Relationships

We are in a series about relationships called “Rip Up the List,” and today I’d like to conclude that series by talking about seven biblical truths about relationships.

1 Corinthians 1:10
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

Here in 1 Corinthians, we see God’s desire for relationships that we be unified in mind and thought.  Did you know you can be unified in mind but not unified in thought?  What’s the difference between mind and thought?  Well, if you have the mind of Christ you’ll have the thoughts of Christ.  To allow the mind of Christ to prevail, we submit our own opinion and our own thoughts to Christ.  You’ll know you have the mind of Christ when it contradicts the voice of the enemy.  

Here are seven things we can glean from the Bible about relationships.  Each one is a choice. 

1. All conflict can produce intimacy or division.  You choose.  

My wife and I used to fight a lot.  When we learned how to metabolize the fights into intimacy, our marriage was revitalized.  The problem isn’t conflict – it’s what you do with it.  The same argument can either produce intimacy or division.  Conflict through the mind of Christ produces crucifixion.  That crucifixion means dying to my agenda, my will, my way, which in turn produces resurrection.  Conflict through a carnal mind produces division that produces death.  If it’s my will vs. my wife’s will, we’re on our way to divorce.  But if my wife and I fight for God’s will, our marriage is transformed and strong. 

2. Forgiveness can be extended in the absence of an apology. You choose.  

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

The book of Ephesians is known for spiritual warfare, with strong imagery of swords and helmets and shields.  But there’s a different type of warfare that exists in this book, as well.  Kindness and compassion can dismantle and disarm in a way you never have before.  Kindness allows you to see something about someone that cruelty never could.  Kindness opens your eyes, while cruelty blinds you.  

Forgiveness doesn’t have to wait until an apology is offered.  Christians can forgive when nobody says they are sorry.  That’s so liberating because that means you can be free even if the offending party never offers an apology!  But you choose!  

3. It takes more intelligence to be one who encourages than one who criticizes. You choose.  

John 16:33
In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Philippians 4:6–7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

People think that the most intelligent leaders are the most critical leaders.  But it takes more intelligence to encourage than to criticize.  Criticism addresses what’s obvious, but encouragement addresses hidden potential.

1 Corinthians 14:3
Those who prophesy speak to people, building them up, and giving them encouragement and comfort.

If you want to be a prophet, the tip of your tongue should be seasoned with love. Think about how God talks to you, and then talk to others accordingly.  Our goal should be to love others with compassion.  Prophesy flows from a place of encouragement.  If you think you’re prophetic but you haven’t built anyone up, think twice.  

In the middle of my sin, anyone could have seen the worst about me. But my wife looked at me and said “You are a man of God.  You will plant churches” when I was the farthest from both.  And here I am today.  She built me up and my life is where it is according to her prophecy.  

4.  Assumptions can either be termites or worker ants. One erodes and destroys; the other builds and stores. You choose. 

Proverbs 6:6-11
Go to the ant, you sluggard;
    consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
   no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
    and gathers its food at harvest.

Termites and ants are both insects, but one erodes and the other builds.  One eats away and the other prepares.  You can choose to be like the termites or the ants.  You can build, work and prepare now, or you can eat and erode away.  It’s your choice!

5. Forgiveness is commanded, but reconciliation is conditional. You choose. 

The biggest question I get when I preach on relationships and reconciliation is “Do I stay?”  There are people in ministry I have forgiven, but they operate in such a carnal, demonic paradigm that God doesn’t require me to maintain a relationship with them.  Forgiveness and relationship are not synonymous.  Reconciliation and relationship are synonymous.

Sometimes you must exit a relationship to remain in peace.  Abraham and Lot had to part ways because they realized the land couldn’t support both of them.  There are times that the only way you can have relationship is from a distance.  

Matthew 18:15-17
But if your brother wrongs you, go and have it out with him at once—just between the two of you. If he will listen to you, you have won him back as your brother. But if he will not listen to you, take one or two others with you so that everything that is said may have the support of two or three witnesses. And if he still won’t pay any attention, tell the matter to the church. And if he won’t even listen to the church then he must be to you just like a pagan—or a tax-collector!

