A Good Marriage - Draw Together or Pull Apart

 

 

Marriage is designed by God, but is usually an uphill battle. When we put two or more people together, there is inevitably conflict of some sort. Let's face it, we often cannot even get along with our self, much less with other people.

Life happens, challenges arise and situations change. These often attack our marriage as well. Not only do we have to adjust, but we have to bear the consequences of our spouse's attempting to adjust as well.

If we face life's challenges together as a unit, we can change and adapt together and at the same time. This makes for a much smoother transition. When we include God in the decisions and problem solving efforts, He works out everything for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28; Ecclesiastes 4:12).

God saw that man was alone and this was not good. So He created marriage to bless us and to lighten our load in life. He helps us to enjoy our marriage rather than to endure it. He provides faultless fruition for every need. 

This requires that we spend time together as a couple, unified in the Spirit and with one another in prayer. God never promises us a window into our future, but He does promise to walk with us and in us through its challenges.

Taking advantage of our days off, vacation times, free week-ends, and an occasional afternoon or evening without prior commitments, we can make time to watch a movie together, listen to a political debate, follow our favorite team on the sport's channel, read a book together, snuggle beneath the sheets, have dinner at a restaurant instead of at home, join friends for coffee and dessert, etc.

In Christ, we find joy in our marriage partner and solace in their care for us. We find fulfillment in helping them to fulfill their needs as God supplies us with everything we need. We enjoy life with the mate He gives to us (Ecclesiastes 9:7, 9).

Prayer:

Father God, life is never, ever easy; but You make all things possible as we have faith in Your faithfulness. You have arms long enough to save us and ears that always hear our cries (Isaiah 59:1; 1 John 5:15). Help us to commit every moment to You, rather than to follow our own path in life.

Everything You do remains forever (Ecclesiastes 3:14). As we walk in obedience to Your Spirit, we reap the rewards of righteousness rather than the consequences of our sin and disobedience. Remind us to draw together as a couple and to lean on You for strength to face life's challenges.

 

Thought for the Day:

Let us make a conscious effort to add more romance to our marriage; to put an end to pessimism, skepticism, criticism, etc; and to deal with negative emotions before they get deep seated in our soul - confessing our sins to God and to one another.

God's Plan for Us

God designed us with His perfect will in mind for our life. It always starts with salvation through Christ, by which we receive eternal life (John 6:40). Then, He calls us to a life of holiness to exhibit His glory in the earth (1 Peter 1:15).

He teaches us patience through the events which we traverse (James 1:4). We gain contentment as He fills us with His joy and teaches us to pray without ceasing and full of gratitude for all of His provision (John 14:27).

Slowly, but consistently, He conforms us to Jesus' image, and we join Him as the family of God (Romans 8:29). We grow closer in our union with Him through every difficulty and blessing which He allows along our way.

Entering into His will through our faith in Christ Jesus, we continue living His plan for our life through each decision we make (Proverbs 3:5-6). We hear His Spirit direct us in the minutest details of our day; telling us to turn to our right or to our left (Isaiah 30:21).

The key in this walk is to make time to listen to God's Spirit within us, to repent of any sin He reveals, and not to ignore or argue with His direction for our day. Our Heavenly Father knows best.

This requires that we slow down the busyness, simplify our life and to listen to His peaceful, quiet voice within us (Isaiah 30:15). Fulfillment is our reward when we seek the prize of the high calling of God, and purpose to do His will with our life rather than our own (Philippians 3:14).

Prayer:

Father God, Your Holy Spirit beckons us to follow Your will and to accomplish Your works with our life in this world. We often stray from Your perfect plan - drawn away by enticing situations and emergencies which compete for our attention.

Remind us to follow Your peace in every situation, regardless of the analytical, human thoughts in our mind. Help us to establish a daily quiet time, and to give attention to Your direction all day long. When we follow Your advice on which way to turn, we never take the wrong road.

Thought for the Day:

God's guiding voice calls to us each moment of our day, but we can only hear it as we quiet the voices within us and of the world around us that would attempt to drown it out.

Trapped in Our Subconscious Mind

 
 

The soul is our mind, will and emotions, or I like to call it our thoughts, choices and feelings. When life happens all around us, it registers with our soul.

We analyze the occurrence with our thoughts, decide how we feel about those thoughts and then make choices according to our thoughts and feelings.

