LOVE YOUR SPOUSE

VERBALLY PLANT GOOD SEED

When God created the universe, he used a unique vehicle—words.  The psalmist records how God created all that we see: “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made…For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded , and it stood fast” (Psa.33:6,9).

When God wanted to free Israel from brutal slavery in Egypt, again He used words:  “He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, and lice in all their territory…He spoke, and locust came, young locusts without number”  (Psa.105:31,34).

God conceived human life in His mind and gave it birth through His words.  He could have fashioned creation gently in His hands—yet He chose to use words.  He spoke, and it “stood fast.”

In a similar way, the words you use can be powerful and even life-giving to your spouse.  One of the most important things about a married couple is what they say to each other.  When positive words flow, the relationship grows robust and flourishes.  But if the lines of understanding and positive communication go down permanently, it is only a matter of time before that marriage dies.  You can create life in your mate with your positive words, or you can inflict destruction with negative or neglectful words.

During World War II many factories in the United States were converted into manufacturing firms producing ammunition, ships and other wartime resources.  Posted throughout those factories were little signs with these words, “Loose lips sink ships.”  Today we need little signs in our homes that read, “Loose lips sink Partnerships.”

Proverbs 12:25 is clear, “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.”  Notice the impact of a “good word.”  Gladness comes not from a sentence or a paragraph or from an entire message.  Gladness comes from just one well-placed , positive word!

Be sure to appreciate the power of words.  They can assault  your mate or honor him or her as a valuable person who has God-given worth and assets.  Your efforts to give unconditional acceptance will go for naught if you sow pessimistic, critical, or unsympathetic words into the heart of your mate.

NOTE:  This article is from the book Family Life and Marriage Bible by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

SATURDAY – QUESTION AND ANSWER 

Question#1.  How important is intimate conversation?

Answer #1.

According to an article I read recently, the typical couple spend only four minutes a day in meaningful conversation with each other.  Four minutes!  That’s less time than the commercial breaks during a half-hour program.

A lot of us husbands don’t realize that in order for our wives to consider us romantic, we must first of all be great friends and conversationalists.  Grunts and one-word answers just won’t cut it!  Too many women feel that their husbands don’t really need them— and bare-bones conversation confirms their sense of low personal value.

Many men who once were accomplished at deep conversation during courtship, seem to lose this talent later.  You can rediscover the groove!  Make a commitment to learn to make intimate conversation a priority with your wife.  You need to talk and fill her in on the details of your life– not just facts, but feelings.

When a husband sincerely shows his desire for conversation and a deepening relationship–emotional intimacy–he will find that his wife is much more interested in sexual intimacy.  Her dreams, hopes, desires, and disappointments are no longer divorced from the marriage bed, but are a part of it.

NOTE:  This article is from the book Family Life and Marriage Bible by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS

The word “kind” in the Greek is CHRESTEUOMAI, which means to be adaptable or compliant to the needs of others.

Do you ever demand that your spouse or other people be like you?

Agape love makes you want to go the extra mile to become what others need you to be for them.

Selfishness and self-centeredness is the complete opposite to being kind.

Do you have a willingness to change so you can meet the needs of your spouse.

Are you good natured and gentle to your spouse and others?

Do you treat your spouse tenderly and with affection.

To be “kind” shows courtesy.

In 1Corinthians 13, it was the second characteristic of the highest level of agape love.

1Corinthians 13:4 “Charity…is kind…”

God designed these verses to mention being “kind” as a characteristic for us to examine ourselves to see how we match up.

“Kindness” explains what agape love is.

Do you look for a way of being constructive with your spouse?

Showing kindness 24/7 is impossible for us to demonstrate on our own

We need the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us all the way and all the day.

Kindness is a generous portion of active “goodwill.”

Are you a big dose of “sweet usefulness?”

That is the definition of “kindness.”

As you are kind to your spouse, you will be shown kindness.