Jesus provides a template here for how we approach someone who has sinned against us.  We don’t go to our pastor, or our friend, or our connect group leader.  We go to the person.  You can have forgiveness, but it’s your choice.

6. You reflect what you expect. You’re mirroring what you’re fearing, or you’re reflecting what you’re expecting. You choose. 

Proverbs 10:28 
The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.

Acts 3:5 
And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 

7.  You do not lose control in a relationship, you reap what your control produces. You choose. 

1 John 5:14-15
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Check out our YouVersion plan “Rip Up the List: Renew Relationships” where Pastor Mike takes you on a 7-day journey through the seven phases of romantic relationships. Each day you will be challenged to rip up the list of failures and mistakes and pursue relationships that reflect God’s heart.

My Breakthrough Community is full of people just like you who are hungry for more of God. If you are interested in learning more, consider joining the Breakthrough Community!

Request prayer here.

Why is it so hard to have a healthy, whole relationship?  Maybe when we understand what real love looks like, we can understand where the challenges lie.  Insert your name in each of the blanks below and read the statements out loud – this is a love test!

The Love Test

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 

______ is patient and kind; ______ does not envy or boast; ______ is not arrogant or rude. ______ does not insist on their own way; ______ is not irritable or resentful; ______ does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ______ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

How did you do on the love test?  What percentage of statements that you read were actually true? if you failed the love test, let’s be honest – we all do. There is a way to actually be this person – patient and kind, not envious or boasting, not irritable or resentful (even when not caffeinated)… it’s through the inner working of Jesus through you.  

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside of your spirit, you become the hands and feet of Jesus.  The more you die to self and decrease, the more the Holy Spirit possesses you.  Where there is a root of love, there is the fruit of joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, endurance, kindness, meekness, and gentleness. 

If you go into a marriage relationship and you have a secular definition of love you’ll never love your spouse completely.  We are trained from a young age by culture to think that love is a feeling. And that feeling may get you down the wedding aisle, but it won’t get you beyond the wedding day.  Real love is sacrificial.  It’s the God-kind of love. 

Walking On Water

In Matthew 14, Jesus’ disciples are in a boat. Jesus comes walking on the water. They think he’s a ghost, but Peter gets out of the boat and starts walking towards Jesus. Why does he believe he can walk on water? 

To understand why we have to look at the cultural context.  Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, with Jewish disciples, living in a first-century Jewish world. Jesus grew up in a region called the Galilee.  People in this region believed that God had spoken to Moses and had given him the first five books of the Bible, the Torah.  Torah was the center of their lives and the focus of their educational system.   Most Jewish boys would go to school in the local synagogue around the age of 6.  This was the first, basic level of education.  By age 10, each boy would have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy memorized (impressive!).  After this level, most kids no longer attended school and would instead begin apprenticing in the family trade.  

The very best students would keep studying at the next level. At this next level, the best of the best would memorize the rest of the Hebrew scriptures, Genesis to Malachi.  The last and final stage was where the pupil would go to the rabbi and request to be able to follow them, take the yoke of the rabbi, and become his disciple.  

So this powerful rabbi comes to town, Jesus.  You hear about him – he has supernatural powers to heal people. You’re a fisherman, and you think you don’t have what it takes to operate at higher levels in society.  This rabbi, Jesus, comes to you and says, “Hey, come follow me!”  He sees potential in you that no one has ever seen.  You don’t even believe in yourself the way Jesus does.  To have a rabbi means not just to learn what they learn, but to do what they do and to follow after them.  

When Jesus beckons Peter to come out of the boat, it’s because Peter sees him in the distance and believes that his Rabbi has called him to something bigger.  These disciples hadn’t made it to the upper levels of rabbinical education. They weren’t considered smart enough by their former teachers.  But Jesus, this rabbi, saw something in them that others hadn’t.  He was teaching them supernatural ways.  He was taking them all the way.  

What Boat Are You In?

