It is often said that a friend in need is a friend indeed. The value of friendship is known in hard and tough times. Nothing is as soothing as when a friend speaks to you in your down moments. When his or her words are like cold water to a thirsty soul.
If the effect of a friend could be that felt, how much more is the effect of a spouse? Of course, our spouse is supposed to be our best friend; who we are vulnerable with, with who we can share the joy and the privilege of being naked and not ashamed.
I think every spouse should ask themselves this question: “Am I a friend to my spouse?” Can your spouse confidently say, he/she can find a friend in you? Does your spouse find you easy to talk to?
Every spouse should ask these soul-searching questions and try to find answers to these questions.
It’s easy to point accusing fingers at your spouse, but are you also fulfilling your end? Quit playing the blame game and face reality, walk and work together to make a formidable team.
Can two walk together, except they be agreed? -Amos 3:3 (KJV)
Come in agreement with each other. Forgive every hurt and pain. Marriage is where we hurt deeply.
Some spouses are so hurt they vow never to forgive. If you have any knotty situations, talk things over with your mentors. Sometimes, the issues in marriage require the authority of someone higher than you, just a word, a prayer or a prophetic utterance can solve the issue.
Some people have destroyed their marriage because of staying on their viewpoint of being right. In marriage, it is not always about who is right or wrong, but our willingness to allow God’s purpose to be done.
Jesus our model didn’t insist on being right. He willingly suffered for us, the righteous for the unrighteous. He loved us while we were yet sinners and died for us so we can be made sons of God.
The mandate on our marriage must be fulfilled. Let’s get over with all forms of bitterness, malice, and unforgiveness, these are toxic to our being best of friends with our spouses.
A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. –Proverbs 18:24 (KJV)
This scripture is very profound. You must show yourself friendly to have your spouse as your friend.
The issue is some of us don’t even know to be friends; we must aim at being friends with our spouses. I believe the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth and revelation will help us if we ask Him to.
Here are some ways to be friends with your spouse:
1. Maintaining the right attitude and positive disposition is important.
2. Kind words and loving words; every human being responds to love.
3. Believing the best of each other.
4. Being fun to be with.
5. Not pointing attention to the weak areas of your spouse.
6. Encouraging our spouse.
7. Avoiding criticism, accusation, and blaming.
8. Being very understanding.
These are a few tips for being there for your spouse.
God help us indeed.
May God bless our marriages.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am my spouse’s best friend, I am loving and kind towards him/her
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to keep my marriage covenant
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. –Proverbs 18:24 (KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Study the word ‘one flesh’
It is in marriage that all our bad attitudes show up. They show up bad that they give an offensive odour literarily, and guess what, your spouse won’t be able to stand it for too long.
Most of the things we can get by with as a single, we won’t be able to get by with them as married couples.
Remember, your mum used to tell you, you were lazy, and it didn’t matter as long as you were single.
Your friends told you, you were a snob. Your dad told you, you were too temperamental. Your boss told you, you were rude. Your roommate told you, you were too greedy.
All the weaknesses that show up and we get people to correct us about them, is God trying to correct our wrong attitudes.
These same wrong attitudes are what we carry into our marriages. These attitudes cause a lot of trouble. We expect our wives to cope with our negative attitudes, all in the name of being submissive and respectful. The wives should be submissive, but please don’t let us over-stretch ourselves.
Also, the wives complain about the husbands not loving them, but let’s say the truth. Is it easy to love a wife with negative attitudes? Let us make it easier for our spouses to submit to us and love us, as the case may be, and begin to correct any negative attitudes you notice in your life.
God corrects us because He does not want to leave us the same way we are. We have to yield to His corrections if we must live a better life.
For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. –Proverbs 3:12 (KJV)
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? –Hebrews 12:5 -9 (KJV)
The Lord urges us to change our negative attitudes. Here are some bad attitudes that will not make our marriages work;
1. Lazy attitude
2. Unforgiving attitudes
3. Insincere attitudes
4. Selfish attitudes
5. Mean attitudes
6. Unpleasant attitudes
Work on these negative attitudes and the Lord will bless your marriage.
CONFESSION OF THE DAY I work on my negative attitudes
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father, help me, I receive grace to work on my negative attitudes
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY I will work on my negative attitude
THOUGHT OF THE DAY For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. –Proverbs 3:12 (KJV)
All married couples should be aware of what marriage is before they venture into getting married.
Marriage is not the next step to be taken after you are twenty-four, you have finished your Youth service, you have a good-paying job, you have a good apartment, you are good looking and to crown it all, you have a car.
Marriage is not just to fulfill a social or religious obligation nor is it just to fulfill the procreation commandment in scripture. Marriage is more than all these.
It is high time we begin to view marriage with the eyes of God who created marriage. There is a truth in the heart of God about marriage. Marriage is first of all Spiritual before it is physical, natural, and then societal.
Marriage is a mystery that cannot be explained mentally. It is a representation of the Trinity here on earth. That is, how the Godhead is in heaven, marriage is that on earth.
It is really a mystery that can only be lived according to God’s instructions. It is almost impossible to adequately live a successful marital life without following God.
