As sister Sube walked down the road, her mind was stormy and depressed. This is in contrast with the calm and unusual tranquil weather. Without was so peaceful, but within were rumblings of the murky waters of despondency!
Every step she took down the road was punctuated with deep-seated sighs. What is her problem? She feels something is wrong with her because nobody is proposing to her and age is no longer on her side!
On the other hand, Brother Zerubabbel too is so worried that he is almost bending over. What is his problem? Brother Zeru is angry with all the so-called sisters because he has proposed to thirteen sisters in the same church and each of them gave him a nail.
The nails, sorry, the spikes were so painful. It was as if the sisters all had a meeting on him, actually, they did.
The above scenarios are issues that bother on cultivating friendship the right and healthy way.
Never forget that how to get a friend is more important than how to get a lover. Lovers don’t drop from the sky; they are made from friendship as the foundation.
Loving is a process that should start with friendship. Don’t fall in love with someone who is not your friend. It is not advisable to toe the line of ‘love at first sight.’ Why? You can only love who you know! You might have some body chemistry at first sight, but certainly, it is not falling in love like we normally allude.
Love is a spiritual entity that happens not just in the intellectual realm but in the emotional and spiritual realms as well. When you have a one–night stand with a stranger, it is nothing but lust and lack of discipline. You don’t even know the person and yet the moment you are sexually involved, your histories become intertwined, afflictions and demonic influences are exchanged and dangerous habits creep into your life after such reckless sexual encounters.
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I declare that my steps and relationships are ordered.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, help to get the right friends in Jesus name
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Job 19:19 KJV All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY List the names of your friends.
1. God wants you to adore your wife and enjoy each other.
He wants you to love her wholeheartedly, protect her and be a shoulder she can lean on. He wants you to be gentle with her and exercise patience with her. God wants you to be all over your wife because you are one! God wants you to be satisfied with your wife physically and sexually!
In Proverbs, Chapter 5, God advises every husband to seek sexual fulfillment from their wives rather than look elsewhere.
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? – Pro 5:19-20 KJV
The amplified version explains it better:
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant doe [tender, gentle, attractive]–let her bosom satisfy you at all times, and always be transported with delight in her love. Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray? – Pro 5:19-20 AMP
I also love this advice for every man in previous verses:
Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well. Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets? [Confine yourself to your own wife] let your children be for you alone, and not the children of strangers with you. – Pro 5:15-17 AMP
2. God wants you to follow the order
You are to put Him first place in your life, your family second, and thirdly your work/career.
That is supposed to be the rightful order. Don’t allow your work to ruin your marriage by neglecting your wife. If you know you have to be away, then, invest in the little time you are together by creating beautiful memories and deliberately depositing them in her emotional bank so she can have something to withdraw when you are not around!
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY God is my strength. He will guide me in the right path.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Lord, I ask that you open my eyes of understanding in Jesus name
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Eph 5:33 KJV Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Take an inventory of your life in the light of God’s principles
Continued from yesterday. You can read Part 2 HERE
Make sure he knows God. Make sure he loves God. Make sure his priorities are that of the Lord. That way, you will serve God gladly and not be persecuted all the days of your marriage.
You really don’t want to get married to someone who tells you after your wedding that you should try out a threesome! You really don’t want to get married to a man who says he loves it in the anal.
That is out rightly demonic and as a wife, you don’t have to risk your health and life! Seek counsel and don’t die in silence! You really don’t want to get married to a man who brings out ropes and other sadistic objects and says he doesn’t really feel it until he ties you up!
For those who are already married and are caught in this thicket of obeying God and disobeying him or obeying him and disobeying God, thereby kicking against the pricks, I want to offer a piece of advice.
First of all, the scripture says you should submit to your own husband. So we see right away that it is wrong for you to listen to one man, maybe your boss, against your husband.
You are to submit to your own husband, not another woman’s husband. Your boss is another woman’s husband.
So when he is making advances at you, you are to gladly and boldly disobey him. You don’t try to keep a job and then lose your joy!
Then the next thing is that you are to submit as unto the Lord.
What does that mean?
Let’s take a look at other translations.
Wives understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. – Ephesians 5:22 (MSG)
Whatever will not show your support for God should not be done.