The question today is, what boat are you in?  Your boat represents your family.  Your anger problems. What is Jesus calling you out of?  In your boat, everybody is poor, but Jesus is calling you to something greater.  In your boat, everyone has anger problems or stops before their breakthrough.  But Jesus is calling you out of your boat.  He wants to take you all the way, too.  Maybe in your boat, everyone gets a divorce. But Jesus is calling you to be a water-walker.  

Research published by Carnegie Mellon University in the past decade showed that social support and belonging can reduce stress, heart disease and improve quality of life. Healthy relationships are healing relationships. 

Healing Relationships Vs. Hurting Relationships

Trust, honesty, and compassion are the three elements of a healing relationship.  Trust means you feel emotionally and physically safe and you don’t have to be on guard against being hurt by the other person.  Honesty is where both people in the relationship can reveal their true feelings without it causing harm to the other.  Compassion is where both people have the ability and willingness to understand one another and express kindness. These three elements don’t just apply to marriage relationships.  These elements are necessary for your relationship with Jesus and your relationship with others.  

On the flipside, pride, deception, and anger are the three elements of a hurting relationship. What kind of relationships do you want? Healing relationships or hurting relationships?

Proverbs 16:32

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Another translation says, “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.”  What if your warfare looked like patience?  What if you set your heart to stay patient and your breakthrough comes through patience?

Conquer Your Tongue

Instead of conquering anger, many become captives of their passions. Instead of thinking before speaking, they speak before thinking. Your tongue is like a little rudder on a big ship called your life.  And whichever way you speak, that’s the direction your life follows.  You say it, you believe it, and it happens.  If you don’t think God can do it, you will be right.  Not because God can’t do it (He certainly can), but because you have tied his hands with your unbelief.  Jesus went into regions where they didn’t believe in Him and no miracles were possible in those areas.  Lack of faith caused a lack of miracles.  

Conquer Your Anger

The battle facing you exceeds any military expedition. A city can be taken with a single siege, but you will fight the passion of anger for the rest of your life. Wars are fought by the efforts of many, but you must fight anger alone. The vigilance, effort, and patience needed to rule anger causes most men to forfeit the battle and become slaves to their own feelings. 

Repairing and Rebuilding

Life is like a precious piece of porcelain dinnerware.  As we go through life, we can collect chips and cracks.  And sometimes situations completely shatter us.  We just want to go back to the way things were before the relationship or the experience traumatized us. In our culture and society, we tend to throw things away.  We look at the fractures and the pieces and get overwhelmed, thinking that the pieces can never come back together again.  

It’s impossible to go back, but all we can do is begin the hard work of repairing and rebuilding.  Kintsugi is a Japanese process of repairing broken objects and turning them into something even more beautiful than they were previously.  In this art form, instead of hiding the cracks, they fill the cracks with gold, highlighting them.  Kintsugi celebrates the rebuilding process. The thing that was worthless now carries more worth than an unbroken item. 

Allow Jesus to put you back together.  There’s no wasted pain.  Show off your healing. Give your brokenness meaning, don’t throw away the pieces. Show off the hard work of rebuilding. Show off how good God is. The cracks are a part of your story, not the end of your story!  Don’t hide, highlight!

Check out our YouVersion plan “Rip Up the List: Renew Relationships” where Pastor Mike takes you on a 7-day journey through the seven phases of romantic relationships. Each day you will be challenged to rip up the list of failures and mistakes and pursue relationships that reflect God’s heart.

My Breakthrough Community is full of people just like you who are hungry for more of God. If you are interested in learning more, consider joining the Breakthrough Community!

Request prayer here.

We are starting a series called “Rip Up The List.”  In this first part, we will talk about fighting fair (because we know fights will happen) and how to have a healthy relationship. The first relationship problem ever recorded in history was not started by the couple; an outsider started it. 

Genesis 3:4 (ESV)
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.”  

In a sinless, perfect world, the origin of the first relationship problem was Satan speaking to a woman and convincing her that what God said was wrong. Think about that! The man and the woman agreed that what God said wasn’t true, which produced the fall of humanity.

