Today wewill be looking at the topic “Ten ways to show respect to yourselves in marriage”
Against contrary opinions, respect in marriage is mutual. People are of the opinion that respect for the husbands is a big deal. Yes, it is. Just as men do not want to be disrespected in private or public, so also women need a dose of respect.
Men can readily tell what a bruised ego is and in this part of the world. an average man will not tolerate to be disrespected in any form, method, shape or size. In other to have a relationship that is healthy and mutually beneficial, respect has to be mutual.
Some of us don’t even know when we are being disrespected. The gospel of men dominance has been preached for so long that women feel they are not worth much. that they are just worthless, less than good, helpless, weaker vessels.
Contrary wise, women have tremendous strength, ability, knowledge, wisdom and great dexterity. It takes great strength to be a mother and give birth to a child, to keep a home, multitask, submit to your husband and stay married. All these take great strength.
But if we are going to have a healthy marriage relationship we would know that submission to one another in the fear of God is essential. A man not submitted to Christ is a difficult man and hard to submit to.
This is not teaching or telling wives not to submit to their husbands. It is addressing that fact that marriage is meant to be mutually beneficial to both the husband and the wife.
Tomorrow, I will show us practical ways we can submit to one another in marriage.
God bless our marriages.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am submitted to my spouse.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, teach me how to submit to my own spouse.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Ephesians 5:21(KJV) Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
I will be concludingon this topic “When God is your husband” this morning.
It really takes a lot God being our husbands. When God, the Lord of host becomes our husbands and we truely have a revelation of what it means, it will affect every area of our lives.
God is the most important being on earth and in heaven. When He becomes our God, we have access to everything. Our needs are met emotionally, spiritually and physically. We are not in lack of anything.
When we put our trust in God as our husband and don’t put all our trust and hope in our husband to meet all our needs, we please God.
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Jeremiah 17:7 – 8 KJV
The Bible promises us that when we catch the revelation of God as our husband, He sees to it that we are like trees planted by the river, and our leaves will never fade or wither.
For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. Isaiah 54:5 – 6 KJV
When God is your husband, despite what your husband does or doesn’t do, God promises;
1. Never to leave you nor forsake you.
Heb 13:5b for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
We have God’s assuring presence 24/7. In thick and in thin. He is not like men whose promises are shakky.
2. Whatever you ask will be done.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. John 15:7 KJV
God promises us that He as the Lord of host and the God of the whole earth, that nothing shall be impossible for him to do for us if we ask Him.
3. No condemnation
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8:1 KJV
As our husband, God will never condemn us even when we make mistakes or fall into temptation or fall short of His grace.
Whereas our earthly husband will abuse us, criticise us, judge us or speak harshly to us, He will not judge us. He will receive us in love.
4. My peace I give to you.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33 KJV
Being married to God, we have assurance of peace. In whatever troubles of life, whatever situation or circumstance, we have access to peace. Whatever trouble our husband may give us, God says we should not worry because He has overcome the world, we should be of good cheer.
5. God will not lie to us.
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2 KJV
God will always tell us the truth. He’s not the type of husband that lies. He is sincerely sincere. He has 100℅ integrity. He never deceives us but speaks the truth to us. And thankfully, His truth are gracious. He tells the truth of who He has made us.
It is good we meditate on all these about God being our husband. It will take the pressure off our husbands. It will remove stress and unnecessary hurt from our lives.
The devil wants to use some husbands to break their wives all in the attempt of them not to be able to fulfill their roles of their helper.
When God takes His responsibility as our husband, He fills us with joy unspeakable full of glory whatever the case maybe. He makes us joyful wives because our supply of strength comes from Him.
I hope you were blessed.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR TODAY My God is my husband
PRAYER FOR TODAY Pray that you will experience the love of God
THOUGHT FOR TODAY Isa 54:5 (TLB) for your Creator will be your “husband.” The Lord Almighty is his name; he is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.
ACTION PLAN FOR TODAY Study the bible reading for the day
Women geteasily hurt. And the husbands may not even be aware that they are hurt because their needs are miles apart.
Those are the times a husband asks his wife, “what is wrong?” She simply answers “Nothing!”She says nothing because she doesn’t feel good explaining that something so little gets her upset. Or she knows if she tries to explain, the husband might end up making her look like an idiot. So she keeps quiet.
What are examples of those little things that could upset your wife?
Here we go.
1. Don’t do things that make her uncomfortable sexually. Don’t embarrass her and don’t compare her with some past escapades.
2. Don’t ignore her when it comes to making important of financial decisions. Don’t leave her in the dark, keeping her guessing all the time.
3. Don’t compare her with others especially when it has to do with her appearance, weight or hairdo. Don’t go out of your way to appreciate and dote on other women while you completely ignore her.
4. Don’t do things that you have disallowed her from doing, making her feel like a little child who cannot think for herself.
5. Don’t ignore her when she is emotionally down or physically tired. Don’t say things like, “I am tired of you. When you get out of your nasty moods, let me know!”