We tuck away many of these experiences in our subconscious mind, never even giving them any conscious thought at all. This happens in a matter of seconds. Yet, these stored memories affect our choices for the rest of our life.

Our soul often attempts to draw our attention to these memories through dreams, negative emotions and bizarre beliefs. We need a resolution for them or to make a decision about them.

We can continue to ignore them and allow them to fester like a blister in our soul, or we can confront them, find God's truth about them and find freedom from the trouble they cause.

The easiest and most lasting way to heal our soul is to journal our thoughts and feelings - uncensored and unorganized; any way they come to mind, just write them down that way.

Underline all of the negative thoughts. Which topic is the most prevalent? That is the biggest lie by which Satan is keeping your soul captive.

Pray about that negative mindset and ask God to show you where it came from. Is it attached to a memory, or more than one incident in the past? It may have been a simple insignificant comment by a significant person in our life.

Ask God to tell you His truth about this issue. Now, use that truth to help you to change your focus about the issue. Ask yourself how you feel about that negative attitude now. It should diminish in intensity.

If it is not totally gone, then pray about it again and take time to listen to God's truth about what He shows you. Repeat this process until that emotion no longer bothers you and then go on to the next negative emotion.

This may take minutes, hours, days or even months. You may not get resolution during your prayer time; but it may occur when you wake up some morning, or while cooking a meal or carpooling the children. God speaks in His own time and way.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for caring about soul as well as our body and spirit. You are our great God and our great King and You rule over every principality and power in heavenly places. Thank You for teaching us that spiritual warfare is a very real occurrence in life in this earthly realm, and for giving us Your Spirit to take authority over Satan and his demons.

You set us free from the negative world of thoughts and events, which plague us. You capture us for Your glory and You use us in Your Kingdom all the days of our life in this world and in the next. Thank You for redeeming us, transforming us and using us according to Your will.

Thought for the Day:

The object of prayer journaling is to persevere in prayer about each negative emotion until God resolves them for you and you are free from the tyranny of the past; you will feel lighter, happier and more at peace with God, yourself and with your personal relationships.

 

United with Christ

God originally created mankind in the image of the Trinity (Genesis 1:6). Adam and Eve enjoyed an existence of body, soul and spirit in close fellowship with the Father. They enjoyed the same divine nature, which Christ exhibited.

Yet, when they believed Satan's lies, they chose to ignore their divine nature and to give in to the temptation of their human nature. As a result, their spirit died and their immortal body became mortal. We all reap the consequences of their choice.

God planned, before He created the world, to become man as Emmanuel (Genesis 1:1; Matthew 1:23). He paid the ransom for the sin debt of anyone who will choose to submit to His will rather than to our human desires or the devil's temptations (John 3:16-18; Romans 4:25, 5:6).

The reason that God's Spirit regenerates our spirit and sanctifies our soul is so that we will live in the divine life of Christ in us, rather than through our human life with its earthly thoughts and desires (2 Peter 1:4; John 1:1, 12-14).

This is only possible once our spirit is Born Again. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (Romans 12:2, 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18). We live, move and have our existence in Christ alone (Acts 17:28).

The life, which we live in this body, is lived through the faith of God's holy Son (Galatians 2:20). We are united with Christ in our spirit, just as Jesus' humanity was united with God, while He lived on this earth.

We continue the work of Christ on this earth, and we do greater works, as we function as His Body (John 3:3-6, 14:12). We think, feel, speak and act in the will of God as we follow the leading of His Spirit through every decision we make and every action we take.

This affects our behavior and words in our vocation, marriage, extended family, neighborhood and church Body. We live as a city on a hill, and we never hide the light of Christ within us (Matthew 5:14-16).

Prayer:

Father God, You teach us in Your Word that if we live by the dictates of our flesh, and give in to Satan's temptations, we will surely die in our sin. Yet, if we live by Your Spirit, He enables us to resist temptation and we will live in Your Kingdom as co-heirs with Christ forever (Romans 8:13). Teach us how to walk in the divine nature of Christ in us.

Help us to live and move and have our being in Him, so that we can walk in Your will, exhibit Your character and do the works of Christ all the days of our life (Acts 17:28). Thank You for helping us to renew our mind through the washing of the water of Your Word (Ephesians 5:26). Since Christ set us free from sin, help us to stay free from its destructive clutches (Galatians 5:1).

Thought for the Day:

God's Spirit, who raised Christ from the dead, now lives within our body through our spirit, and gives us His life. 

- Romans 8:11