The Responsibilities of Marriage

Hello people, its Christmas season and time just flies by without us knowing. We thank God for the grace to see the last month of another year and as we prepare for the incoming year, I will encourage us to take stock of the past year and show gratitude to God.

In today’s post I pray and trust God to open up our minds and our eyes of understanding to be able to know and understand the depth of the responsibilities bestowed on us as married couples. More than for just the show of affection to one another and more than just for the man to have someone to handle the running on his life for him, we have a responsibilities to God and to our society with our lives and the way we handle our marriages.

As a wife when you accepted the call to marry the man you call your husband, what you invariably accepted is the call to be a tool in the hands of God to help make the life of that man you call husband better than you met him. The Bible calls the wife a suitable helper and what helpers do is to make that which they are to help better. Helpers makes things better.

And the man who has accepted the call to be a husband to a woman whom he call his wife has invariably accepted the call to be like Christ in the life of the woman that he has accepted as his wife; to be to her and in her life what Christ was and still is to the church. It’s not just about being the boss in her life, but about being the one who cares for her and her every need, being the one who protects her and nurtures her to perfection and then presents her to himself as a perfect bride.

This is one of the many responsibilities of marriage and its important that we understand these responsibilities well and prepare for them well in our hearts and mind before we venture into the marriage union. Marriage is beyond mere falling in love and wanting to be together. The reality of marriage begins the moment the covenant of marriage is signed and so before entering into that covenant it is important to have a very clear understanding of what you are entering into and be well prepared for it. 
If you are not ready to love a woman to the point of making her better than she was when you met her, then its just important that you know that you are not ready to be a husband to her yet. Being a husband is not about what you can get from the union but more about what you are prepared to give in to the union and what you are prepared to sacrifice for the union. It is what you give into your marriage that determines what you get from your marriage. 

Making your wife better than you met her is not achieved with force or stern discipline like you are trying to mold a child. The woman whom you wish to marry or are married to is already a grown woman so the method of impartation is quite different. This improvement we talk about is achieved through love; deep, unconditional, unrelenting love, in the manner in which Christ loves the church. A love that is strong enough to wash away impurities in a human character, love that is strong enough to turn wrong to right and still remain undented. 

As a woman, its important that you know and appreciate that marriage is not a bed of roses where you raise your feet and have everything done for you in the name of love. In Genesis 2:18 God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone and He purposed in His heart to make a suitable helper for the man He had made and realized needed a helper. And so God made the woman as a suitable, befitting helper to the man He had made. So as a woman it is important that you realize that first and foremost the purpose of your creation is to be a helper in the life of your man, so never expect your husband to be perfect, but you need to realize and understand that you are the perfection your husband needs. You are the one whom the Lord has created for him to make his life complete and good after God realized that it was not good for the man to be alone.

As a woman, wife and suitable helper, it is important that you understand as you enter into that marriage union that you are on assignment to be a suitable helper in the life of your husband such that you help make him a better man than you met him. Your marriage covenant which God stood to witness is you telling God that you are ready to be a tool in His hands in making the life of your husband better than before. If this was not your mindset when you got married to that man, then you got it all wrong from the beginning.

Making your husband better than you met him is not about forcing your opinion on him, you won’t get the job done in that manner. Its about submitting to your husband in obedience and letting God use your reverence, purity and humility as a tool in His (God) hands in making your husband better. In yourself you cannot achieve the set goal that God has assigned for you in marriage, but as a vessel in God’s hands you can achieve much. It’s all about God bringing the best out of your husband through you and not you literally changing your husband because no matter how you try it out without God you cannot succeed, you will only get frustrated which will most likely lead to a miserable marital life or divorce when the center can no longer hold.

And another responsibility of marriage is found in Malachi 2:15 and it reads, “Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” The second responsibility of marriage is the offspring the marriage produces. Are they the godly offspring that the Lord was seeking?

