Forgiveness is one special gift we have graciously received from God. God instructs us to forgive ourselves and also extend forgiveness to others who offend us. Let’s see the dictionary meaning of forgiveness. I believe understanding what forgiveness is will help us in forgiving others. Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance towards a person who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.
This morning, we will look at 10 benefits of forgiveness in marriage.
Emotional Healing: Forgiveness and not holding onto past hurts and resentment heal emotions, promoting a healthy mindset and helping us move forward in marriage.
Promotes Healthy Communication: Couples are better able to communicate freely and openly, leading them to be more vulnerable with each other. Resentment blocks communication channels.
Improves Intimacy: Forgiveness breeds more intimacy, while unforgiveness breeds resentment, strife, grudges, and bitterness, all of which are intimacy blockers.
Better Understanding: There is better understanding when couples forgive, knowing that they are not perfect and are subject to making mistakes and hurting their spouse.
Resilience: Forgiveness strengthens the bond between couples. When forgiveness is genuine, their commitment to each other deepens, and they are able to face any challenges in the future.
Better Atmosphere: Forgiveness creates a loving atmosphere where unity and joy are present, and there’s no animosity and strife.
Marital Fulfillment: Forgiveness gives a sense of fulfillment in marriage where you feel loved and not judged.
Reduces Stress and Tension: Forgiveness will reduce the tension and stress caused by unforgiveness. Couples will enjoy a happier, freer, and more loving marriage.
Children are known to be better, healthier, smarter, and more emotionally stable when parents don’t have resentment towards each other.
Increases Empathy: Forgiveness helps couples to see things better from each other’s perspective and understand one another better, embracing their differences.
Overall, forgiveness helps couples live better, achieve more results as couples, and enables the Holy Spirit to work better in their midst.
Let’s see what the Bible says about forgiveness:
Colossians 3:13 “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32 “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
God will strengthen us to walk in forgiveness in Jesus’ mighty name.
This is an interesting topic, and I want everyone to go along with me. This is the topic of Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, and it is still very relevant today.
Basically, we will be looking at two aspects of this topic: 1. How to behave like a woman 2. We will be delving into a little bit of how men think. Women need to understand how men think in order to live successfully with them and be able to get the best of men.
First, let us deal with how a lady or a woman should act.
Let’s look at how God fashioned or created the woman.
Genesis 2:21-23 NIV [21] So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. [22] Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. [23] The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
Before the woman was created, she was needed to meet the particular needs of the man. She was created from the finest bone and smoothest bone of the man. She was made out of the man’s rib. The Bible says God put the man to sleep. There is a mystery about women that only God understands.
No wonder when the man woke up he could only explain, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘Woman’.” I believe there is something about every woman that should make men go, “Wow.” The shape, style, posture, hips, face, smiles, hair, nose, nails, breast, and everything about the woman.
A woman is meant to be beautiful inside and outside. Somebody rightly said, “Women are created for hugs and kisses, to be pampered and cherished, not for punches.”
It is good when we view our marriage and relationship like a garden. When you hear “garden,” what comes to your mind? A beautiful picture of a well-tended piece of land, beautiful and colorful flowers, with fragrance and no weeds. Apart from the fact that when you see a garden, you know that someone or some people have been responsible, consistently working. There are three elements I want us to look at in considering the marriage and relationship as a garden.
Pulling out weeds
Planting Seeds
Killing the snakes
Let me explain in detail what I mean.
1. Pulling weeds
Every garden has a tendency for weeds to grow in them if left untended. Weeds are bad habits, human bad habits such as poor communication, lack of commitment, threatening with divorce or breaking up, lack of respect, use of negative words like ‘never’, ‘always’, not actively listening to our spouse or partner, lack of understanding each other and the list goes on.
Whatever will cause our relationship and marriage not to blossom and thrive are weeds. They need to be pulled out. This takes consistent, conscious, and deliberate efforts on our part to pull the weeds out. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side but someone is tilling the ground and wetting the grass.
2. Plant the Seeds
Seeds are what I call the good habits. Those things we want to see in our relationship and marriage. It is not just good enough to pull out the weeds; we should be proactive and intentional about planting good seeds. Seeds of what we do to our partner in a relationship and spouse in marriage.
We should not just do bad stuff to our partner and spouse but we should do good stuff to our partner. Being kind, being tender and gentle, showing each other respect, being thoughtful, loving our partner, forgiveness, not counting scores, treating each other with thoughtfulness, taking time to understand your spouse or partner. We can always add to this list.
