Jesus was looking forward to this day His whole life. A day when He would declare the reason for coming to this world, and when He would begin the final time of ministry in His life.

What I love about the Lord is that He clings to the advice that’s being given to Him through the Spirit of God as He goes forth in His ministry. And when it comes to marriage, it is critical to follow God’s advice.

I got some crazy advice before I was married, so let me give you a couple pieces of sound advice.

Number One: You don’t have to be married to be faithful to marriage. In fact, I would say the best place for you to start preparing yourself for a godly and blessed marriage is before you get married.

But if you are married today, there is no better day for a change to start. Stop looking for a way out. Stop looking for a loophole. Start being faithful and stop looking for excuses.

Number Two: Who you are right now is what you bring to your marriage. That means you need to start being genuine like Jesus when He declared what He was called to do and who He was called to be.

Maybe who you are right now needs to change in order for there to be more genuineness in allowing God to use you in that marriage that He’s either preparing you for or placed you in.

Prayer –
Heavenly Father,
Thank You that You are always wanting to show me how to be the best spouse I can be. May I clearly hear and follow Your advice.
Amen.

Jesus Christ came on the scene and said, “I want to repair what was broken in the garden, and bring you the life that you were always meant to enjoy.”

And life abundantly is what Jesus has come to provide. He’s not here to squash on our fun or to somehow treat us like puppets. But we’ve got to follow His plan. You have to submit to that in order to be satisfied by that.

The difficulty with submission is that we want our name to be honored. And yet here, when we follow God’s plan, it’s to be His holy name that is honored.

Adam and Eve enjoyed the blessing of the garden. They enjoyed the blessing of God’s paradise because they had submitted themselves to it. Now, when Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands, it doesn’t say because they deserve it. It doesn’t say because they’re lovable. No. It just says because this is fitting in the Lord.

And God is saying, “Nothing looks better on you.”

In other words, this is what He loves to see you in. This is what brings Him pleasure. This is what He likes. And so it should be you, as a wife, saying, “I want to please the Lord. And what is fitting unto Him is when I wear this.”

Wear what? Submission. Which is the entire theme of Scripture for everyone.

Prayer –
Lord God,
I want my life to be fitting and pleasing to You. Show me how to live a life of submission to Your will.
Amen.

This is what’s important for us to realize: the reason Paul starts with wives is because we are all called to submit. It isn’t just something that they do. Guys, you can’t say, “Wow, I’m glad I don’t have to do that.”

No, you have to do that. We all have to do that. And if we don’t, we miss out on the reward and enjoyment of what the Lord has in store for those who obey.

Even the employer, even the company president, even the one that thinks that he runs the company because he owns the majority of the stock has a Master in heaven that he or she is submitted to.

When we do it God’s way, here’s what happens. He’s glorified by our lives and we are the recipient of the blessing because we’re satisfied. And there is not a more satisfying life, I promise you, than one that is submitted to obeying God’s instructions.

When we don’t do it His way, life’s a pain. That’s why the divorce rate is so high, because we have chosen not to do it God’s way. We’ve said, “No, that isn’t right. That just doesn’t fit. That’s not culturally acceptable. That’s not politically correct.”

We create so much pain and misery and heartache for ourselves when we follow our own plan.

Remember, God’s original plan was paradise for you. He created it with man and woman in mind to enjoy forever.

Prayer –
Father God,
I know that obeying You and Your ways is always best for me, but my selfishness gets in the way. Help me to be totally submitted to You.
Amen.

Yesterday we began to look at principles of blessing for marriage that God wants you to know. Here are a few more.

A Rewarding Marriage is a Defended Marriage.
He is saying, “I’m putting watchmen on the wall. I want your marriage to be defended and protected.”

You’ve got to defend and protect your marriage daily. Defend it with all you’ve got. You get a picture of it in Nehemiah when he’s told to rebuild the walls. You need to provide the safety and assurance and defense that your marriage desperately needs.

A Rewarding Marriage is a Strengthened Marriage.
Never stop working on your marriage. There are always some rocks that need to be cleared. If there are logs that have dammed up the flow of love in your life, then remove them. Get in there and roll up your sleeves and start working to strengthen your marriage.

A Rewarding Marriage is a Marriage that is Not Forsaken.
God says, “I will not forsake you, and if you will not forsake your marriage, then you will be the ones that are sought out by the world.”

The reason God has us on this planet is so people would see what He has done in our lives. And through that work, they would seek for it themselves.

Prayer –
Heavenly Father,
I am ready to roll up my sleeves and build up my marriage. Help me to follow Your direction as I do.
Amen.

I think today we’re living in a time where the majority of people aren’t aware how much God desires to bless their marriage and their life. But He wants your marriage to be rewarding in every way. And I want to give you some principles of blessing the Lord wants you to know.

A Rewarding Marriage is an Honored Marriage.
It’s as if He says, “Listen. I know that you’re living in a time and in a society and a culture where marriage isn’t really honored all that much, but I, as your God, want you, as my child, to be rewarded, to be blessed.”

And the reward and blessing comes by honoring what God honors.

A Rewarding Marriage is an Enjoyed Marriage.
God says, “I want you to enjoy your bride. I want you to enjoy your husband. I want you to rejoice over this blessing that I have given you.”

Whether you’ve been married five days or 50 years, He wants you to be enjoying it. Even if you haven’t enjoyed it for a while, it can become fresh and new once again. Read the Song of Solomon together and you’ll learn one thing: how much God wants you to enjoy this love that He has for us and the love the He gives to us to enjoy in marriage.

Prayer –
Heavenly Father,
I want to see my marriage the way You designed it. Help me to strengthen it by honoring my spouse and enjoying our relationship together every day and in every way.
Amen.

