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.
There’s a way to be expectant as children. Do we all remember the story of the blind man in the Bible?
And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. – Mark 10:47-48
What if the blind man had not asked what the surrounding ruckus was about? What if he had just continued begging and minded his business?
Something in him must have stirred him up to ask what was happening. He probably had been nursing a desire to have his sight, and when he heard that Jesus was around, it aroused his expectation.
Quickly, he opened his mouth and screamed the most he had ever done in his life. He knew it was now or never.
He had to have heard of the acts of Jesus to have done what he did. Even when they tried to shut him up, he screamed the more. This was the day he had been waiting for, and nothing or no one would stop him from getting what he wanted.
This was the same Jesus that had been healing people, and someone wanted him to shut up. He gave it his all and never regretted doing so.
Are you expecting to have what you are praying for? Are you listening to the voices telling you your prayers won’t be answered? Allowing people or circumstances to shut you up?
Be like that man and scream the more. Jesus is ready to command you be brought before him. And when you get in front of Jesus, know what you want.
You will never regret calling on Jesus.
Prayer: Lord, give me an expectant heart. Teach me to expect answers to my prayers. Amen.
Action point: Visualize your prayers as answered. See yourself in the light of prayers answered.
Declaration: I am expectant. My miracle will not pass me by.
God has made it very easy for you. Focus only becomes effective when your attention and energy are on ONE thing! So what is that one thing? The moment there are two things, it is no longer focus. What is that one thing?
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. – Heb 12:2-3 KJV
So easy! Looking unto Jesus! That is as simple as you can see it. How do you look at Jesus? By looking at His word! Regularly! Continuously!
Why look at Jesus?
Because he is the author and finisher of your faith and your life! Your life is like a book and Jesus authored it! The book is not about to be written, it has been written and published. You are only acting out the script!
It becomes logical then to make sure you act well. You have to look at the author who is also the director of your life’s flick. Each chapter of the book is a portion and a season of your life. You have to keep on looking at Jesus and His word because the devil is always attempting to offer you what is never part of the script.
The moment you stop looking, focus is broken and there will be serious troubles, agony, and regrets.
How do I know that what God authored in the book are good things about me?
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. – Jer 29:11 KJV
Waoh! They are good stuff! I need to simply focus on Him!
Take a look at the message translation:
I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out–plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. – Jer 29:11 MSG
Glory to God! Make up your mind to focus on Him this year and see the result. There is joy set before you! God wants to take care of you! Seriously! Others may not know what is going on with your life, but God says emphatically, ‘I know what I am doing!’ He is the author!
When you focus on Him and His Word, you will come to discover a lot. There is a chapter He has authored about your relationship and courtship. There is a chapter He has authored about your marriage. As you focus on Him, you will effortlessly glide into His will and plan for your life! That is the benefit of focus!
There are some things you are going through that are never part of His original script because you have refused to focus on Him and probably compromised as a result.
However, despite every broken focus experience, if you make up your mind today to focus on Him, God can fast-forward, rewind, pause, stop, erase, cancel, add, rewrite, restore, and do anything for you! How will He do that? He is the author…not just that….but also the finisher! Glory to God!
He is the one that will finish the story! The devil does not have the final say! God does! Turn around today and decide to focus!
For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. – Isa 50:7 KJV
Make up your mind. Set your face like a flint never to compromise again. God will help you and He will save you from imminent shame! Be blessed!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am focused. I will not be distracted.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Pray that God will give you focus and cause your face to be set like a flint
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Isa 50:7 AMP For the Lord God helps Me; therefore have I not been ashamed or confounded. Therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Consciously disengage yourself from every distraction
Now that you have been forgiven your sin, there is one thing you should also strive for. As I earlier said, forgiveness is God’s act of Mercy, and this occurred during the death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary.
who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. – 1 Peter 2:10 [NKJV]
Since we have been shown mercy by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is expected that we show others mercy as well.
Why is this important?
Let’s look at the words of Jesus Christ himself while he was on earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. – Matt 5:7 [NKJV]
You have not been forgiven so that you can brag about it. You have been forgiven so that you can forgive others as well. You have received mercy so that you can show others mercy as well.
Regardless of what that person has done, god expects that we walk in love and forgive him/her.
Look at how the message bible puts it as I conclude this morning;
“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘carefull,’ you find yourselves cared for. – Matt 5:7 [MSG]
Conclusively, the more forgiveness you show, the more forgiveness you receive.
May God help us to act as we have learnt in Jesus name, Amen.
PRAYER: Father in Jesus name, I just want to thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me a new life.
ACTION PLAN: Decide to live a life free of sin
DECLARATION: I am a child of God, he has forgiven me my sins when Jesus died on the cross and so I live a life free of sin. Amen
Dear child, yesterday we began talking about how God forgave you. The gift of forgiveness of sins is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. It’s a gift because it’s not what we deserve, the bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, -Romans 3:23 (NIV)
So you see, we all had fallen short, but God gifted us forgiveness of sin out of His mercy and redeemed us from a life of death.
Today I want to tell you about the significance of God’s forgiveness, and why it’s so important.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, – Colossians 2:13 (NIV)
God has made you and I alive instead of being dead in sin
You are now in the kingdom of light, never to return to darkness
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: -Colossians 1:13 (KJV)
You can now be called a child of God
You are assured of God’s love for you
You no longer have to walk in fear.
How amazing is this, God has been gracious to us all.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16 (NIV)
PRAYER: Father in Jesus name, I just want to thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me a new life. Amen.
ACTION PLAN: Decide to live a life free of sin
DECLARATION: I am a child of God, he has forgiven me my sins when Jesus died on the cross and so I live a life free of sin. Amen