When Jesus commanded His disciples to love their enemies, He did not simply mean to feel kindly about them, but to be kind to them.  (Matt.5:40-41)

In 1Corinthians, Paul is not writing about how love feels, he is writing about how it can be seen in action.

This evil world gives agape love many opportunities to demonstrate kindness to others.

Mark Twain called kindness “A language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read.

Kindness is a universal language because it does not speak to the intellect, but directly to the heart.

True love is always demonstrated by action.

Remember:  The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost tomorrow.

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF LOVING

The Apostle Paul used the word AGAPE to describe the highest level of love in this world that is from God.

Paul uses the description to explain what AGAPE love is in 1Corinthians 13.

God designed these verses so we would know if we were walking at his highest level of loving.

1Cor.13:4 “Charity (agape love) suffereth long…”

Long suffering, in the Greek, MAKROTHUMIA, means “the patient restraint of anger.”

Long suffering is to endure, to put up with people and circumstances.

Do you lose your patience from time to time with your spouse?

Do these situations involve people or things?

What are some of these situations that cause you not to be so long-suffering?

Long suffering is when you are in a difficult situation with your spouse or anyone else and you decide to put up with them.

Once you accept Jesus Christ as your LORD and Savior, longsuffering is required to maintain our hope in Gods promises.

If you don’t have hope or purpose for your life, why would you wait?  Why would you continue to suffer?  You would give up!!

Love will be patient no matter what the situation.

A candle is prepared to burn a long time if it has that long wick.

You are to forbear and patiently wait if you have the characteristic of the highest level of AGAPE love.

Can you show longsuffering till your spouse finally comes around and make progress.

Do you patiently wait while you try to teach or communicate to your spouse.

Longsuffering is forbearing without reacting in anger or turning away.

Long suffering is not a feeling.

Our human nature wants to get nervous and hyper as soon as it has to be patient.

Can you hold tight to your trust in God?

Longsuffering is a decision of the will; it is a decision to endure in faith.

The long view is to forgive each other’s failures and to hold tight to our trust in God.

Keep going even though your husband doesn’t respond to you!

Do you say that you are sick and tired of waiting for your spouse to change?

Have you stopped hoping and believing?

Does this relationship test your patience?

If this is true, you need an injection of AGAPE love right now!

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you!

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

LOVING THE UNLOVABLE

Is your talking non-stop and annoying at times?

Do you talk so much to your spouse that he doesn’t even LISTEN to you any more?

Do your words just keep pouring out that it now just sounds like noise?

1Cor.13:1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (agape love), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” 

In the Corinth church, Paul was so unimpressed with their spirituality because they obviously had a great LACK of love.

Do you claim a lot and say a lot , yet your life doesn’t match up to your claims?

Are you irritating to your spouse and family because you lack love?

This kind of love is AGAPE, which is a self-giving love.

Agape love gives without expecting repayment.

This kind of love gives even when it is not ACCEPTED.

You give agape love even when a person is unlovable.

Agape love doesn’t love just to RECEIVE something back for it.

Agape love is self-denial for the sake of another.

This is not about your EMOTIONS and how you feel but what you need to do to make things right for someone else.

Do you express this spontaneous and divine love with your spouse?

Sacrifice is very important to your Christian walk but without love, it is USELESS.

Love is most valuable because without it everything else is useless.

If your spouse doesn’t listen to you and won’t be changed, ask God to show you a way to HANDLE the situation.

Ask God to change you so you can deal with your spouse in a spirit of love.

Ask God to GIVE you His heart for your spouse.

You can deal with anything if you have God’s heart and mind.

Be willing and open to make changes in your WORDS and in your character.

The last thing you want to be is a “tinkling cymbal.”

Whatever God shows you in your actions or words that needs to be changed, accept it and change.

GOD IS LOVE!!!

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

IS YOUR MARITAL FOUNDATION DEFECTED? 

Your personal worth sets the limit on how successful your accomplishments are on your marriage.