Two different individuals, born and brought up by two different parents, in two different locations with different experiences, different opinions and outlooks to life, different temperaments and just living their lives with differences so parallel to each other. It is a mystery to have these two people joined together to become one flesh. It is almost impossible.
It takes a revelation and a spiritual understanding of what the marriage relationship is all about. Both parties must be meek and humble enough to learn and ask from God how to go about living this mystery.
Without these revelations and understanding, the marriage relationship will be a mirage. This revelation is progressive in nature. The husband and the wife need to be everyday students in the institution of marriage.
Until a class or lesson is passed, there is no promotion to the next class. It is this promotion that marks our progress in life. Once we devote ourselves to being committed to learning from the mysterious institute of marriage, then we begin to enjoy the benefits.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. – Mat 6:33 (KJV)
As we seek God’s kingdom to be established here on earth in our marriages, only then can we begin to see every other thing added to us. We have to aim at doing it in God’s way because that is the only way.
I pray God will enlighten our understanding of the mystery of marriage.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I understand the mystery of marriage
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to understand the mystery of marriage.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Mat 6:33 (KJV)But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Study the word ‘one flesh’
Some people think they are the most important person in their relationship. They feel if everything can just favour them and be exactly the way they want things to be, everything will be alright.
Generally, human nature is that of selfishness and the different temperaments clearly show this.
All the temperamental weaknesses are based on physical or emotional selfishness. It’s either you want to have it your own way, you hurt others without care or you’re just overly sensitive.
You hurt easily and don’t seem to be able to control your extent and duration of hurt. Interestingly, opposite will always attract, and so we usually find the one that hurts getting attracted to the one who easily gets hurt, akin to the predator and the prey, needing the other for survival.
Some others feel their fiancé/fiancée is the most important person in the relationship. They try their best to give their partner all they need almost to the point of pampering them. Their partners become their focus and obsession.
This will work for a while but soon you will discover that no man can fully satisfy the needs of another man, there is a downside to everything. Man in himself is not wired to sustain himself, not to talk of another.
Both parties require a common focus. They both require a common source of strength, encouragement, joy, power, grace, inspiration, direction, and fulfillment. It is only God that is qualified to take this place. He is the most important person in our relationships.
As we seek to please Him, serve him, worship and obey Him, we become better and bring out the best in our partners. Our relationship with God gives us the required wisdom to be a loving person in a relationship. His principles and person impact us with the grace needed for success.
Don’t put the cart before the horse. In the natural anyone who does that is considered ‘sick upstairs’. It looks like the highest form of foolishness, yet we want to do that in our relationships and expect things to work.
If you’re in a relationship now, the best thing you can do for yourselves is to begin developing your relationship with God. Make Him your focus. Courtship time is not the time for all play and fun. It’s the time to build a solid foundation of a qualitative relationship with God.
If you are not born again, get born again and consecrate yourself afresh to a lifestyle of fellowship and worship. This is wisdom and it’s your ticket to a blissful marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I acknowledge you Lord as the Lord over my life. You are my focus and my obsession. My relationship will work.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father, in Jesus name I ask for a heart that loves and worships you.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? –1Corinthains 3:3 (MSG)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Make a commitment to spend time daily in prayers, worship and reading God’s word. Also start attending a good bible believing church.
The original intention of God for our homes and marriages is that we are blessed by the Lord. God wants us to be abundantly blessed with the treasures of heaven and earth.
We are supposed to be blessed in the city, blessed in our going out, and coming in, blessed in the field, blessed in the fruits of our baby, blessed in the works of our hands, and blessed all around. The blessing is supposed to follow us and overtake us.
The blessing is supposed to be a gift to us as we stay in God’s purpose as His children who obey Him. These blessings don’t however come automatically. The devil will try and contend with the blessing God has already released to us.
He will want to negotiate us out of the blessing. All the devil is after is the blessing. He knows that he who has the blessing is blessed, and there is nothing he can do about it.
The contention over the blessing is real and that is where our intercession comes in.
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; -Luke 18:1 (KJV)
Our intercession should be always at all times. We are pushing back the hands of the enemy and dislodging his arsenal, his works of wickedness to distract us from doing God’s will. We have to keep the door shut against the devil who is always tempting us with sins.
We need to keep the door shut on our flesh. The flesh ultimately is enmity against God and all that is God in our lives.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. –Roman 8:7 (KJV)
Husbands and wives are solely responsible to take up their cross daily and follow Jesus and take the opportunity of the help of the Holy Spirit in the place of prayers.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. -Romans 8:26 (KJV)
As we begin to engage in the place of prayer we enforce our victory and the blessing that belongs to us rightly becomes our experience.
We don’t have to live below the blessing. It becomes an aberration if we as children of God are anything but blessed. We are the carriers of the blessing, the covenant people, God’s own blood purchase children.
I pray as we take what’s rightfully ours in the place of prayer God will grant us victory and we will experience the blessing in our homes and marriages in Jesus name.
God bless our marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am blessed, I cannot be cursed. I step into my calling as an intercessor
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Father, in Jesus name I ask for the grace to be fervent in prayer.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. -Romans 8:26 (KJV)
