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Biblical
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Faith
In God
Faith
When We Pray
Marriage
Why
You Shouldn't Break It Off
10
Reasons To Stay Married
8
More Biblical Reason's To Stay Married
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"Why You
Shouldn't Break It Off"
10 Reasons To Stay Married
I
recently was sent a marriage newsletter called Should You
Break It Off that was written for couples in diagnosing
their marriage woes. The counselor who wrote the newsletter
supposedly is helping couples diagnose problems in the
marriage. After I looked it over, I told my friend who sent it
to me that I thought it was an advertisement for divorce.
Since when do marriage counselors try and find reasons
why couples should divorce? And especially over the trite
reasons written on this particular newsletter? Below is
just a short part of the newsletter from the counselor who
probably charges couples a good amount of money for his or her
services.
Below this newsletter is my own short
synopsis called "Why you shouldn't break it off".
Here is
Heaven Ministries comments about the above marital issues
When couples are going thought difficult times in their
marriage and they read through these common marital issues
that are based upon feelings rather than commitment, they
think and or begin to feel that they have all or
most of the symptoms listed above. Pretty soon they are using
these trite and petty reasons to end their marriage.
The problem here is not that most marriages, at one time or
another, do have the issues such as those listed above,
but that couples are not taught why they have them and how
to deal with them or rid then from their marriage from a
morally based foundation. They are told that if they have
these problems they can get a divorce. Consequently, what do
couples do? They begin to believe that since they have
the above issues in their marriage that their marriage is
doomed for failure and so end up getting a divorce.
Lets go through
each one listed above. I'll try and be as brief and to the
point as I possibly can in explaining why we may have
these particular problems in our own marriage, and what we can
do to eradicate them all together.
Why You Shouldn't Break It Off
#1.
The reason why most couples feel like they are not in a
relationship is because they aren't. Couples do not have the
connection and bond with each other like they used to. The
culture today makes homemakers feel deprived and
worthless. Consequently more and more woman are selfishly
establishing careers, leaving the husband to tend for himself
and leaving other important household duties and
responsibilities unattended.
Outside
opportunities and trivial desires keep couples from growing
together in the marriage. For example, a wife might have her
own career, friends and agenda, which keeps the husband from
wanting to get close to her, consequently he has his buddies
and sports games that he attends to, leaving his wife with her
own agenda. Neither spouse needs each other except for getting
on each others back because the lack of organization around
the home.
It is a natural instinct for a "real man" to want to
be in charge of the home and family, and to protect, love and
care for his wife. But now-a-days many woman feel they do not
need this from a man, and rebel against it. This is very sad
indeed for it is pushing away the design that God
intentionally planned for marriage.
#2 the
reason that couples do not communicate is because they don't
know how. When they communicate they accuse, blame and finger
point instead of talking. If we become angry and hostile it
will close the listener down and the issue will never get
resolved.
So where does the issue go if it doesn't get resolved? It gets
stored away in the mental capacities until a later date when
it can be used to justify the next argument. The problem here
is that when problems in marriage don't get resolved couples
can get very resentful towards one another, which escalates
into more arguments. Pretty soon, because of this, and not
knowing how to communicate properly, couples eventually learn
to avoid issues they think would cause emotional outbursts.
They feel it is better to just keep things the way they are
instead of confronting each other, which invariably causes
more frustration, resentment, animosity and pain anyway.
There is many ways around this problem, one is to learn how to
express your self appropriately without accusing or blaming.
Accusing only makes your spouse become defensive.. Writing
letters is always a good way of expression if you do not want
to confront your spouse. And of course, allowing God's wisdom
and love into the marriage works wonders.
#3
This dilemma ties into dilemma #1. Growing apart spiritually
and mentally, and spending more time away from home with
friends disconnects you from the relationship. Trusting
in God for your foundational support in the marriage would be
a great idea here. But no one wants to do that, instead they
complain to their spouse, nag about their spouses faults, have
affairs and ruin their marriage.
EFFORT! Work on it! Make the
marriage important to you. Put God first in the marriage and
your spouse will become second where they belong. God's design
for marriage is wisdom that is watertight and dependable, yet
most of us do not get our wisdom from God, but from a
different source.
#4 The reason why we criticize our spouse is
because we blame them for the the disarray of the marriage. We
see all their faults, feel all their faults, and live all
their faults. We live in our spouses faults. We are connected
to the faults of our spouse, but disconnected to the
relationship of marriage. Because our feelings have
literally controlled the way we view the marriage and
the way we feel about our spouse, we think all there is
left to do is break up.
