Month: September 2020

‘“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.’ Matthew 6:19-21(NLT)

Every couple can experience passion in their relationship for the rest of their lives. It isn’t for a lucky few. It isn’t for those who marry their perfect “soul mates.” It is for every couple that is willing to do what I’m about to explain. Here is what Jesus said in Matthew 6:19–21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Jesus’ words contain the absolute secret of passion in any relationship. He was telling His disciples to invest their lives in the things of God and not to focus on the things of this world. And He concluded with a powerful sentence: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

To understand the importance of that statement, let me help you understand the meaning of two words Jesus used in the original language. In the Greek language that the New Testament was written in, the word for treasure is thesauros. It means treasure or wealth. But it also means a treasury, or the place where we deposit our wealth.

The second important word in Jesus’ statement is heart. It is the Greek word kardia. It means the seat of our emotions and passions. Here is a paraphrase of Jesus’ statement in Matthew 6:21: Wherever you are depositing the treasures of your life, your passion will be there also.

Jesus knew if His disciples were investing their lives in worldly things, they would lose their focus and passion for Him. So He wisely exhorted them to lay up their treasures in heaven. He did this because He knew an important truth: You cannot separate your treasures from your passions. In other words, you will always be most passionate about the people, pursuits, and places where you are investing the best of your life. Your passions will always follow the investments of your time, energy, and strengths.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.’ 1 Peter 2:21-25(NLT)

‘In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.
Husbands
In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.’ 1 Peter 3:1-7(NLT)

Submission is an attitude of humility and trust in God. A gentle and quiet spirit isn’t a mousy, beaten-down spirit. It is the spirit of a strong woman who trusts in a big God to change her husband. And because she trusts in God, she doesn’t have to act unbecomingly.

The promise to women in 1 Peter 3 is powerful. They are told that they can change their husbands without a word as they treat them better than they deserve while trusting in God. That is the essence of redemptive love.

Husbands are exhorted to redeem their wives by living with them in an understanding and honoring manner. This means men accept and respect the differences in their wives and don’t put them down or demean them. It also tells men to treat their wives as equals, as fellow heirs of the grace of life. And it tells men if they don’t treat their wives properly, their prayers will be hindered.

The bottom line is that God takes it personally when we mistreat each other. God loves our spouses and desires to love them through us—even when they aren’t doing the right thing. This doesn’t mean we should enable abusive or destructive behavior. That behavior requires tough love and occasionally some very serious action. However, this scripture addresses times when we are suffering because of the behavior of our spouses.

What do we do? We redeem them using Jesus’ example. Many of the greatest marriages I have ever seen, including my own, were the result of a godly wife or husband who had the courage and faith to do the right thing first and redeem the marriage.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:11(NLT)

After coaching and counseling thousands of people, I can confidently say that I have found a massive, gaping hole in society. It is around affirmation. By my estimation, it is holistically missing in the world today. Sure, we encourage one another and say thank you; but clean, accurate affirmation is so rare that when it happens to a person, it virtually creates an addict.

Let’s take a deeper look at this problem by understanding the difference between praise and affirmation.

Praise has everything to do with what you do.

Affirmation has everything to do with who you are.

Clearly these two ideas are not the same and need to be treated differently. . . .

Praise is what we offer someone who does a good job…

Praise is a direct response to the actions of an individual… Praise has an encouraging effect and makes us feel good. It helps to be recognized for what we’ve done, and gives us a little bit of a high for a few minutes.

Affirmation, on the other hand, has everything to do with who we are.

Because affirmation is about identity, it has certain requirements. In order to affirm me, you actually have to know me. I mean really know me. Your attempt to affirm me has to be accurate, true, and right. If it’s off by even one degree, then the affirmation attempt simply falls to the ground. It doesn’t work or stick if you use inaccurate information. If you really knew me, you would get the affirmation right; but if you don’t, then even a close-but-not-spot-on affirmation can result in the reverse of what you were probably hoping for. . . . Imprecise affirmations leave me feeling suspicious of your motives, and I don’t know if I can trust you.

In a marriage context, this is huge.

Praise has its place in every marriage because it honors the spouse for effort and recognizes work that is done. It can transfer thankfulness—an important trait in a healthy marriage—and display gratitude, which is another important component. However, its usefulness ends with acknowledging action; it has no power to recognize uniqueness. Praise cannot say to your spouse: I see you. On the other hand, affirmation can and will say: I see you. There is no way to truly affirm someone without his or her feeling seen and understood.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”’ Mark 10:45(NLT)

To succeed in marriage you have to meet needs you don’t have. This requires a servant’s heart. The best marriages are two servants in love. The worst marriages are two selfish people in love.

Thousands of times in marriage your spouse will have a need that you don’t have. If you are only willing to meet a need in your spouse that you share, you are effectively rejecting the differences in your spouse and holding your marriage hostage to your desires. But understanding your spouse’s different needs is only the first step. It only makes a difference if you have a servant’s spirit and are willing to meet your spouse’s needs with a good attitude even though you don’t necessarily share the same need at the same time.

Some people have the mistaken notion that in some marriages, both the husband and wife share all the same needs at the same time. They operate under the misconception that if they marry their “soul mates,” then they don’t really have to work at the relationship. Everything moves effortlessly as they share their lives together in a constant flow of matching needs and easy passion.