Names for Satan in Scripture

If you read through the Bible and underline the names of Satan, you’ll discover a great deal about him. Here are some of the names of Satan you can find in the Bible:

• “Your adversary” – 1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV)
• “The serpent of old” –Genesis 3:4; Revelation 20:2 (NKJV)
• “The accuser of the brethren” – Revelation 12:10 (NKJV)
• “An angel of light” – 2 Corinthians 11:14 (NKJV)
• “The deceiver” – Revelation 12:9 (NKJV)
• “Apollyon,” “the destroyer,” – Revelation 9:11 (NKJV)
• “The evil one” – John 17:15 (NKJV)
• “A murderer” – John 8:44 (NKJV)
• “The prince of the power of the air” – Ephesians 2:2 (NKJV)
• “The ruler of this world” – John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11 (NKJV)
• “The tempter” – Matthew 4:3 (NKJV)

Do You Sound Like Satan or Your Savior?

Rip up the list of failures and relapses. Rip up the list of going back to pornography. People who use pornography have accepted the lie that they will never have true intimacy. Some of the most depressed people are addicted to pornography. They are convinced that they will never find true love, so they might as well find passionate lust. But the Holy Spirit beckons and says, “Come unto me all those who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  

Rest from what? Addiction. Rest from the lies of the enemy. 

You might be bearing a heavy burden of your marriage, but the Bible says that a three-fold cord is not easily broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12). The reason why your relationship is broken is that you never wove Jesus into it. If you weave The Everlasting into that three-fold cord, then it will be unbreakable. 

Satan Perverts but Jesus Purifies

I heard an incredible testimony of a young girl who lost her virginity after believing in the way the world uses their sexuality. She decided that she would reignite her passion for God and marry pure. She resealed her virginity and saved herself for marriage even though she had previously lost her virginity. She said that her wedding night was the most incredible experience of her life – so pure, holy, and passionate. She said, “If I could go back to the younger me, I would say the world’s way doesn’t work. God’s way is better.”  

Rip up the list that says you’re damaged goods and that you’ve gone too far. You’re forgiven as far as the east is from the west. You are separated from your sinful nature, and you never have to go back.  

Passion is holy, but lust defiles. If you can’t go back to the beginning, let Jesus erase the stains of the past. I can’t go back to the beginning of my marriage, but every time I mentor someone early in their marriage, my pain has a purpose.  

Satan Destroys What Jesus Builds

1 John 3:10 (ESV)

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

We are either children of God or children of the devil. The Bible says you will know them by their fruit. The world knows us by how we love. So there has to come a point when you say, “I will not just be a hearer of the word but a doer of the Word also.”  

Rip up the list of impossible standards and love your spouse for who they are!.  When you rip up that list, you acknowledge that even on your best day, your best behavior wasn’t perfect enough to save you. Treat your spouse like Jesus treats you. He loved you at your darkest! Do you love your spouse at their darkest? He committed to us when we were at our worst. Destroy the stronghold in your mind that stops you from loving your spouse in reality.  

Check out our YouVersion plan “Rip Up the List: Renew Relationships” where Pastor Mike takes you on a 7-day journey through the seven phases of romantic relationships. Each day you will be challenged to rip up the list of failures and mistakes and pursue relationships that reflect God’s heart.

My Breakthrough Community is full of people just like you who are hungry for more of God. If you are interested in learning more, consider joining the Breakthrough Community!

Request prayer here.

When your spouse needs deliverance, what do you do?  My wife and I married in our early twenties.  We wanted to serve the Lord in ministry, but we were also very young and naive.  I was dealing with a lot of brokenness from my childhood which manifested in foolish, sinful choices.  These choices affected our young family in major ways.  Very early on our marriage was troubled, and my wife found herself living a story that was nothing like the fairytale she had imagined.  Where do you turn when the person you married is nothing like you thought they were?

When your spouse needs deliverance, realize you are not God.