In as much as this cannot be generalized and I don’t have statistics to back this up, but based on my personal experience, I have come to realize that marriages that are not functioning right often produces children that are not functioning right. There are a lot of single parents who are determined and are working very hard to make sure they raise godly and responsible children and they are succeeding at it by the grace of God. But the burden would have been lighter and the work easier if there were two parents united as one with the fear of God and the power of God in them to raise godly offspring that the Lord seeks.

In order not to make this post too lengthy, I will stop here. In my next few posts, we will take a look at the impact of our marriage on the lives of our children and search from the word of God on this issues. Until then remain blessed. 

I Think You Need to Learn from my Mistake

Hello people how are you doing, I trust you are doing great and I bless God because I am doing great too.

In my post today I want to share a personal story that I think we can learn from. I had shared about unity as a secret to success in marriage in my last post and just along that line, I remembered my own personal experience on the issue.

When we first got married my husband and I wrote down a list of things we wanted God to do for us as early as possible in our marital life. We had this long list of furniture and gadgets we wanted to own and so I began to pray on this list. Just a small fraction of what was on that list materialized within the time frame we wanted them done. We didn’t go far at all with our request list.

About two years ago as I was searching through stacks of old papers and documents in one of my cabinets, I came across the same request list that we had written about thirteen year ago that I was praying about. I smiled when I realized that all that was on the list had actually been done and achieved in bigger measure and we never even realized it. I showed my husband the list and was about to start going on about how good and faithful God is, when he made a comment that halted my excitement. He said it took us about ten years to get the manifestation of what we wrote on the list, and I began to think. That statement really dulled my excitement, but then it occurred to me that it wasn’t God’s fault that we had the delay, it was our fault. The years we had spent fighting each other rather than working together, the years we had been living together yet separated at heart didn’t count.

Matthew 18:19

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

Matthew 19:4

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.’”

The passages above says if two of you on earth agree about anything and ask, it will be done for you by God, but what happens if two don’t agree? That simply means their request will be on hold until they agree. There are some request that needs to be presented to God in agreement and one of such request are the request that originates from marriage. The Bible tells us that “for this reason a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will be one flesh” any request coming from this source must come in agreement before God. The two who have become one flesh must come in agreement to make a request before God. Until the agreement is reached and presented in its proper form, the request is put on hold and unattended to. And that was what delayed the answers to the prayer list drafted by my husband and I. We drafted the request in agreement, and presented it in agreement and afterward the unity between us broke down and we stopped to be in agreement with each other and God put our request on hold till we sorted out our differences and reunited.

Its like when you have a joint account and the mandate on that account is that both must sign before disbursement/withdrawal is made. So you cannot receive any payment on any cheque presented on a joint account unless the two required signatures are on the cheque leave. So if you have only one signature on your request document, you request will be returned to you to go get the second signature. That is how the issue of marriage is.

If you probably feel God is blessing you alone in a marriage and you think you don’t need any agreement with your spouse, I can tell you for free that you are shortchanging yourself. The Bible tells us that one would chase a thousand, but two will chase tens of thousands, so you would be achieving more when in agreement with your spouse than you would have achieved alone. And its not just a simple addition of just a double portion but its coming in geometric multiplication, so you would achieve more together than alone and at the end of the day you would shortchange yourself on your lone struggle.

The devil has conveniently helped us to boost our pride while subtly looting us of our inheritance in God and so we focus more on the wrong done to us by our spouses and the need to avenge ourselves of this wrong than to pursue peace and unity with our spouses and let God right the wrongs in our marriage and handle the wrongs done against us by our spouses in ways He knows best. 

Its not important who is wrong or right in your marriage, the important thing is that you understand that while being single you had a personal account in heaven, you could approach God as a single person, pray to God and have Him answer your prayers based on your personal account in heaven. But when marriage sets in, your account status changes, your account is automatically merged with that of your spouse and in heaven you are no longer two separate individuals but one both in flesh and in spirit maintaining a single account in heaven. So when you are presenting a request before God its one account bearing two signatures. That request needs to be presented in agreement with your spouse for it to receive express attention from God.