You should politely, “submissively” refuse anything that will violate your conscience, that will set you against your maker and that will give access to the hordes of hell to plummet your destiny!
For example, he asks you to follow him to a herbalist. That is a direct affront between the kingdom of light and darkness. You are probably the last hope of that family and the last ounce of strength the children are looking up to, so you refuse! If you “submit” to such, it would not be as unto the Lord, and that might put the whole family in eternal danger.
So, what do you do in such cases?
You seek counsel. You pray in the Spirit. You keep walking in love and refuse to enter into strife.
If you do this, you will eventually have the victory and your husband will respect you more for this because he will realize it later. But if you listen to him, he will blame you when he realizes his mistakes; he will blame you for not stopping him from plunging the whole family into regrettable depths!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will not miss it in marriage
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Oh Lord, lead me to that person you have designed for me
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Wives understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. – Ephesians 5:22 (MSG)
Continued from yesterday. You can read Part 1 HERE
The statement “I am your husband to be, you must obey everything I say whether you like it or not” is a fallacy.
Yes, you should obey because you will eventually have to submit after marriage, but you are to refuse any form of oppression, compromise and violation of God’s word.
I will give you another example.
He desperately is in need of money. He suggests you take money that doesn’t belong to you in your place of work because you head the accounting section. Technically, he is asking you to steal.
If you go ahead to do that in love, it is most likely he would not marry you, because the very seed that would scatter the relationship has been sown.
On another level, you would have offended God in your bid to keep a lover, and come to think of it, it is not your supposed “acts” of love that keeps the relationship, it is God’s favour. The question then is that why would you want to lose God’s favour because you want to keep the guy?
You don’t kick against the lover of your soul to keep the lover of your body!
So, this is clear, it is a wrong man that will insist that you compromise your faith and desecrate the covenant.
Walk away from that man without regrets. Walk away from such a man offering thanksgiving to God that you discovered such traits before walking down the aisle.
It is good for you to leave a wrong man as soon as you can because if the wrong man doesn’t go, the right man will not show up.
Some ladies try to wait for the right man while they hold on to the wrong man in case the right man doesn’t show up. The reality is that the right man is never going to show up like that. God doesn’t want you double dating!
This is why we also say you should know who you are getting married to before you walk down the aisle.
To be continued tomorrow
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will not miss it in marriage.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to trust you.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Sally is caught in a cross-fire. She really wanted to submit to her husband, but then some of the things her boo wanted her to do clearly contradicts the scriptures. What should she do? Cooperate with her boo and risk losing God’s favour or hold unto God while her love life collapses and her homes boils?
Even in courtship, the lady is often caught in between pleasing him and pleasing Him!
Let’s take a look at the scriptures.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. – Ephesians 5:22 (KJV)
So we see clearly and succinctly here that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. It never says that a lady should submit to her own fiancé!
So, when he says you must come over and spend weekends, you don’t have to obey and end up jeopardizing your relationship with God in your bid to “submit’
I am saying in essence that in a dating or courtship situation, you are to absolutely follow God and not man!
If whatever your fiancé wants done is as unto the Lord, there wouldn’t be any problem there. You should gladly submit, even if you are not married yet.
But when it clearly violates your conscience, makes you feel guilty, makes you cry and dissipates God’s anointing in your life, you are to leave that guy alone before he wrecks your destiny.
Now, let’s see some examples here.
He asks you to send your nude pictures or else he would end the relationship. Something is not quite right.
There is some level of perversion that is being shown there. There is some traits of a compromised heart coming up there.
In this case, let your “No’ be emphatic and clear. If he walks away because of that, let him walk, he is not your husband.
If you do it and listen to him, this is not submission in any way, it is more of foolishness. If he is asking for nude before marriage, what will he ask for if he ever gets to marry you?
If you go ahead and do it in a bid to keep him, it shows your own depth of devotion to God. it shows that somewhere in your heart, you don’t really trust God.
If you do, you will never do anything that displeases God in other to please your boo. If you do such things, you just sowed a seed into that relationship and opened the door for the devil to afflict.
To be continued tomorrow…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will not miss it in marriage.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to trust you.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