The most important thing to remember as you seek deliverance for your spouse is this: you are not God.  If you think you are going to be the savior of your spouse, they are never going to receive deliverance.  This is a job you cannot do.  Let Jesus do the deliverance!  However, there are things you can do to create an atmosphere for Him to move in your marriage.  Here are some steps you can take.  

Go back to your origin story.

When I met my wife Julie, I knew right away that I wanted to be with her.  She, however, didn’t feel the same and held me at arms-length for a very long time before she eventually fell madly in love with me.  Every couple has an origin story of how they first met one another.  Sometimes it’s love at first sight.  Sometimes (like our story), one person isn’t interested at all in a relationship and takes a little warming up.  Regardless of how your story as a couple began, you eventually find yourself in love, starry-eyed, and looking towards the future.  Go back to your origin story.  There was something that caused you to fall in love.  Something drew you to one another.  Refresh your memory of why you fell in love in the first place.  Remember what your story was like before all of the hurt and unforgiveness came into play.  

Be the redeemer.

Stop complaining that your spouse won’t change, and you do the changing.  In every broken relationship, someone has to be the redeemer.  That’s what Jesus did with us.   He was blameless, sinless, and loved us first.  Our relationship with God was broken due to OUR sin, not His. And yet Jesus laid his life down for us.  He was our Redeemer.   Redemption is giving someone something they don’t deserve.  That is the heart of Jesus. 

Maybe your spouse rightfully deserves the scowl or the silent treatment.   Perhaps every word they say when they open their mouth starts fights and bickering.  Maybe they are lucky you still even live in the same house. And maybe you feel like you could serve God better without them in your life.  But that train of thought is not of God.  (Note: situations that include addiction and abuse are extremely complicated and I can’t begin to address all the layers in this brief blog, so please seek godly counsel on how to proceed).  

But if you really want to be like Jesus in your relationship, then you have to be the redeemer. Pastor Jimmy Evans says, “Somebody’s gotta do the right thing first.”  God wasn’t waiting for us to clean up our act before He sent Jesus.  Jesus gave forgiveness even though we didn’t deserve it, He gives us love even though we don’t deserve it, He gives us His Holy Spirit even though we don’t deserve Him.  This is the heart of God, to give what we don’t deserve.  Be that person to your spouse.  Give what you want in return. Do the right thing first, and see God move in your marriage.  

Build a culture of forgiveness.  

There are two ways you can tell someone that they messed up: you can either call them out, or you can call them up.  Call-outs are usually rooted in an angry or vindictive spirit. Calling them up signals to them to come up higher in their behavior.  Calling them up is rooted in a spirit of forgiveness.  In the middle of our marriage crisis, there were times when my wife came to me and said, “I chose to forgive you for____.”  I didn’t even know I had hurt her!   But she had intentionally decided that our home was going to be one where forgiveness was the culture.  

Anger produces more anger.  Violence produces more violence. You can’t fight a spirit with the same spirit.  It is fought with the opposite spirit.   You can only break a cycle by applying an opposite spirit.  If you want a home that is peaceful and life-giving, you have to build a culture where the opposite spirit is in effect. 

If you apply the same bad spirit that your spouse is using, you’ll continue living the same issues over and over again. Apple seeds make apple trees.  You will reap what you sow in your marriage.  Anger, bitterness, hatred, harsh words all produce that same fruit.  Forgiveness produces forgiveness. 

I hope this blog gave you some applicable strategies for dealing with a spouse who needs deliverance.  Remember – you can’t save them, only Jesus can.  Remember why you fell in love and how you started out together.  Be the redeemer and offer your spouse the thing that you need, even if they don’t deserve it.  And build a culture of forgiveness in your home.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the marriage series my wife and I have, where we answer some of your biggest questions on marriage..

My Breakthrough Community is full of people just like you who are hungry for more of God.  If you are interested in learning more, consider joining the Breakthrough Community!

Request prayer here.

We hear the word “soulmate” often in reference to relationships. But what happens when the butterflies of new love fade and the rose-colored glasses come off?  What happens when you realize the person you married isn’t as perfect as you first thought?  Or what happens when you go through a huge relationship crisis and the dreams you had for your marriage are shattered?  You might ask yourself, “Did I marry the right person?”  This is a great question, and I think in order to find an answer to it, we need to look at the question itself.  

