Life as a married couple is extremely demanding and requires a lot of wisdom.
There are many areas you should focus on as couples. This morning, I will be identifying just a few of these areas as we all make up our minds to work on our marriages. Singles should learn from this too as a preparation for their wedding.
Pay attention to these details, and your marriage will flourish.
Focus On These Areas In Marriage
1. You should never make your partner feel threatened.
Marriage is a collaboration, not a boss-bondmaid relationship. Nobody is better or worse than anyone else.
Learn to value one another as human beings first. The husband is the head of the household, but it does not make him superior.
The wife is to submit but that does not mean she should be muted and silenced in the home.
Husbands must come into that place of maturity to give wings to their wives to fly while wives must learn to be a help meet indeed by fully submitting to their wives and respecting them.
Focus On These Areas In Marriage
2. Never allow for adultery or infidelity.
It is never worth it, no matter how much you are tempted. Adultery will always be regarded as a dumb sin.
Extramarital affairs are frequently extremely expensive. Nothing compares to the cost of shattered trust.
Stay together and eliminate every emotional interference.
3. Never deny each other.
Don’t deprive your spouse of the enjoyment God intended for sex in marriage. Try various styles. Proper hygiene is also essential.
On the other hand, singles are to keep their bodies under and not indulge in sexual compromise.
The biblical instruction remains the same, sex should be kept till after the wedding! God is not about to change that injunction!
Focus On These Areas In Marriage
4. Maintaining secrets in a marriage is a dead end.
It is likely that you withhold certain sensitive subjects from your spouse for a better time. But no secrets, please. Be open and be transparent with one another. Whatever is covered never heals, and moreover, if your partner had to discover themselves, the trust would have been broken.
If this has happened once, forgive and move on but learn from it!
The Crazy Thing About “I Do” The day you walked down that aisle and said “Ido,” something happened. It’s almost crazy! Your body is no longer your own, it belongs to your spouse.
A fusion takes place in the realm of the spirit, which is so strong that God proclaimed, “let no man put asunder!”
God becomes the witness of this union, and any attempt to drive a wedge in between this union is coming against God Himself.
As couples who are believers, and well-grounded, the weapon of the devil against you is strategic.
If you are a weak believer with no firm resolve, he can easily bring adultery and infidelity to the table and you will be swept off your feet if you are far from God.
But with those who may be grounded, the devil still has strategies. His weapon is to keep you divided, torment you in your thoughts, and keep you perpetually in strife.
You are not in adultery, but in your mind, you are probably worse off.
This will affect the whole family because your thoughts are magnetic and will determine many things around you.
How will you pray and agree together when the mind of one of the spouses is riddled with doubt, contempt, and dislike for the other?
This is the devil. And you get to know this in little things.
Your spouse is easily excited talking to others but irritated when you are alone.
The friend you saw in your spouse as courting sweethearts has evaporated into thin air!
Sometimes, this shows up as singles in courtship too. Unexplainable and perpetual irritation from one party could be an indication of deep-seated issues.
Before you start blaming him or her, you should take responsibility first for where you find yourself, humble yourself and ask God to help you.
It is another problem entirely when you keep blaming your spouse for your own actions, neglect, and carelessness. That can be unfair and you will never change that way.
It is like a General Manager who keeps blaming his employees for losses and the employees who keep blaming the Manager for their ineffectiveness. That organization is in a quandary!
Stop the blame game! It is a trap of the devil.
See, there is no point wasting your time, there is much to do!
Why would you fast forty days and then use four days of strife to rubbish everything?
Why would you sow seeds for years and then pull them out with careless, selfish thoughts and words?
Common, get on the same page and combine your weapons against the enemy of your soul.
From the day you got married, you can no longer do it alone!
So, get over trivial issues, be it husband or wife, and be on the same page so that you can both enjoy the fullness of God’s blessings in your life.
As singles in courtship, you are simply dissipating a lot of power when you entertain strife continually!
May God bless your relationship, marriage, and home.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will cooperate with my spouse
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Devil, take your hands off my marriage in Jesus name
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Rom 14:16 (KJV) Let not then your good be evil spoken of
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Write down what you love about your fiance/spouse and thank God for those things.
Know These And Know Peace In Marriage. I want to talk about two crucial things in marriage. They are pivotal to a smooth relationship as couples. Let’s dive into it.
Know These And Know Peace In Marriage
1. Renewal and Recharge Junctions
In marriage, you must learn to take breaks from work and relax. You have to have time that you spend together as husband and wife.
You need to go back to what used to excite you before the wedding and do those things again and again.
Apart from reading your Bible and praying in the Holy Ghost which refreshes and recharges your spirit, you should also learn to be relaxed once in a while.
2. Mentoring
Every marriage must have a mentor to whom you defer and seek wisdom.
There is something that a couple that has been married for thirty years knows that a three-year-old couple is oblivious of.
It is plain wisdom to seek counsel.
Most issues that lead to serious strife and possible separation and divorce could easily have been resolved by seeking knowledge.
That is why I am a little scared of couples who talk to nobody! Something is not quite right with that. Part of having a marriage mentor is being humble.