One of the ways you can still make use of your personal account in heaven is when you are praying for your spouse and you are praying for your salvation or his/hers. But it is important that you understand and appreciate that your account status in heaven has changed once married and to make withdrawal from heaven’s store house you need to obtain the agreement of your spouse.

What my husband and I experienced on the issue of our prayer request is being experienced by countless marriages today and so it is important that couples do all that they can to maintain the unity of their marriage and approach all matters as a unit and not as separate entities. When they do, they have better success in all they set their hearts to do. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says two are better than one because they have good returns for their labor. 

"The Marriage Handbook" is a collection of more than 200 of my previous blog posts on marriage issues. It is a must have for married couples today and those intending to marry, as it helps you know and understand the principles of God in every area of your marital life, and how to apply these principles and make them work for you. You don't have to struggle through your marriage because God is willing to help you through it and when God is in it, the best awaits you. To get the hard copy of "The Marriage Handbook" please click here and to get the Ebook, please click here

There is so much being said nowadays about tithing and giving to the house of God. While some are confused about giving, some think its just the men of God using the Bible to take undue advantage of worshipers. What does it mean to give to God? What are the acceptable ways of giving to God? How do we give God a sacrifice that pleases God? These are questions that you will find answers to in the book "The Sacrifice that Pleases the Lord." It's worth just a token for the value of information it contains. To get a copy of "The Sacrifice that Pleases the Lord" click here and to get Ebook, please click here

"Gleanings from the Throne of God" is the first book I ever wrote and has been the favorite of a lot of people who have read it. It contains an understanding of the mind of God on a lot of issues that bothers around our everyday life. This book is Christianity made easy. When you understand why God made His rules for mankind, then following those rules is not as difficult any longer. "Gleanings from the Throne of God" contains the present day explanation to the things of God as found in the Bible in ways that you find easy to relate with. Do you desire a walk with God? Then "Gleanings from the Throne of God" is the book for you.  To get a copy of "Gleanings from the Throne of God" click here, and for the ebook click here.

The Making of a Successful Marriage

Welcome to the last month of the year 2017. It’s a year that personally I can’t complain about. I have taken stock and I can say will all confidence that God has been very good to me. I have not gotten all that I want from God but I have gotten more than enough to be grateful for and if God has brought me this far, I know He can and will take me through the full length. So I am thanking God and I believe you are too.

One thing I always do with God is that I love to ask Him questions. You know our little children love to ask any and every question so much that they get on your nerves with continuous questions about the same thing over and over again? Well that is how I am with God; I just want to know why and when and how of everything that concerns me.

Just like everyone else I did think that God was being fair when He instructed the wives to submit to their husbands in everything as unto the Lord. I assumed that it was lesser task for the men to love their wives than for the wives to submit their husbands, more so when you have a husband who is so unloving and lacks regard for your person as a wife and as a woman. God said in Jeremiah 33:3 that we should call on Him and He will answer us and show us great and unsearchable things that we do not know, so I took God on His words and I began to ask questions to know why He would say that women should submit to their husbands knowing the mindset of the men He created and how badly some men treat their wives. And up till now God has not changed the rules or updated them considering the trend in the world today.

God being faithful and true to His words gave me the answers to my questions and now I have a better understanding of the instructions and laws of God in marriage. For a man to progress in life and enjoy the fullness of God for his life some key values are very essentially. First as a married man UNITY in his marriage is a prerequisite to success in all other areas of his life. Unity in his marriage leads to peace of mind which enables him/her to focus for success and pursue goals without distractions.

The all-knowing God who knows the end from the beginning made the laws of marriage such that it fosters unity and encourages the peace that the man and his wife needs to have all round success in every area of their lives. When you rebel against the laws of God in your marriage for whatever reason, you jeopardize the unity of your marriage and compromise the peace of your home and in turn forfeit the successful life that God has earmarked for you.