3. Kill the snakes
Sometimes we do all the right things in a relationship and in marriage but things still go wrong. The relationship still breaks and the marriage still ends up in divorce. The snakes are ‘spiritual problems or issues’. There are not just weeds and seeds but there are also snakes. These are the dangerous intruders from the enemy of our relationship and marriage. They seek to steal, kill, and destroy.
We don’t pull out the snakes; we kill them. Some of us are not aware of the existence of snakes in our relationship and marriage. We need to be aware of them and arm ourselves with the right weapons of God’s word, prayer, and an understanding of our authority in Christ Jesus and the finished work of the cross.
Nothing grows romantic love like being quick to forgive. When we see that we are drifting away from our sweet spot, forgiveness does the magic. Notwithstanding who is at fault. Just taking the initiative to say ‘I’m sorry’ first does the trick. It is maturity. Say sorry first, and you win.
Whenever you swallow your pride for the sake of growing your romantic love, you win.
As singles, forgiveness is a constant in a relationship. Practice and learn forgiving the one you love. Don’t count scores. Your flesh will want to pay back evil for evil, tit for tat. Learn to be more like Christ. Let your romantic love grow to be more patient and kind, gentle, not boastful, not envious.
In marriage, the Lord warns us never to allow strife.
I think it is in marriage that most offense happens. Your spouse will step on your toes and still justify their actions.
Opposites truly attract, but with time, they begin to repel. Don’t let animosity fester. Apologize when your spouse is angry at you. Little things may anger your spouse; don’t rationalize, don’t be logical about how or why he/she should be angry, just apologize.
An apology is not about who is wrong but about having feelings for the one who is pained.
5. Appreciation
These two words, ‘thank you,’ grow your romantic love towards each other. It shows your sensitivity to the needs of your partner to be appreciated.
As singles, never take your partner for granted. This understanding is very necessary if you want your romantic love to grow in a healthy way and not be stunted.
Remember that it is a privilege for your partner to be nice, kind, good, forgiving, hardworking, thoughtful, neat, punctual, and the list of good virtues and qualities goes on and on.
Appreciate whatever good you see and recognize in your partner. When it comes to looking at their good qualities, look at it with a magnifying lens. Don’t let their good deeds be little in your eyes.
Remember, whatever you appreciate, appreciates. Whatever you don’t appreciate, depreciates.
As couples, make appreciation a big deal. Celebrate your spouse for the simplest things. Never take them for granted.
It is very true that opposites attract, so it’s not out of place to have one partner more romantic than the other.
Even though romance is a feeling, it can be properly expressed in a decent way, especially in relationships, noting that there is a way to treat your unmarried partner. Like my Pastor said, you are a male by birth but become a gentleman by choice and by learning. So, you also become a lady by choice. There is a proper way to treat each other when you are in love and an improper way to treat each other when in a relationship.
Someone might say, we don’t have to be romantic in a relationship; we have to be all spiritual, so we don’t end up in fornication.
Yes, a lot of caution has to be put in place in order to honor God in your relationship. However, romantic love should not be totally thrown out the window.
Let’s see what romantic love is.
Romance or romantic love can be defined as a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards, another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
As singles, we teach to be courteous and put the brakes on romantic love so it doesn’t get out of hand. Like the Bible says in the Song of Songs:
Song of Songs 8:4 NIV [4] Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
There should be a proper blend between being spiritual and being romantic. Being romantic has nothing to do with being sexual. As a single guy, you can treat your partner with so much respect, honor, and courtesy, and that’s being romantic.
Married couples, you have all the license to express love in the most romantic ways without applying the brakes because you are married. Now is not the time to take your spouse for granted because he/she is now yours. Still maintain that strong feeling of love and attractiveness to one another.
5 Ways to Grow Your Romantic Love
Understand their love language and speak it.
Singles, try and discover your partner’s love language and speak it. Couples, continue to express and speak your spouse’s love language in every way you can. Build on what you discovered about them when you were in courtship.
2. No love without giving
Some singles say, giving is not my thing, or we are not married yet, how can I give her/him gifts? It is abnormal to be in a relationship for a year and not to have given each other anything. It is not only ladies that should receive gifts; guys too should be given gifts. You show you care about someone when you give gifts to them.
In marriage, the gifts should continue and never cease. This is not about whether he/she really likes gifts. Everybody likes gifts. You express your love in gifts, not just in thoughts but in actions. The gifts don’t have to be expensive or elaborate, even though there’s nothing wrong with, once in a while, maybe on special occasions like a birthday or wedding anniversary, getting your spouse an expensive gift. It is the gesture and thoughtfulness in gifts that makes them a good way to express romantic love.
I will stop here and continue tomorrow. Stay blessed.