3. Sincerity and Openness
Finally, this is so crucial to the survival of any marriage! Be open
Marriage is not a secret cult! Talk about everything and anything.
Hiding things and allowing your spouse to discover will only lead to mistrust and suspicion. The rule of the game is to talk about everything. That will go a long way to establishing trust. Know These And Know Peace In Marriage
If you keep talking exactly how it is, it would be difficult to go into adultery, because adultery is perpetuated in the platform of insincerity and deception. May God help us all.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I have God’s wisdom in my marriage
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, give us a humble heart
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Psa 51:10 (KJV) Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Discuss on mentorship and agree
The Commitment Of Marriage. God is our creator, He made us and we are the sheep of His pasture. He also created the marriage institution and knows how best it is to be worked. He didn’t just leave us clueless but gave us His guidelines.
The Bible is our manufacturer’s manual. It becomes our road map to doing marriage well. God has promised the days of heaven on earth in our marriages. We can only achieve this when we live according to the dictates of the Bible.
Any diversion from the commands of God’s injunctions leads to a negative experience. God may lead us around but He definitely will not lead us wrong.
There are instructions for living individually because it is two whole individuals that make a good marriage.
We are to study the Word of God for living. The Word is to transform us.
Let’s look at one of the core instructions to married couples in Ephesians. It speaks specifically to husbands and wives. This is The Commitment Of Marriage
Husbands and wives are to pursue these instructions with the whole of their hearts. They are to study it in different translations of the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit for Grace to do it no matter what.
That is how to follow God. The rewards are for the Word practitioners. Talk is cheap, quoting the scriptures is cheap but being a doer of the Word is where the real work is.
Ephesians 5:21-33 TPT And out of your reverence for Christ be supportive of each other in love.
For wives, this means being devoted to your husbands like you are tenderly devoted to our Lord, for the husband provides leadership for the wife, just as Christ provides leadership for his church, as the Savior and Reviver of the body.
In the same way, the church is devoted to Christ, let the wives be devoted to their husbands in everything.
And to the husbands, you are to demonstrate love for your wives with the same tender devotion that Christ demonstrated to us, his bride. For he died for us, sacrificing himself to make us holy and pure, cleansing us through the showering of the pure water of the Word of God. All that He does in us is designed to make us a mature church for his pleasure, until we become a source of praise to him—glorious and radiant, beautiful and holy, without fault or flaw.
Husbands, have the obligation of loving and caring for their wives the same way they love and care for their own bodies, for to love your wife is to love your own self.
No one abuses his own body but pampers it—serving and satisfying its needs.
That’s exactly what Christ does for his church! He serves and satisfies us as members of his body.
For this reason, a man is to leave his father and his mother and lovingly hold to his wife, since the two have become joined as one flesh.
Marriage is the beautiful design of the Almighty, a great mystery of Christ and his church.
So every married man should be gracious to his wife just as he is gracious to himself.
And every wife should be tenderly devoted to her husband. This is The Commitment Of Marriage.
This remains the core of the marriage relationship. Couples having issues in their marriage should come to a point where the Word becomes the final authority they both submit to.
Each couple should embark on a personal journey of doing everything possible to unravel this instruction. Study, meditate and confess this scripture.
Any teaching that is outside these instructions is not the Word.
Let me leave us all to study this scripture. May the Lord grant us understanding
Our marriage will thrive
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I live by the word. I honor the Word. I humble myself under the mighty hand of the Word. As I obey the Word, my life and marriage is transformed.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Father give me your wisdom to honor my spouse in Jesus name
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY So every married man should be gracious to his wife just as he is gracious to himself. And every wife should be tenderly devoted to her husband. Ephesians 5:33 TPT
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Study this scripture until you have understanding and revelation on it.
Oil for Today: Day 383 – Prayer For Relationship And Marriage
Prayer 1
Let’s begin to thank for His mercy
Ps.136.1 – O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Prayer 2
Lord, I speak mercy to my marriage/relationship.
Job 22.28 – Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.
Prayer 3
Lord turn every evil counsel of the wicked over my marriage/relationship to foolishness
2Sam.15.31b – And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.
Prayer 4
Lord Jesus take over the building of my marriage/relationship
Ps.127.1(MSG) – If GOD doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks. If GOD doesn’t guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap.
Prayer 5
I receive wisdom and understanding for my marriage/relationship.
Prov.24.3 (MSG)- It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation;
Prayer 6
Wealth and glory accompany my marriage/relationship in the name of Jesus.
Prov.8.18 – Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.
Prayer 7
My marriage/relationship is fruitful in the name of Jesus.
Gen.9.7 – And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Prayer 8
Appreciate God for the answered prayers.
Eph.3.20 – Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
Prayer For Relationship And Marriage
Confession
My marriage/relationship is blessed. I will not lack wisdom and understanding in this marriage/relationship because I have made Christ the foundation. Negative words or counsel will not prevail over my marriage/relationship. The wine therein is fresh everyday and will not end. God is sustaining us with wealth and honour in the name of Jesus. Amen