Going against the law of God for your marriage and encouraging people to do the same is like a sin of rebellion against God. But I know that a lot of women who have had to endure a lot under the heavy yoke of a bad marriage would wonder why and how submission in marriage would encourage unity when they don’t even have peace with all they have sacrificed for the marriage? To this category of women I will say that no challenge is a waste and know for sure that what you are going through when committed to God has an expiry date when you have learned from the hands of God what He has purposed for you to learn through that challenge.

When you submit to your husband as unto God as an act pleasing to God, the Lord is bound to turn the situation around in your favor. If He did it for me, He will do more for you because He is not a partial God. When you submit to your husband like God wants you to and you are a prayerful wife, God will turn your husband’s heart to love you like he should. And in the same manner when a man loves his wife in the way and manner God wants him to, it’s just a matter of time before God turns the heart of his wife to submit to him like she should such that the unity that brings success will reign in their lives. It’s important to know and understand that just one of the spouse in a marriage working it right and working it out with God is enough to turn a bad marriage into a good one. 

You might wonder what the connection between UNITY in marriage and SUCCESS in life is. Well I have shared it on this blog over and over again and I will share it again now. This secret is found in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, vs 9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.” This is just as straightforward as it is, they have a good return for their work. So when two work together they have better yield than if one is working alone. Then we also find in Genesis 11:6 which reads, “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’” This is the secret that the enemy of your destiny is mindful of and so he will stop at nothing to ensure that you and your spouse do not speak as one people with one language because he knows that if you do, nothing you plan to do will be impossible for you. And so in order to live above impossibility you need to ensure that you do all that you can with the help of God to ensure the unity of your marriage which is a key to your success in life. This is the time that we need to get smarter than the devil.

The UNITY that brings ultimate success is the unity between a husband and his wife because from the beginning of time God had made them one in flesh and spirit. There are no other two people that should be more united speaking as one people with the same language as the husband and his wife that God Himself joined together. The unity of these two with God watching over them breaks every barrier to success in their lives.

Now that we understand the role of unity in the success of our lives the next thing we need to really understand is relationship between love and unity and submission and unity. When you SUBMIT to your husband and not just merely respecting or esteeming him, you wake up the love in him for you. Your act of submission digs up the love of your husband for you. When you submit, it’s just natural that along with that submission is respect and obedience, and when you submit to your husband thereby obeying and respecting him you are invariably making him the king of your life. Your husband being a king confers on you the status of his queen. If you are the wife of a king then without any question or argument or analysis, you are a queen of his life. If there is no curse in place or external evil forces having a field day in your marriage, in a natural world a man tends to love a wife who submits to him, obeys him and respects him and is able to show some level of intelligence in the marriage. So as a wife who is praying, if you want your husband to love you then make him the king of your life, submit to him, obey him and respect him and see if you will not dig out the love in him for you.  

In the same way, when a man loves his wife unconditionally and sacrificially in the manner with which Christ loves the church he makes her his queen. I am a woman and I can say for a greater percentage of women that we will submit more to a husband who loves us and shows that he loves us than a husband who does not care about us. So the more a man shows unconditional love to his wife, the more he makes her submit to him. The more you make your wife a queen in your life, the more you become the king in her life. A man who loves his wife unconditionally earns the respect and obedience of his wife.

So putting this together, when a man loves his wife sacrificially and the wife submits to her husband in everything, they please each other. When they are pleasing each other, they are at peace with each other and when they are at peace with each other there is unity between them because they will agree on almost everything. When they cultivate that unity diligently, they are sowing seeds to their success. Don’t try to envy these category of people because they are not lucky like so many want to believe they are, they have worked hard to attain the level of comfort they are enjoying in their marital lives. They have identified some important keys to success and they are working hard to attain them.

But you and your spouse can enjoy what those that are assumed to be lucky are enjoying when you start to fight for the peace of your marriage by obeying the instructions of God for your marriage. After all the Bible says we should fight the good fight of faith.