Thoughts for Life: MARRIAGE-A TEAM EFFORT

MARRIAGE - A TEAM EFFORT

Here are 5 ways to maintain a biblical and healthy marriage: Janet Thompson

1. Set Marriage Goals

Every anniversary my husband and I set goals for the coming year and reevaluate what we accomplished in the previous year. No topic is off the table. It gives us an opportunity to discuss our spiritual, personal, and material plans and goals. A reflective and introspective time. Are we on the same page or do we need to reconsider our objectives for our marriage and family?

2. Think of Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline

Since God created marriage, we should consider our marriage from a spiritual perspective and a vital part of our spiritual life is prayer. Couples should pray together daily as an intimate time of sharing our hearts and our souls together before the Lord.

3. Marriage Is a Team Effort

Marriage is about giving 100% to the one you love unconditionally. The more you give lovingly, not grudgingly, the more you receive back. It never hurts to have a few guidelines you each agree to, but when you reduce the relationship to keeping tallies, it becomes a lose/lose relationship.

Marriage teaches us to serve. Focus on marriage as a team effort and remember . . . you’re on the same team.

4. Make Marriage Holy Not Always Happy

Marriage puts a spotlight on the shortcomings of us in areas where we need to change. Marriage is between two imperfect people, who will always disappoint and disillusion each other unless they keep perfect Jesus at the center of their relationship. That might sound like a bold statement, and certainly many Christian marriages fail, probably because they didn’t keep Jesus at the center of every decision, discussion, and disagreement.

Many issues subject a couple to divisive onslaughts attacking a marriage: finances, parenting, jealousy, in-laws, personalities, loneliness, illness, outside attractions, work . . . daily life. Statistics of crumbling marriages—even among Christians—indicate Satan is winning the spiritual battle in many homes because couples haven’t armed themselves with the only effective offensive weapon—the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God. We need to view our spouse as more than a lover. They are also a brother or sister in Christ.

5. Find Marriage Mentors

How many marriages might elude divorce if spouses had spiritual mentors praying for and with them, teaching them how to pray together, study their Bibles daily, and showing them how to put God back on the throne in their marriage and family?

Seek out couples you admire for their marriage and relationship with the Lord and ask them to mentor you. Then someday you can be mentors to other couples.

The Marriage Triangle

In the marriage ceremony, there are vows we make to each other. True intimacy. Grace. Unconditional love. Unyielding commitment. Sacrificial serving. Sexual purity. It brings us back to where we started to reread those vows to each other every anniversary. We framed our vows and put on the wall in our bedroom as a reminder of the love and commitment we made to each other on our wedding day.

In our premarital course, the pastor who married us would always start the discussion by drawing a triangle with a stick figure man in the left lower corner of the triangle. A stick figure woman in the right lower corner and God at the top of the triangle. His point was the closer we each moved toward God, the closer we moved toward each other. At the bottom of the triangle, without God, we were the furthest apart.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 was on our wedding invitation with a picture of a cross and two cords wrapping around it to remind us always that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Related Resource: Listen to our new, FREE podcast on marriage: Team Us. The best marriages have a teamwork mentality. Find practical, realistic ideas for strengthening your marriage. Listen to an episode here, and then head over to LifeAudio.com to check out all of our episodes:

Let's pray-

Father, as the subject of marriage comes up, may we know that to carefully plan to set goals is very important wisdom. Each year then, to review what has been accomplished, and what goals need to be set, is needed to reevaluate what was accomplished in the previous year, and to set goals for the coming year.

To have mentors to look up to who have good marriages, is helpful too. Keeping the marriage holy, will provide more of a happy atmosphere and trust in one another.
Marriage is about giving 100% to the one you love unconditionally. The more you give lovingly, not grudgingly, the more you receive back. We need to view our spouse as more than a lover. They are also a brother or sister in Christ. We ask that You help those who are planning on getting married, to seriously consider taking Jesus as a third Partner in the marriage! He knows how to help folks love one another inspite of all the challenges that will come against them over time.

We ask this for Christ's honor and for the good of each of those contemplating marriage, and those who have been married many years. Amen

My weekly advice from the book, Praise the Lord and Pass the Chemo by Elaine W. Miller: (p.39)

"God never intended we make this (cancer) journey alone. Be willing to let people help us, love us, cry with us, pray for us, cut our grass, do our laundry, watch our children, sit with us, take us to the doctor . . . Now is the time to realize when we allow people into our lives, we are blessing them as they bless us because they are doing the work of God."

#141 Testimony- Mary Southerland

Trouble strengthens our faith and builds endurance, the ability to stay under the load. We have a loving Father who is committed to building the character of His Son in us. His love wants what is best for us, not what is easiest."

1851-1855 One-line Scriptures for those of you who want to learn some more verses this week- or to review them from when they were first posted-

1851- Ez. 6:11a "Thus saith the Lord God: Smite with thine hand and stamp with

thy feet."

1852- Luke 16:25b "Remember that thou in thy lifetime receiveth good things."

1853- Joel 1:16 "Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand."

1854- Prov. 13:21b "To the righteous good shall be repaid."

1855- Job 36:4a "For truly my words shall not be false; He that is

perfect in knowledge is with thee."

#141 Hymn- Search Me, O God

J. Edwin Orr , besides praying for revival, gave the answer that It needs to begin with us. That is the exact point of this hymn, Search Me, O God, which he had written years before, in 1936, during an intense springtime revival convention in the town of Ngaruawahia, on the North Island of New Zealand. There had been an attitude of unusual expectancy about the meetings, and prayer meetings proliferated across the city. Many students were coming to Christ, and the area began overflowing with the testimonies of those being saved and renewed in Christ.

Some encouraging words-
Andrew Murray says, "The believing Christian studies the life of Christ in its perfection and purity, in its strength and glory: it is the eternal life dwelling in a glorified man [or woman]. They long for holiness, to live well-pleasing unto God, or for power to do the Father's work, he looks up, and, rejoicing that Christ is his life, he confidently reckons that that life will work mightily in him all he needs."

Church Notes:

The God we must learn to know is the Majesty in the heavens, God the Father, Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth, and the only wise God our Savior. He is a Person and can be known in increasing degrees of getting acquainted because of the Salvation Jesus provides, as we prepare our hearts for the Word.

Upcoming posts:

20th- THE WAY OF TRUTH- Jessie Parr Lewis

27th- THE PEACE THAT JESUS OFFERS- David Frees

7/4th- WELCOMED HOME BY GOD- Mike Wittner