourselves! You used to overlook and ignore some things you are bitterly complaining about now. What happened?
You need to get back into that romantic mode and love each other again rather than thinking your spouse is the problem of your family!
Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. -1Corinthians 13:7 (CEV)
Be supportive, be hopeful, and trust again. Cast your cares unto Jesus and stop focusing on the flaws of your spouse.
Get back into appreciating him or her in their area of strength.
I pray that God will help you need and send the very help you need in Jesus name.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am patient
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to love my spouse again
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, and never gives up. -1Corinthians 13:7 (GW)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Read Myles Munroe’s book on the Myth of Singleness
A faithful man is a trustworthy man. He is a truthful man! A truthful man is not deceptive. He is not magma of flowing wickedness within covered with the façade of a nice man and waiting to erupt.
A faithful man loves a lady genuinely for who she is and not for what she gives. A faithful man is not out to satisfy his lust only to discard the lady later.
A faithful man will not insist on pre-marital sex, nay, his love for God will not prevail on the lady to compromise her virtue and offend God.
A faithful man is the protector of the lady’s body. He is not one to take advantage of her femininity!
A faithful man is not a Samson that lacks self-control and would not mind using his anointing to desecrate the one he is meant to take care of.
A faithful man is not a Samson that will preach and move in the Spirit one moment only to end up frolicking with prostitutes and ending up on Delilah’s lap.
A faithful man is not an Amnon that would profess his love one moment passionately and then would rape a Tamar the next moment.
A faithful man is not a Uriah that loves his job more than his wife all in the name of loyalty and then died in the process!
A faithful man is not a Judas that would greet and beg you with a kiss as a friend when all he is out for is your body to be crucified!
A faithful man will not compete with his wife. He is secure and he is happy when his wife is progressing.
A faithful man loves and does not lust. A faithful man does not scheme. He does not suddenly give his life to Jesus in order to marry a naïve and unsuspecting child of God and then takes his life back from Jesus after getting what he wants.
A faithful man will not raise his hands against a lady. The fear of God will not allow it knowing that he would be shooting himself in the leg by doing that!
A faithful man is not a gold-digger. A faithful man is not getting married to a lady because of papers and documents. A faithful man follows God’s direction in his life. A faithful man does not marry for money!
A faithful man does not teach against sexual perversion on the pulpit only to be caught up continually with masturbation, pornography, and fornication and yet without repentance!
A faithful man does not double date. He does not take advantage of the fragile emotions of ladies.
A faithful man does not scheme and he does not pretend.
A faithful man is a Joseph that loves God and will say a big NO to compromise knowing that compromise can truncate his destiny.
A faithful man learns to run away like Joseph in the face of sexual pressure and will not start speaking in tongues at such times. He learns to flee and will not spiritualize it by saying “let us reason together!
The list goes on but I will stop here for now. You can add your definition in the comment box.
Stay blessed!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a faithful man/virtuous woman.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to become the person you have created me to be and let the faithful man/virtuous woman in me emerge
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. –Psalms 12:7 (KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Commit every issue in your relationship into the hands of God
A few days back, I began writing to you about “The Virtuous Woman”, I know a lot of you must be curious as to whether there is anything like a virtuous man, especially the lady folks.
Well, the scripture never mentions anything like a virtuous man but it did talk about men! And that is what I want us to see this morning.
The scriptures say about women:
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. –Proverbs 31:10 (KJV)
Then it says about men:
Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find? –Proverbs 20:6 (KJV)
So essentially, the Bible talks about a virtuous woman and a faithful man!
The question is where can one find a faithful man? In fact, The Message translations say:
Lots of people claim to be loyal and loving, but where on earth can you find one? –Proverbs 20:6 (MSG)
The writer of Psalm 12 even sounds like you cannot find such a man again!
Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. –Psalms 12:1 (KJV)
Other translations even added pepper on top!
HELP, LORD! For principled and godly people are here no more; faithfulness and the faithful vanish from among the sons of men. –Psalms 12:1 (AMP)
Quick, GOD, I need your helping hand! The last decent person just went down, All the friends I depended on gone. –Psalms 12:1 (MSG)
However, I will like you to know there are still faithful men! It takes a virtuous woman to be found by a faithful man!