Let me break it down for you. Your life should be energized by excitement. You should be as excited as I am about Jesus.

Your life and your marriage should be energized by enjoyment. You should be enjoying this, not simply enduring this.

Your life should be passionate, energized by expression. You get to bring to the table your own expression of what God has done for you in your marriage, in your business, in your relationships.

And your marriage and life should be passionately energized by enthusiasm. The word enthusiasm has “theos” in the middle of it, which is God. God wants to fill you with His passion.

That’s excitement and enjoyment and expression and enthusiasm.

So my question is this, why aren’t more people passionate? Why aren’t more Christians passionate? Why don’t more people live this type of life? You know why? Here’s what they say to me. “Well, because, Bob, under the circumstances …”

That’s your problem. You’re still under the circumstances. And God wants to raise you above the circumstances and give you a passion for life. Your sins have been forgiven, your name is in the Book of Life, you’re going to Heaven, He loves you and has passionately put His life inside of your empty life, inside of your empty marriage.

God is for you, so who could prevail against you?

Prayer –
Heavenly Father,
I often fail to fully embrace the excitement for this amazing life You have given me. Help me to be contagious in my passion for You.
Amen.

God is passionate about you. Did you know that? God is passionately in love with you and God wants your life to be filled with that. He wants you filled with more than faith, more than prophecy, more than anything; He wants your life to be passionately filled with love.

You say, “Bob, problem here. I’m not a passionate person.”

That’s what he wants to change today. God wants you to be passionate today about Him. You see, nothing great has ever been accomplished in this world if it hasn’t been accomplished out of passion – even Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. You see that picture of Him on the cross and what this passage in First Corinthians is telling us, if it wasn’t done, even by Him, out of a heart of love, then it wouldn’t accomplish what it was set out to accomplish.

This is passion, described and displayed like never before. The Savior of the world would come and die on a cross for our sins. And He did it not out of duty, He did it out of love and did it out of passion for you and for me.

Life is boring without passion. In fact, I would go so far as to say you’re not really living if you’re not passionate. Passion is what energizes our lives. And God is ready to fill your life with His love.

Prayer –
Father God,
You sought me and saved me by Your great love. May my life be filled with the passion and love that only You can bestow.
Amen.

Here are four more topics that will arise in any conflict. How you deal with them will determine whether you find the way of peace or stay on the crooked path.

The third topic is the issue of information – what you bring out and lay on the table. If you’re being constructive, then the information will be complete and it’s going to be honest. Don’t be guilty of selective hearing, selective remembering or selective information.

Another issue is blame. Conflict is never one-sided. You both need to accept blame for your role in the conflict. Putting all the blame on your spouse never works.

Next is the outcome. What do you want the outcome to be? The constructive outcome is simply this; that both of you win.

The final, and maybe the most important point, is the topic of intimacy. You know, I would have to say two of our three kids are the result of conflict resolution. Because if you constructively go about this conflict resolution, there should always be a great make-up session to follow the fight. You’ll enjoy the peace and joy and harmony that the Lord desires for you to have in your marriage.

The point is, you need to collaborate. That means you’re willing to work through this together and place a high value on a successful resolution. God wants you to trust Him to help.

Prayer –
Lord God,
My goal in most conflicts is to be right. I commit myself, with Your help, to work toward an outcome where my spouse and I are both winners.
Amen.

So much of the time I see in marriages the lack of peace. The reason the peace isn’t there is because we have approached the conflict incorrectly.

Conflicts are going to come, gang. But when they come, we have a choice as to whether we’ll respond correctly to that conflict or incorrectly, whether we’ll approach the conflict constructively or destructively.

Here are two great questions for you to ask in the midst of the conflict. First, how important or unimportant is satisfying your needs? Then, how important or how unimportant is it to satisfy your spouse’s needs? If you can answer those questions, you’re able to honestly gauge whether or not you’re approaching the conflict constructively or destructively.

I want to give you six general things that pop up in any conflict. And how we address them when they do pop up will show us whether or not we’re on the path that leads to peace or whether we’re on our own crooked road.

The first is the topic of issues. You need to clarify what the issue is in order to deal with it constructively. If you don’t, you end up bringing in all kinds of issues that are unrelated.

The next topic is our feelings. We’re emotional creatures and feelings are going to come and boil to the top. When negative feelings come up, pull on the positive feelings for your spouse to bring resolution.

We’ll look at the remaining topics tomorrow.

Prayer –
Father God,
I admit, there is conflict in my marriage and I don’t always handle it right. Help me to see Your peace reign in my marriage.
Amen.

In this section of Ephesians you see the context of the marching orders a wife receives to live out this influential and very valuable role. And amazingly enough, God gives you options in this. Here are three options He is giving you.

You can walk carelessly or you can walk carefully. Eve chose both. She walked very carelessly in an un-submissive heart to her husband and the Lord and it got her into a bunch of big, bad trouble. And then she learned from that and became a woman who submitted herself to God’s plan and said, “You know, we got our son from You.”

The second option is thinking foolishly or with understanding. That’s what He says. He says to think through this and understand it and not foolishly walk away from what the Lord’s plan is, which is to bless you in this marriage.

The third option is simply this, to be filled with or be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, or to be filled with the Spirit of God. In other words, to be filled with the spirit of this world or to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

Your decision on which option you choose comes down to your submission. You are either submitting to live carelessly, foolishly, and drunkenly, or choosing to submit your life to walking carefully, understandingly and following the role of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Prayer –
Heavenly Father,
I choose to live my life in submission to You and Your will and Your plans for me and my marriage. Help me to hear and heed the voice of Your Spirit.
Amen.