This issue ties into issue #1 and 3. What are we going to do
about it? Keep living in a marriage that we feel is not
repairable or are we going to see that we have faults and
start criticizing our self for a change? Who are we to blame
our spouse on all the marriage woes when we all know good and
well it takes two to tango?! God knows what your problems are,
but you are not asking for His guidance. Instead you are
relying upon your feelings and the outside beliefs of
this immoral culture to tell you that your marriage is beyond
repair. God can't help unless you open the door to Him--He is
knocking. Open the door!
#5
Comparing is wrong. When we compare we are essentially telling
someone that they aren't good enough--don't measure up. But
this is a fallacy of wrong thinking taking over our judgment.
Everyone is different and as long as we compare two people
that are different, and expect them to be the same it will
never happen. Don't compare your spouse to other people.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That means we are all
beautiful in our own way, even if we are homely on the
outside. I don't know what else to say about comparing, this
is a really stupid question that the counselor put into her
marriage newsletter. onto question #6, quickly.
#6
We try and change our partner because we're perfect remember?
We think it's all our spouses fault and that is why we
criticize him/her." For some reason, we think that if we
can change our spouse everything will be okay. But the fact
is, it won't. New faults and bad habits will crop up and we
are back to square one.
This complaint ties into all of the above in that, we
certainly know that we cannot change our partner, so why try?
Let's start looking at our self for a change! We should be
asking God to change us! What can we do about changing our
self?
Take this reality check: Have your spouse write down your
faults and bad habits. Read them, study them and change
yourself! We need to realize that we too have faults. Try not
criticize your spouse for one week about anything, see if
there is a change, and then let me know.
#7 Couples don't laugh anymore because of all
of the above. God's foundation can bring the love, joy and
laughter we all need back into any relationship if we put
forth the effort to try! Put your faith and trust in God
instead of in the world.
#8
No one person in the marriage does all the giving. It only seems
like that. We have a problem with tallying every good deed
we do for the marriage and each other and then expect
the same in return. It's like Santa Clause checking his list
to see who is naughty or nice. Those who were nice he'll give
presents to, but if you were naughty forget about any
presents. Kids all over the world are growing up understanding
all about how to give conditional love (fakey love),
and when they get married they can treat their own spouse conditionally
like Santa did to them.
An example of how adults love conditionally is, "No
honey, I'm not going to give you sex tonight, you were mean to
me all day yesterday."
This issue is
all about not knowing how to love properly. We love selfishly
because we do not have the knowledge from God in our marriage
to accept the fact that God loved us so much that Jesus
Christ suffered and died for us so we could learn to love in
the way we are supposed to love. Couples in marriage today
love with conditions and bargains on the table like Santa once
did to them, it is all they know! Naughty or
nice!
To give is to love, and to love is to give. Giving can only
come from a heart and mind that is free of selfish precedents
and self-ego based love. This involves not just surrendering
your sinful and selfish way of life over to God, but also
allowing Jesus Christ into your heart and mind for emotional,
and spiritual support. Without God's support, we are
essentially using our self-based foundation that does not
understand how to give or love properly.
#9
We do not feel good about our self, because we do not know our
self. We have not let go of self to be open and honest with
who we are. God frees us from the weakness of sin. If we are
living in sin, then we are not loving our self. Bitter and
resent filled hearts cannot love, it is impossible. If we are
living in our negative feelings, we will not know the
fulfillment of knowing what "real love" is.
Surrendering our guilt, resentment, angry feelings, and sin to
God will free us from behaving selfishly and rebelliously
toward God, our spouse and marriage. After we give up
"the old way of life" and become a "new person
in Christ" is when we learn to love our selves and others
freely without negative feelings tearing at our flesh.
This issue sums up, and is the root to all of the
above issues. The basis of it is believing in self enough to
trust in God with all our heart, mind and soul so we can be
free to learn to love properly!
"God is our refuge
and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the
mountains fall into the heart of the sea." Psalm 46:1-2
Back
Below is my newsletter on Why
You Shouldn't Break It Off
|
Why
You Shouldn't Break It Off
10 Reasons To Stay Married
1. You no longer feel
that you are in a relationship ... it's been this way
for a long time.
You should stay married because your
relationship is sacred and specially made for just the
two of you. And if you feel like you are not
married or not in a relationship anymore is all the
more reason to put forth more effort into
becoming re-connected as a couple. Find
out more
2. You
often mull over in your head how to communicate yet
you still don't.
Marriage thrives on understanding one another,
therefore communicating feelings and thoughts with
each other is essential. What happens when we don't
communicate is we lose touch with each other, and
become bored and not very enthusiastic about doing
things together. If you have difficulty expressing
yourself, then the marriage is missing out on so much.
You should stay married so you can re-learn,
re-connect and re-bond with each other like when you
were first married. You will find that the same love
you had for each other in the beginning is still
there. read
more
3. You
no longer look forward to spending time alone
together, sex can still be good, but you'd rather
spend your time with other people.