There is someone that changes the equation of unfaithfulness. His name is Jesus. He is the only one that can make a difference in the life of a man and who can make the vilest of sinners become a faithful man!
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said concerning him, See! Here is an Israelite indeed [a true descendant of Jacob], in whom there is no guile nor deceit nor falsehood nor duplicity! –John 1:47 (AMP)
In the above scripture, Jesus actually found a faithful man! You see when Jesus shows up on the scene, you will find faithful men!
So who is a faithful man? How do I identify one?
To be continued
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a faithful man/virtuous woman.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to become the person you have created me to be and let the faithful man/virtuous woman in me emerge
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. –Psalms 12:7 (KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Commit every issue in your relationship into the hands of God
A Virtuous woman puts the word of God first place, she is hard-working, and she is enterprising. She stirs up her gift. She is a believer, full of hope. She is a dreamer. She is a helper indeed. She is a wife not a knife. She is a supporter. She is an achiever. She is not a compromiser. She stands for the truth, she is full of integrity.
That is the woman to be! That is the woman to be or to go for! She can only be found by the man that God has prepared for her, so she is not desperate. She is patient to see God unveil His plan for her!
Not everybody is qualified to have her. A man that lacks self-control is not her potential candidate. It takes a king to have a queen. A deceptive man is not her candidate. A man that cannot zip up is not her attraction.
She is not tipped or trapped by a guy who is willing to compromise her virtue in order to satisfy his lust. She refuses to be fooled over and over again by a man who is only a sweet talker but a God hater! She will always go for a man that fears God!
If you find yourself falling short as a woman, don’t resign to fate, but rather start over in God. Make up your mind to make your life significant and to do it God’s way. And God will help you!
Here is the clincher, in every lady and woman is that seed of virtue! It doesn’t matter where you are now or where you have been, God sees you with the eyes of what you can be and what He has created you to be and not what you have done and that is why Jesus died for you while you are yet a sinner, so rise up with every fiber of your being and cry aloud: The virtuous woman in me is coming out!
I will do it God’s way! Respond to His love today and watch your life receive a turnaround!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a unique individual with a purpose to pursue and fulfill, I will forge ahead in destiny, the devil cannot hold me down.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father in Jesus’ name, I ask for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in discovering my purpose and the grace to maximize it.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. –Proverbs 29:18 (MSG)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Remove the mental block and limitation that exist only in your mind.
A virtuous woman is chaste. She is not available to everybody. She keeps herself for her husband. She is not generous with her body. Her price is far above rubies, she would not sell her body or give in to sex because of some amount of money.
She protects her body because she knows such things are wrong and that she would also be offending God. She does not fool herself.
She doesn’t party or frolic around. She is conscious of spiritual things. She has self-control. She develops herself before marriage. She is God-conscious.
She might have gone through some abuse, but she refuses to give up and be counted as one of the unfortunate statistics. She is a fighter. She knows that God would not consult her past to determine her future.
She might have had an abusive past, but she is willing to let her past go in order to master her future. She knows that she might have become the offspring of her past because of circumstances, but she can rebel and become the parent of her future.
She knows that the best days are ahead of her, so she pays the price for sexual sanctity by saying No to pre-marital sex. She respects her body, so others have no choice but also to respect her. She is The Proverbs 31 Woman
She knows that her source of strength is the word of God. She does not look for acceptance or love from guys; she seeks it from God because that is where it can only come from. She is truthful and she does not double-date.
She knows that double-dating is a rehearsal for adultery. She carries herself with dignity and will not allow every Tom and Jerry to fondle her body which is the temple of God!
She is a prayer machine! She prays for her fiancée and coming marriage. She knows that prayers and God’s word will solve every riddle, dissolve every enigma and bring solutions to impossible cases. The Proverbs 31 Woman
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a unique individual with a purpose to pursue and fulfill.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father in Jesus’ name, I ask for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in discovering my purpose and the grace to maximize it.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. –Proverbs 29:18 (MSG)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Remove the mental block and limitations that exist only in your mind.
