There is such a great need in this hour that if we who have strong marriages and homes can have vision for helping hurting marriages, our own marriage will even get better. If you have gone through a broken marriage, God can
God Can Rebuild Your Life So You Will Avoid Making The Same Mistake That You Have Made In The Past
reconstruct your life and either use you to help other people as a single or lead you to remarry. God can rebuild your life so you will avoid making the same mistake that you have made in the past.
Here are some issues that cause difficulties or areas of conflict in the marriage relationship.
1. Pride
James 4:6 says,… God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.” Pro 16:18 says, Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. A proud person will not receive the grace of God.
We’re in a generation now in which many children have grown up in divorced homes. They’ve gone through tremendous hurts. If they don’t receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit, they’ll enter a marriage relationship with past scars and wounds.
This is an hour for the Church to rise up as never before because of the number of people who are entering marriage from a totally different perspective. We are in a materialistic, selfish generation. When you get two selfish people together, you have war. They want to grab, they want to get and they want their own way. In fact they demand it.
Not one of us is exempt from pride or demanding our own way in certain area of life. We need to pray, “Lord, I humble myself.” To compromise God’s Word is wrong, but there is a time when a marriage partner must give in to the other individual. In a family relationship, compromise demands that you give a little and you find a place of common ground.
In many situations today, people demand all of what they want. They don’t want to give an inch. It’s better to have harmony and peace than it is to get your own way, because where there is strife and envy, there is confusion ad every evil work. James 3:16 says: For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there. This means that even if you get your own way through fighting and demanding, you’ll lose ground. You’ll lose peace and harmony.
2. Unforgiveness.
Unforgiveness can cause great difficulty in marriages and families and it’s really tied in with pride.
In Mark 11:25 the Lord says, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
Isn’t it wonderful that we can be forgiven? “….though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; through they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” Is.1:18
Some couples keep score and they can do an instant replay on things that have happened over the last 25 years. Sometimes in marriage, the husband hits the hurt button that charges his wife, or the wife hits the anger button that charges her husband and suddenly the replay is on.
A forgiver is a forgetter. A person who says, “I can forgive, but I sure can’t forget” has not forgiven, for forgiveness and forgetting are one and the same. When God says, “I will forgive you,” He is saying that He will remember your sins no more. Hebr.8:12 Forgetting is an act of the will.
3. Unmatured Fruit
One of the problems in marriage and family is that we have majored on everything but the fruit of the Spirit. You can go to any junior college or university and get a degree, but where can you go and get a degree in the joy of the Lord? The peace of God? The love, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?
Which degree will bring the most lasting results in life? If there is somebody who is joyful in the home, it will bring healing. Somebody who is longsuffering and has the peace of God in a relationship will bring healing to marriage difficulties. Can you imagine a family where the husband, wife and children are all walking in the love of God? They have the fruit of love.
We have to mortify the works of the flesh so that we can develop the fruit of the Spirit. For example, if you’ve got an angry attitude, don’t blame your Irish heritage. Don’t blame t on your ancestry. Call it what it is: it is the flesh. It needs to be crucified and that means, “put to death.” Do you know that a marriage and home can get sweeter as the years go by? How? The fruit gets better and sweeter.
4. Spiritual Maturity
Spiritual maturity really goes hand in hand with allowing the fruit of the Holy Spirit to mature in the human spirit. In your marriage relationship, if one of you has more spiritual depth and maturity than the other, don’t become so superspiritual that you hinder the growth of your mate. Encourage them, speak words of faith to them, and frame them with the Word of God.
Many times husbands draw back in a shell because the wife becomes outspoken concerning the things of the Spirit of God. It’s God desire that you minister to your mate and love them on their level. This may require you to go to ball games or fellowship with them where they are, but if you don’t reject them, shove them out and make them feel put down and less than you, they’ll come alongside spiritually.
5. Jealousy
Jealousy is another area of conflict in marriage. Pro 14:30 (AMP) says, A calm and undisturbed mind and heart are the life and health of the body, but envy, jealousy, and wrath are like rottenness of the bones.
Don’t give place to jealousy in your life. Jealousy is a result of insecurity. If you have had jealous feelings about your mate or anyone else, ask God to remove the feelings from your life. Ask Him to heal you. Go to the Word of God and fins all the scriptures on that area and begin to confess them over yourself: “I am not jealous. I am secure in You, Lord Jesus. I walk in the love of God.”
6. Criticizing You Mate in front of family and relatives.
When you tell your mother and father negative things about your mate, they’ll never forget. Later on in life, when you go through a difficult time in your marriage, your family will remember the negative things you spoke against your partner. They will bring them to attention: “Remember, he did this and she didn’t do that!”
7. Criticizing your mate in public.
Another area of conflict is criticizing your mate in public. That’s one of the most destructive things that can happen in marriage, whether it’s an open attack or subtle sarcasm. It’s a tremendous commitment to make – never to put down or to cut down. Everyone may be laughing about your mate because of the real cute word that you said, but inside, you’re destroying your relationship. You’re destroying your intimacy. God tells us to speak words that edify and build up.
8. Nagging.
Pro 27:15 says, A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. This is referring to nagging. Women tend to nag more than men, but men are quite capable of nagging, too. If you present yourself in a peaceful way, God will take care of you, but nagging will get you nowhere.
9. Being “long” on words.
Pro 10:19 says, In the multitude of words sin is not lacking: but he that refrains his lips is wise. In other words, with a multitude of words is sin.
It is important to pray before you confront your mate about something. You need to pray in the Spirit, asking that the Lord will help you come across with a positive, loving attitude. Too many times, people who are honest and frank, but who don’t pray before they confront, stir up more strife.
It’s like the pendulum that swings two ways. On one side the person will never open up and be honest enough to say anything to the other partner and on the other side the person is totally honest, open and frank about everything. However, they stir up strife because they don’t know how to walk in a balance and share at the right time. There is a time to share and there is a way to share.
10. Don’t try to be your mate’s Holy Spirit!
Don’t try to squeeze your mate into the mold of what you think he or she should be. The Holy Spirit is well able to do that. Romans 12:2 in the J.B Phillips translation says, don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Thus you will prove in practice that the will of God’s good, acceptable to him and perfect.
11. Demonic spirits have been released against marriages.
I don’t think most people are aware of the demonic spirits that have been released against marriages. Many people don’t know how to pray with authority or how to resist the devil. After you’ve humbled yourself in the sight of the Lord and submitted yourself to God, you are to ….Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
The devil attacks and destroys marriages and some people end up saying, “I don’t know what happened.” The demonic spirits that are attacking marriages must be dealt with in prayer.
We must know the authority of the believer, how to pray in the Spirit, how to appropriate the promises of God by faith, how to stand and resist the devil with the shield of faith and how to use the sword of the Spirit (the Word) – for we are in a war. You must fight for everything that has meaning to you.
Some people act as though they are in a daze. You have to put your foot down: “In Jesus name, the devil will not have my family, my home and marriage or my future home or the home and marriage of my parents.”
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