Marriage needs attention. It's true, woman usually
give the marriage the most attention, but if you feel
like you would rather be with other people other than
your spouse, then you have grown apart and the
marriage desperately needs your attention. This is why
you should stay married so you can spend more
time together and get reacquainted like when you first
married.
read more
4. You
constantly criticize your partner.
If we often criticize and nag our spouse it is because
we are expecting too much from them, and when
something doesn't get done at the designated time, and
in the exact way that we would do it, we criticize and
complain. We're essentially pushing ourselves onto our
partner to make everything okay. We're too busy and
don't have time to deal with the children, chores,
cooking, career. But what we really need to do is back
off for a change and let our spouse be who they are. All
the more reason to stay married so we can learn to
accept our spouse for the way they are and stop trying
to change things that we can't.
God certainly does not like that we condemn and
disrespect who we married, and so the first action
here would be to look at our self and see what it is
that we can do to change the situation so there will
be less negative behavior toward our spouse. Usually
we become critical and naggy of our spouse when there
is something we ourselves feel is missing or lacking
in our life, but we cannot expect our spouse to fill
up every lacking area in our life.
But I know who can fill up the missing
and lacking areas in your life and so do you. Answer
the door and let Him in. read
more
5. You
compare your partner to others and your partner never
measures up. read
more
6.
You try to
change your partner ... it doesn't work ... you need
to accept this or move on.
Trying to change our spouse is like trying to drive in
quick sand. The best thing is to stay married while
learning to communicate effectively, while learning to
love unconditionally, while honoring and loving each
other the way God intended. Stop being so critical,
mean and bitter. read
more
7. You
don't laugh anymore and it is impossible to have a
light hearted conversation. Read
more
8. You are doing
all the giving
Yes! Giving is a great action that stems from
love. This is one of the great things about being
married is that we can make our spouse happy by giving
of ourselves in many different and loving ways!
All the more reason to stay married so we can
learn to give of our self without feeling resentful or
placing conditions on our giving. read
more
9. You no longer
feel good about yourself.
Actually this issue has nothing at all to do with
being married or who we are married to. This has
something to do with our mental and spiritual
well-being as a person--how we feel about our self is
something deeper then who we are married to or our
surroundings.
Self worth and self esteem make up a part of who we
are, at that particular time in our life. I say "
that particular time in our life" because people
change, circumstances change. Not feeling good about
our self takes a spiritual rejuvenation into the
framework of why we may feel bad about our
self. Several factors, including the lack of the
spiritual Christ in our life can cause us to live in
our own little world, frustrated, alone and empty even
when we are carrying on a hectic and varied lifestyle.
This issue needs to be analyzed from the core element
of finding self before an exact answer can be met.
Each individual circumstance is different and so I
cannot go into the details of this issue,
without actually having a case study to go on.
We would like to blame "the way we are" and
"the way we feel" on outside circumstances,
but there is a deeper and broader scope of needing to
understand the person we are for our self before we
can "feel good about who we are"
read
more
None of the above issues that permeate
all marriages at one time or another is an excuse or
justification for separating or getting a divorce
over. It's hogwash! As a matter of fact all the above
if you work at it appropriately with God at the center
of it, these issues will only bring you closer
together in the relationship.
Start working at your marriage today!
Heaven Ministries is here to devote its time in
assisting those who need spiritual counseling,
marriage advice, and a bit of hope and encouragement.
Read
comments from other readers of the Heaven
Ministries newsletter.
|
8
More Biblical Reasons To Stay Married
1. Marriage is
God's design Genesis 2
18-24
God's created work was
not made complete until he made woman. He could have made her
out of the dust of the ground as he made man, but he chose to
make her from the man's flesh and bones. Throughout the bible
God treats this special relationship of marriage seriously.
The goal and purpose for marriage is more than friendship; it
is oneness.
2. Commitment
was made to love and honor one another
Genesis
24:58-60
Marriage was not just
for convenience sake, nor was it brought about by any culture.
It was instituted by God and has three basic aspects. (1) the
man leaves his parents and, in a public act, promises himself
to his wife, (2) the man and woman are joined together by
taking responsibility for each others welfare, and by loving
the mate above all others, (3)the two become one flesh in the
intimacy and commitment of the sexual union that is reserved
for marriage. Strong marriages include all three of these
aspects.
4. Marriage is
permanent Matthew
19:6 "So they
are no longer two, but one.
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not
separate." Jesus
focused on marriage rather than divorce. He pointed out that
God intended to be permanent and gave four reasons for the
importance of marriage. (1)God made them male and female, (2)
leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, (3) the
two will become one flesh, (4) what is joined together let man
not separate. God designed marriage to be indissoluble.
Instead of looking for reasons to break it off, we should be
trying to find reasons to stay married!