If you believe any of that nonsense, then consider that bubble popped. A real marriage requires work and meeting needs in your spouse that you don’t have. Passion and intimacy flow out of the shared experience of sacrificially serving each other through good times and bad.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.’ Psalms 139:13-14(NLT)

Minimization is any language or behavior that downplays a strength or holds it back from its full potential. Perhaps you feel a little embarrassed about your strength, or perhaps from the time you were little you have been told not to draw attention to yourself and your strength. Sometimes people downplay their strengths because they think they will be perceived as arrogant or prideful, and consequently they back out of a bold contribution because it has been shamed in the past.

It is very common to believe it is boastful to draw attention to yourself. At the heart of this conditioning—which many of us endure as we grow up—is the idea that we are all equally wonderful, so there is no need to make yourself stand out… Each of us is remarkably unique, and to minimize that irreplaceable uniqueness is to rob the world of a contribution that cannot come any other way. We need to avoid minimizing our strengths because of shame or any other reason.

Some people downplay their strengths because of blindness, meaning they simply don’t know their strengths are anything special. Our strengths have been with us from our first breaths, and as a result, they feel completely normal. To say they are special just seems silly. As a result, anytime anyone praises us for excellence or remarks at our strength, we just knock it down because it doesn’t even ring true. We might think, Yes, it’s true I can do that, but it’s nothing special. Anyone can do that.

This is not correct. Your contribution is completely unique. Although others could replicate a task, no one can replicate your version, speed, accuracy, technique, and insight.

The remedy here is to recognize and acknowledge that you have amazing strengths, and that your unique use of them (as improved by skill, experience, and knowledge) could very well be a world-class performance.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.’ Ephesians 4:29(NLT)

For a man to successfully communicate with his wife, he must encrypt every word with security. Regardless of what the conversation is about, she must hear through the tone of his voice and his attitude something like this: Honey, you come first. You are the most important thing in my life, and you are worth anything else I need to sacrifice. You are not a burden to me. You are the love of my life. Even if I don’t get what I want, you will get what you want because I will do anything to make sure you are taken care of.

When a wife hears security in her husband’s words, she relaxes and can hear what is being said. And, of course, a husband must follow through with his words to make sure her need for security is met on every level. And let me tell you, from more than forty years of experience, when you sacrifice to meet your wife’s need for security, there is a big payoff. It is worth whatever you have to do.

But men are different. We don’t have the same need for security. Our mega-need is honor, so we see life through that lens and hear everything through that filter. Regardless of what is being said to a man, if he discerns disrespect in it, he will reject it. . . .

Because of this, a man will naturally gravitate to the place he gets the most respect and avoid places or people that make him feel disrespected. When a wife is communicating with her husband, she must understand this reality. Everything she says to him must be encrypted with honor and respect. Regardless of what she is saying, he must hear in her attitude and the tone of her voice something like this: Honey, I believe in you. You are a good man and you have what it takes. I am your cheerleader and your biggest fan. We are on the same team and I am committed to you…

If you married a normal woman, she needs security. If you married a normal man, he needs respect. Learning to speak in your spouse’s language is essential to successful communication. When both spouses learn to encrypt their language with their mate’s mega-need, communication reaches another level as intimacy and passion grow as well.

from Strengths Based Marriage

For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. Ephesians 5:22-30(NLT)

After forty-three years of marriage and having counseled thousands of couples, it has become very clear that we can look to the Bible to understand the basic needs of men and women.

As an example, aside from the basic need for love, the number one need of men is respect. This can be seen in Ephesians 5:22–24, where it says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything” (NASB).

This does not give men the right to dominate but rather empowers women to love their husbands through sacrificial honor. Therefore, the deepest wound a man can experience is disrespect or dishonor. When a wife praises her husband, she is not only meeting his primary need as a man, she is also healing the wounds of his past.

Besides love, the primary need of women is security. Ephesians 5 goes on to say in verses 28–30, “So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.”

Little girls and women need to know that they are going to be cared for, nurtured, and protected by a selfless, sacrificial man. When a husband creates an atmosphere of security for his wife, he is meeting her primary need as well as healing any wounds she might have from her past of abandonment, lack of nurturing, abuse, and so on.

from Strengths Based Marriage

‘“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. ‘ Matthew 6:14(NLT)

Forgiveness isn’t just something we do once to put the past behind us. It is something we must do every day—especially for those closest to us, such as our spouses. If we don’t forgive, we hold grudges and keep points. Before long we grow bitter. Bitterness is a justice spirit that won’t go forward until it receives the satisfaction it desires.

The more bitter we become, the more hardhearted we become to our spouses and others. We grow more cynical and cold, sarcastic and mean-spirited. And we fall out of love and wonder why we ever got married in the first place.

One of the most important disciplines in marriage is to never go to bed angry—ever. Not at our spouse or anyone else. Even if others are unwilling to say they are sorry or work things out, we can forgive them. It is a critical discipline to keep us emotionally healthy and to keep our hearts tender toward each other.

Here are some sayings I like concerning forgiveness:

Forgiveness doesn’t make the other person right—it just makes me free.

The inability to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.

Unforgiveness damages the vessel that stores it worse than anyone you can spit it on.

Forgiveness is the most self-loving thing we can do.

Is there anyone in your past or your present life you haven’t forgiven?

Are you holding something against your spouse?

Do yourself a favor and forgive. Put your grievances in God’s hands and trust Him to handle them. He will and you can be free to live and love.

from Strengths Based Marriage