Marriage is one institution you will never stop improving. No matter how old you are, you never grow too old of getting better at your marriage.
In fact, it is said that like wine, it gets better and sweeter the older it gets. I think it is true. The marriage goes through different stages and like a child you have to be patient with your marriage.
It requires a lot of work, a lot of sowing into the marriage. The formative years of the marriage are the most critical of all. Those years in a marriage which comes with so much labor and hard work.
Those years, you are still trying to understand yourselves; where the differences in temperaments and the male/female differences had to be mastered, where your spouse’s weaknesses really show, where you get pissed up by your spouse’s weaknesses, and where his strength can put you off, rather than celebrate his strength.
You may be at this critical stage in your marriage. I want to encourage you to hold on and be patient.
What God has joined together, let no man put asunder, is what the bible says. Make sure no matter what, you keep on improving on your marriage.
Never grow weary of improving on your marriage. Never grow weary of doing those things you know will improve your marriage. Don’t stop talking. Don’t stop being loving. Don’t stop being tender and kind.
Don’t stop helping your wife achieve her dreams. Don’t stop meeting her needs. Never stop treating her in a special way.
Never stop being a helper. Help him fulfill his dreams. Be romantic. Make him feel like a king. Don’t stop praying. Never stop talking to God about your marriage.
Your marriage is yours to bring the best out of it. It is yours to work out until the beauty therein appears.
God is waiting on you. Heaven believes in you to make it work. So make it work.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I love my spouse
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, help me to improve on my marriage
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Php 2:13 (KJV) For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
4 God’s word will become light and direction to help you choose as a single.
There is rigour in direction. Life is about decisions, but that is not all to it. Good life is about making the right decisions. The frailty of our human nature is overcome when we rely on God to lead us in our choice of marriage partner. ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ becomes a living story of our life when we embrace His word.
5. God’s word will bring stability to your relationship and marriage.
As you put God’s word in your heart, it will help your discernment in knowing the right people and the wrong ones. In a relationship or marriage, you need stability. You need God’s help to have a successful marriage. You need a wisdom from above that will not make your marriage follow the usual pattern of separations and divorce.
And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure. (Isaiah 33:6 KJV)
6. God’s word will regulate and help maintain your relationship and marriage when you follow its principles.
Following the principles of God gleaned from His word will help to regulate your relationship or marriage from the hullabaloo of marital journey.
7. God’s word will help you to have peace of mind in that relationship or marriage
God’s word brings peace. It helps put the couple at rest and delivers them from cheating on each other. It helps the couple to be satisfied with each other, and saves them from the pits that the enemy might have dug on their paths.
8. God’s word will help you to raise your children
When you train a child in the way he should go in the principles and systems of God, he will not depart from those principles when he grows up.
Rather than worry about the overwhelming peer pressure that an average youth is exposed to, show that youth the ways of God and his or her destiny will be preserved.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am a student of the word.
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Oh Lord, make me a word addict
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Put the above points to use
How To Make Progress In Your Marriage. Your past is your past because it happened in your ‘yesterday’. That yesterday could be 20 years, 30 days, 12 years and it could be a day ago. It becomes our past the moment we consciously put it behind us.
The past before our marriage too has to be dealt with in this manner. These include past relationships, past habits, those friends you used to have late night hang out with. Any thing that you know will be detrimental to your new status as a married man or woman.
The pains, hurts, challenges, shortcomings and weights of yesterday must be laid at the feet of the cross of Jesus. If we must experience the marriage that God has in mind for us.
Some people are holding so many people in unforgiveness. Some wives are holding so many people in their minds. Even people who they have no business holding in unforgiveness. Some are unfruitful because of holding unto the past.
In your marriage, you have to let the past go. The past is too heavy a weight to carry with your today. Your spouse will offend you not on purpose most of the time. But the onus is on you to let go of the past.
We must learn to embrace the truth of how to let go of the past like the prodigal son did.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! – Luk 15:17
The Bible says, he came to himself. We must come to ourselves every now and then about our past hurts and offense.
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. – Luk 15:20
He arose, he took step in dealing with his past. He didn’t leave it as an intent, he did something, he took action.
Until you take action to deal with your past, don’t expect God to grant you the freedom He has in store for only those who let go of the past.
But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: – Luk 15:22
May God help us to let go of our past in Jesus name.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My past does not slow me down
PRAYERS FOR THE DAY Oh Lord, heal me from my past
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. – Heb 13:4 (KJV)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Put the above points to use.
Now that you are married, all your attempt should be to make your marriage worthwhile. You want the singles out there to look at your marriage as what they will love their marriage to like. Your marriage should be an inspiration and a model to both married and the singles.
When I mean deepening your relationship, I don’t mean reading your bible for more hours, going to church for more hours, and certainly not screaming in tongues all over the house. I also don’t mean being in more activities in church, going for evangelism and being more active in church.
Even though all these are good in themselves, they don’t show you have a deep relationship with God. Deepening your relationship with God has to do with having conversations with God that are honest, sincere and vulnerable. You could be doing all the motions and not have a real relationship with the Father.
These heartfelt communications with God is a heart to heart thing, where despite God knowing you through and through, you tell him who you really are. You tell him where it really hurts, you tell him how desperately you need him, how you will fall flat on your face if He does show up. This is bearing yourself before Him openly without hiding anything. Naked and not being ashamed
It is like when you see your life like a big house with several rooms and you open up all the rooms for God to be involved and come in. When you don’t treat God like a guest who is only allowed into the sitting room, don’t get official with God.
God wants to be our God and Father who want to be involved in our everyday activities. David knew God. He knew him as Shepherd, as a high tower, a rock, a defender etc He had a deeper relationship with God than most people.
Having this relationship with God is very important because this relationship will help you in relating better with your spouse. You would be used to open communication and conversations with your spouse. You learn to appreciate your spouse, to be vulnerable with them, develop intimacy and express gratitude for every little thing they do. There will be no hidden secrets kept from your spouse. You won’t hide your deepest feelings. You will say it as you are thinking about it.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am deepening my relationship with God
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Ask for the grace to stay with the word
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Josh 1:8[NET]This law scroll must not leave your lips! You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful.
We started looking at the topic of what every husband must do to their wives a few days back. We’ll conclude on this topic today…
5. She wants you to know that she expects that you give yourself to her.
This has to do with sacrifice. The husband must be ready and willing to sacrifice for his wife. He must sacrifice emotionally, financially, spiritually, or socially. A wife that sees and knows that she has a sacrificing husband will go to any length to submit to her husband.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; – Eph 5:25 (KJV)
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 – Eph 5:25 (TPT)
And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage. – Ephesians 5:28 (MSG)
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6. She wants to be sanctified by you
Sanctify – Greek – to make holy, purify or consecrate; to venerate:
A wife needs her husband to sanctify her, to through communication, make her what he wants her to be. She needs the husband to talk to her all of the time because she thrives on his words.
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, – Eph 5:26 (KJV)
Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, – Eph 5:26 (MSG)
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. – Eph 5:27-28 (TPT)
Let’s ensure we put these points to work.
God bless our marriage
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I choose to honor my wife in all things
PRAYER FOR THE DAY I nullify every activity of the devil over my family.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Husbands, you in turn must treat your wives with tenderness, viewing them as feminine partners who deserve to be honored, for they are co-heirs with you of the “divine grace of life,” so that nothing will hinder your prayers. -1Pe 3:7 (TPT)