6. Only death
should dissolve marriage Romans
7:2,3 "For example,
by law a woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive,
but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of
marriage. So then if she married another man while her husband
is still alive, she is called an adulteress."
7.
Marriage is good and honorable Hebrews
13:4 "Marriage
should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for
God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually
immoral."
8.. Romance is
important and marriage keeps us from being tempted
Song
of Songs 4:9,10
--------------------------
Biblical
Studies on Faith
Faith is
reliance, loyalty and complete trust in God
Faithfulness is firm in adherence, it is loyal, and worthy of
trust and devotion
So that brings
me to the question of where are we putting our faith? What or
whom do we trust in when troubles arise in our lives? Scriptures
says, "Now faith is
being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do
not see."
(Hebrews 11:1)
This verse is clearly pointing out that faith is being certain
in what we do not see with our eyes.
Two words describe faith.
Sure and certain. These
two qualities need a secure beginning and ending point. The
beginning point of faith is being sure in our belief in
God--He is who He says. The end point is
"believing in" and being certain without a
doubt in God's promises for us. He will do what He
says. When we believe that God will fulfill His promises to
us, even though we do not see those promises materialize yet,
we have true faith in what we cannot see.
Are we certain that God is who He says? Are we sure
that God will keep His promises to us? God says that without faith
in Him it will be impossible to please Him. "And
without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone
who comes to Him must believe that He exists and He rewards
those who earnestly seek Him."
(Hebrews 11:6) God will
not settle for mere acknowledgement of His existence.
Acknowledging is not the same as faith. We cannot say we
believe in God and then not do what He says. That is only
acknowledgment. It is simply recognizing that He exists and
that is all.
Where is the faith? God wants us to earnestly seek Him for
truth and develop a personal relationship with Him that will
transform our life from mere acknowledgement to certain. If we
do not have a personal relationship with God we are lacking in
His wisdom and in His understanding to apply the conviction of
faith into our lives. "If
any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives
generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given
to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt,
because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and
tossed by the wind. (James
1:5-6)
Wisdom means practical discernment and begins with respect for
God, leads to right living, and results in the increased
ability to tell right from wrong. God is willing to give us
this wisdom, but we will be unable to receive it if our goals
are self-centered rather than God-centered.
To "believe and not
doubt" means to not only believe in the existence of God,
but also believe and trust in His loving care for us. A mind
that wavers is not completely convinced that God's way is the
best way. If your faith is new, weak, or struggling, remember
that you can trust God. To stabilize your doubtful mind commit
yourself wholeheartedly to God. Rely on God to show you what
is best for you. Ask for wisdom, and trust that He will give
it to you. Then your decisions will be sure and solid.
My understanding is that
having faith in God is being certain of Him and what
God says! If we are certain that God will be there for
us when we ask, then having faith is a part of who we are--our
conviction and belief in Him when we pray is a way of life in
that we are sure, without a doubt that God listens to
our prayers and hopefully those prayers will get answered. But
let's look at this a bit closer.
Faith
When We Pray
"Have faith in God," Jesus
Answered. "I tell you the
truth. If anyone says to this mountain, "Go throw
yourself into the sea," and does not doubt in his
heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will
be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in
prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will
be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything
against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may
forgive you your sins. (Mark 11:22-25)
It is not
impossible for God to move a mountain into the sea, but He is
not going to do it. So Jesus used that parable to make the
point that God can do anything. God will answer your prayers,
but not as a result of your positive mental attitude but out
of your faith and belief in God. When we pray, and according
to the scripture above there are other conditions that need to
be met. (1) we must believe, (2) we must not hold a
grudge against anyone, (3) we must not pray with selfish
motives, (4) our request must be good for God's Kingdom. And
so to pray effectively we need faith in God, not
faith in the object of our request. If we pray selfishly and
focus only on what we want, our prayer will not get answered.
From scripture
above (Mark 11:24)
we now know that Jesus Christ is
our example to follow when we
pray. Jesus said, "Abba
Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.
Yet not what I will, but what you will." Meaning
I don't want this cup--I don't want to die, but if it is your
will Father that I die, then let it be so.
Jesus
expressed his true feelings to God but He did not rebel
against God's will. By reading Jesus' prayer above we can see
the terrible suffering and agony He had to endure, which was
even more magnified because Jesus had to take on the sins
of the whole world. While praying Jesus understood the
horrible suffering that He was going to endure, but still He
prayed "not what I will, but
what you will".
That is how we are to
pray.
Often our
prayers are unanswered because they are motivated by our own
interests and desires. We like to hear that we can have
anything and everything, but the truth is Jesus prayed with
God's interest in mind, not His own, and that is how we are to
pray. When we do pray it is okay to express how we feel and
what our desires are but we should want to do God's will
instead of our own.
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