6. Don’t hug and embrace other ladies endlessly while you don’t even hold her hands in public. Go out of your way and offer some PDA! Public Display of Affection!
7. Don’t leave her alone to do all the house chores while still expecting her to be an amazon in bed later in the night. That would be insensitive.
8. Don’t make her do all the pornographic antics and gymnastics you could have watched in the past, and then making her feel she is frigid if she couldn’t do such. Rather appreciate her for not having a dirty mind and understand that most things you watched were acted by professional prostitutes and men of depraved mind!
9. Don’t watch football all day and all night while refusing to let her watch her favorite programs. Don’t make her look like an idiot for her preference of programs. Join her to watch sometimes, and encourage her to join you as well.
10. Don’t forget or deliberately ignore her special days like birthdays and other anniversaries. That will hurt her. Rather go out of your way to set notifications so that you can surprise her on those special days.
May God grant more understanding
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am good spouse
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, bless our marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Pro 5:18 (KJV) Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Yesterday we looked at how important to it is for wives everywhere to praise their husbands.
We looked at how a little girl danced in honor of King Herod and praised him till he was willing to part with half of his kingdom. When women, praise amazing things happen.
Today, we will be looking at ‘Husbands appreciate your wives’.
To appreciate means to recognize the good qualities of something or someone. Dear husband, your wife is your helper created for you and for your good.
The fuel that keeps wives going and functioning in their calling as helpers is appreciating their efforts and labour of love. Any husband that doesn’t appreciate his wife is stifling the potentials of his wife.
Appreciation comes with a sense of thoughtfulness that allows for gratitude. You become grateful for the little gestures and the big things your wife does.
Every wife is moved to do more or motivated by words. For example, if your wife cooks a meal and you appreciate her, she will remember the appreciation and will want to do better the next time she is cooking. If she is not appreciated, however, the creativity to do more or do better is not there.
If the love language of your wife is words of affirmation, you have to give her big doses of appreciation. Appreciate your wife for her looks, appreciate her for her dress sense, appreciate her being a home keeper, appreciate her for her intuition, appreciate her for her sacrifices, appreciate her for her kindness, for taking care of the children, for believing you, for encouraging you, for being there, for doing the dishes, and the list goes on and on.
One thing about appreciation like praise is that the more you give it, the more you see reasons to give more appreciation. In the same way, the less you show appreciation, the less you will find reasons to show appreciation.
May God grant us the grace to show more appreciation to our wives.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will show appreciation to my wife
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Father, teach me how to appreciate my wife better.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life (Proverbs 31:11-12 KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Appreciate your wife today.
Husbands are to appreciatetheir wives, while the wives are to praise their husbands. That’s the magic.
I will dedicate the aspect of ‘wives praising their husbands’ to all husbands and fathers. To mark our father’s day celebration. The day is for fathers’ so let’s focus on how to make them happy and feel good because that’s the essence of marriage.
I believe this is in order. Then the aspect of ‘husbands appreciating their wives’ will come up tomorrow.
The two words appreciate and praise have same elements but are slightly different. We just concluded celebrating our fathers and by extension our husbands. It feels good to know that at least a day is set aside to shower encomium on our fathers and husbands.
Every wife should know how to praise her husband. If you wait till your husband is perfect, you will wait a long time. Besides, who says you have the right standard to judge him? You may have a thousand things against him, look for and focus on the good things he has done.
How he has been faithful? How he has been a good father to your children? He didn’t neglect you when you were pregnant, he didn’t abuse you, he provided for you, he prayed and fast for you.
The truth is that your husband has done so much for you, that you are not even aware of. It will take eternity to discover some of the things our husbands have done for us. Just like it will be in eternity to unravel the so many things our heavenly father has done for us.
Sometimes we have misjudged their motives, yet God is the judge of all and He looks into the heart.
God our heavenly father loves praises and men are created in the image of God, so there is a part of every man that craves praises.
If every wife will look beyond the pains and hurts and just praise your husbands for what they do, I believe that praise will work wonders.
But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced in the midst [before the company] and pleased and fascinated Herod, And so he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Matthew 14:6 – 7 AMPC
That is what praise can do. We can learn this principle from this young girl, who despite who King Herod was or whatever he had done, danced with all her heart, honored him till he felt so wonderful.
She could access what the king had by simply honoring him. She brought herself to a place of prominent to forgetting herself and praising the king first. She was rewarded for it.
Let us all as wives focus on praising our husbands. Let us be selfless. Let us not be too mindful of ourselves.
We can’t dance unless we learn to forget whatever issues, grievances we had towards our husbands. For us to dance in a way that pleases and catch the attention of our husbands, our hearts must be free of offences.
Have a light heart. So you can dance well. All you want is for your king to open his mouth and give you half of his kingdom, his heart, his life, his commitment, his loyalty, his attention.
The principle is do his own first.
May God grant us the heart of humility to rid our hearts of everything that will not make our hearts light, so that we can dance for him.
God bless our marriage
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will honour my husband and king
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Father, teach me how to honor my husband.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life (Proverbs 31:11-12 KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Praise your husband today.