Your greatest POSSESSION is to have a healthy self-esteem.

There is a need inside each one of us to be or feel like a special person and especially from our spouse.

You will grow and mature to be what God wants you to be if your FOUNDATION is built on a strong self-image.

It takes time to correct things that are wrong in your life and in your marriage because no one matures instantly.

To mature physically, spiritually and emotionally sometimes comes PAINFULLY.

In Christ, you are his unique creation and your marriage is unique.

Remember, your self-image is what you think you are.

Your self-image is not what you are.

Your self-image is not what others think you are.

There is an array of sources that you should not be basing your feelings on about yourself: family, other people, physical traits, talents/abilities, failures, etc.

Feelings of guilt and failure, many times come from setting up high expectations for ourselves.

This defected foundation needs to let God rebuild it.

STEPS TOWARDS A HEALTHY SELF-ESTEEM

1. Let yourself, Love yourself.
2. Be the person God intended you to be.
3. Stop comparing yourself to others.
4. Honestly estimate yourself.  Assess strengths and weaknesses.
5. Don’t condemn yourself.
6. Don’t have high expectations for yourself.
7. Forgive yourself.
8.  Accept God’s forgiveness.
9. Towards others, have an attitude of forgiveness.
10. Towards others, have an attitude of love.
11. Do things that will make you like yourself more.
12. Choose realistic goals.
13. Seek God’s praise for what you do.
14. Don’t seek praise from others for what you do.
15. Build up others with your gifts and abilities.
16. Surround yourself with friends that build you up.
17. Do not put yourself around people who tear you down.
18. Build up those around you.
19. Let God shape you into the person he wants you to be.
20. Thank God for his never-ending love for you.
21. Thank God for the future he has prepared for you.

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

SHORT FUSED SPOUSE: WHAT TO DO

The Apostle Paul used the word AGAPE to describe the highest level of love in this world that is from God.

Paul uses the description to explain what AGAPE love is in 1Corinthians 13.

God designed these verses so we would know if we were walking at his highest level of loving.

1Cor.13:4 “Charity (agape love) suffereth long…”

Long suffering, in the Greek, MAKROTHUMIA, means “the patient restraint of anger.”

Long suffering is to endure, to put up with people and circumstances.

Do you lose your patience from time to time with your spouse?

Do these situations involve people or things?

What are some of these situations that cause you not to be so long suffering?

Long suffering is when you are in a difficult situation with your spouse or anyone else and you decide to put up with them.

Once you accept Jesus Christ as your LORD and Savior, longsuffering is required to maintain our hope in Gods promises.

If you don’t have hope or purpose for your life, why would you wait?  Why would you continue to suffer?  You would give up!!

Love will be patient no matter what the situation.

Longsuffering is prepared to burn a long time if it has that long wick.

You are to forbear and patiently wait if you have the characteristic of the highest level of AGAPE love.

Can you show longsuffering till your spouse finally comes around and make progress.

Do you patiently wait while you try to teach or communicate to your spouse.

Longsuffering is forbearing without reacting in anger or turning away.

Long suffering is not a feeling.

Our human nature wants to get nervous and hyper as soon as it has to be patient.

Can you hold tight to your trust in God?

Longsuffering is a decision of the will; it is a decision to endure in faith.

The long view is to forgive each other’s failures and to hold tight to our trust in God.

Keep going even though your husband doesn’t respond to you!

Do you say that you are sick and tired of waiting for your spouse to change?

Have you stopped hoping and believing?

Does this relationship test your patience?

If this is true, you need an injection of AGAPE love right now!

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you!

NOTE:  Don’t miss tomorrow’s post which has tips to help you be a successful spouse.

HARD QUESTIONS

WHEN GOD FINALLY ANSWERED Job out of the whirlwind, He answered the man’s questions with some much harder questions of His own.  In the spirit of hard questions, I have a few I’d like to ask of the contemporary church.

