Choices Part 4: My Marriage
Life is made up of choices. Our life is comprised of the choices we make. Our choices determine the outcome of our lives and our eternal destiny. It is important to make the right choices.
“Today I am giving you a choice of two ways. And I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses of your choice. You can choose life or death. The first choice will bring a blessing. The other choice will bring a curse. So choose life! Then you and your children will live.” -Deuteronomy 30:19 (ERV)
Our choices not only affect ourselves, but our choices also affect those around us. In fact, our choices have the potential of affecting people we may never know. The choices you make can impact the life of someone, who will in turn pass the result of that influence on to someone else. Depending on your choice, the impact may be positive or negative.
Part 4: My Marriage
"Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills." -Song of Solomon 2:8 (NIV)
God 's plan for you and your marriage is better than anything this world has to offer you.
"How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Your neck is like the tower of David, built with courses of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense." -Song of Solomon 4:1-6 (NIV)
1. Choose to Change
4 Precursors to Divorce:
1.Criticism
2. Expressions of contempt
3. Defensiveness
4. Stonewalling
2. Chose to Understand God's Heart for Marriage
"Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her? What was his purpose in this? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people. So make sure that none of you breaks his promise to his wife. “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel. “I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife.” -Malachi 2:15,16 (GNB)
“'Why then,' they asked, 'did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?' Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.'” -Matthew 19:7-9 (NIV)
“But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!" -Psalm 81:11-14 (NIV)
3. Choose to Follow God's Will in your Marriage
"Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind;" -Psalm 26:2 (NIV)
4. Choose to Come Together as One
"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." -Genesis 2:24 (NIV)
5. Choose to Follow Godly Principles in your Marriage
1. Patience
2. Forgiveness
3. Commitment
4. Maturity
"My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies." -Song of Solomon 2:16 (NIV)
"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife." -1 Corinthians 7:3,4 (NIV)
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." -Ephesians 5:21 (NIV)
Love is a Choice.
"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." -Colossians 3:14 (NIV)
Being loved gives us the capacity to love.
"We love because he first loved us." -1 John 4:19 (NIV)
"And I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love." -Ephesians 3:17,18 (GNB)