Why is the divorce rate inside the church nearly identical to the divorce rate outside the church?

Why do so many Christian men perform aggressively at work and remain so disengaged and passive at home?

Why are so many Christian parents negative about having and rearing children?

Why do so many Christians say their secular job is their ministry, but show so little fruit for their effort?

Why do Christians talk about family values while their lifestyles are virtually identical to the average non-Christian?

Why have so many Christians in  full-time ministry washed out because of immorality and impurity?

Why is the fifth commandment —to honor our parents–neglected by large numbers of Christians?

Why do less than 10 percent of all Christians regularly tell others about God’s forgiveness and the new life found in Christ?

If Jesus Christ changes lives, then why do 50 million American’s claiming to be born again have such a marginal impact on society?

I believe the answer to each of these questions can be tied to failure to obey and take  seriously the lordship of Christ in our lives.  When we learn to humbly trust and obey God, He brings personal transformation.  And that’s how cultures are changed—one person and one home at a time.

NOTE:  This article was taken from the book Family Life and Marriage Bible by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

NOTE:  Daily there is a new post to help your marriage succeed.

SATURDAY – QUESTION AND ANSWER

Question #1.  How are forgiveness and romance related?

Answer #1.  

There’s nothing worse than lying in the darkness, back-to-back, and fuming about some petty argument.  Satan is out to destroy marriages, and one of his best tools is unresolved conflict.  No wonder Paul urged believers: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph.4:32).

How did Christ forgive us?  By laying down His life.  He didn’t wait until we apologized.  He took the initiative to forgive.  I should do the same, even when I feel my husband is clearly in the wrong.  Sometimes it is much easier for me to see only what he did wrong than it is for me to admit my part in the conflict.

When conflict arises, I must resist my tendency to run from the confrontation and, instead, run towards forgiveness.  I must choose to listen, to imagine how my husband feels, and to pray for wisdom, understanding, and God’s help to work it all out.

Seek help from a Christian counselor if needed.  But for the sake of your marriage, forgive, “not…up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matt.18:22).  Allow Christ to use His resurrection power to heal and restore your marriage.

Forgiveness guards our hearts from bitterness and creates fertile soil in which romance and love can grow.

NOTE:  This article was taken from the book Family Life and Marriage Bible by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

IS YOUR SPOUSE AVOIDING YOU?

Is your talking non-stop and annoying at times?

Do you talk so much to your spouse that he doesn’t even LISTEN to you any more?

Do your words just keep pouring out that it now just sounds like noise?

1Cor.13:1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (agape love), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” 

In the Corinth church, Paul was so unimpressed with their spirituality because they obviously had a great LACK of love.

Do you claim a lot and say a lot , yet your life doesn’t match up to your claims?

Are you irritating to your spouse and family because you lack love?

This kind of love is AGAPE, which is a self-giving love.

Agape love gives without expecting repayment.

This kind of love gives even when it is not ACCEPTED.

You give agape love even when a person is unlovable.

Agape love doesn’t love just to RECEIVE something back for it.

Agape love is self-denial for the sake of another.

This is not about your EMOTIONS and how you feel but what you need to do to make things right for someone else.

Do you express this spontaneous and divine love with your spouse?

Sacrifice is very important to your Christian walk but without love, it is USELESS.

Love is most valuable because without it everything else is useless.

If your spouse doesn’t listen to you and won’t be changed, ask God to show you a way to HANDLE the situation.

Ask God to change you so you can deal with your spouse in a spirit of love.

Ask God to GIVE you His heart for your spouse.

You can deal with anything if you have God’s heart and mind.

Be willing and open to make changes in your WORDS and in your character.

The last thing you want to be is a “tinkling cymbal.”

Whatever God shows you in your actions or words that needs to be changed, accept it and change.

GOD IS LOVE!!!

NOTE:  Don’t miss tomorrows post that will have issues to make your marriage a success!