Is There One Right Person for Me?

Who is the right person?  Some would say there isn’t one right person.  However, I believe that God has a “best” for our lives.  When we look at the story of creation, we see that God created Eve from Adam.  The very first human-to-human relationship was incredibly intentional.  It was not random.  Eve was God’s best for Adam and indicates that God has a first choice for us.  But what happens when we mess up “God’s best”?  Or what happens when we choose to marry a person out of desperation, or even sin?  I believe that God can take a not-so-good decision that we’ve made and make it into the best decision.  Why? Because God honors covenant.  

God Loves Marriage

God established a covenant with His people, Israel, in the book of Genesis (specifically Genesis 15, 17, 26:3, and 28:13).   He promised to be faithful to them and to set their nation apart as His holy people.  In exchange, Israel promised to consecrate themselves and serve only Him. Despite this promise, Israel was faithless, sinful, and unbelieving. They turned to other gods in place of the one true God.  Despite Israel’s faithlessness, failures, and idolatry, God never broke His covenant with them.  God uses marriage over and over again in the Bible as a metaphor of His unbroken dedication towards His people.  And in the New Testament, He uses marriage to show the covenant between His son, Jesus (the groom), and His church (the bride).  Marriage is important to God!  

What If I Chose the Wrong Person?

Maybe the person you chose to marry wasn’t the optimal choice. Regardless of how your marriage began, I believe God can turn your partner into His best choice for you.  

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

While you may not start out as your partner’s soulmate, I believe that you can become their soulmate.  As imperfectly matched as you and your spouse may be, you can become perfect for each other over time. The definition of marriage is “two people outserving one another in love.” As you and your partner serve one another, you will grow to be perfect for one another.  If you embrace this definition of marriage, the fights and disagreements you faced in year one will become distant memories. 

What if My Spouse is Not On Board?

This may all sound good theoretically, but what if your spouse is not on board with the idea of saving your marriage?  What if the idea of you and your spouse outserving one another is a distant dream?  What if your spouse is far from God, or you’re in the middle of a separation?  What if your marriage is really awful?  I want to preface my answers by saying that each marriage has its complexities.  I don’t want to paint with broad strokes or encourage you to stay in a situation that is unsafe.  However, I do want to encourage you to have faith for what seems impossible, even in your marriage.  The same God who stopped a murderous hunter of Christians, Saul, in his tracks and turned him into the Apostle Paul, is capable of turning your spouse and your marriage a full 180 degrees.  Your marriage is not beyond His touch.  

The Marriage Bank Account

Marriage is like a bank account where you make deposits and withdrawals.  If you’re broke relationally, the reason is similar to why you might be broke financially.  If you make too many withdrawals and not enough deposits, you won’t have enough in the account to sustain it.  You can’t continue to take and take and take from your relationship and expect success.  You have to continually make deposits to have a healthy relationship.  Going out of your way to serve one another is a way to make deposits.  Marriage counseling makes deposits back into the relationship. Praying for your spouse makes deposits into your relationship account.  All of these little things you do add up to create a surplus over time.   Don’t give up too soon – keep making deposits.  Keep praying.  Keep serving.  Keep loving.  Keep calling out the good.  Keep getting outside help. God is faithful.  And he wants to use your marriage as a testimony to others of His saving power.  

1 Corinthians 7:16 (ESV)
Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?

How do I know what I’m writing here is true?  I know because God did this exact thing with my marriage.  Years ago, I was the one who was far away from God, ready to throw my entire relationship away.  My wife had every biblically justifiable reason to leave me.  But her prayers and the attitude she took towards me completely transformed the trajectory of our marriage.  I am writing this today saying it IS possible.  God can take what feels the furthest from ideal and turn it into His best.  

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the marriage series my wife and I have, where we answer some of your biggest questions on marriage..

My Breakthrough Community is full of people just like you who are hungry for more of God.  If you are interested in learning more, consider joining the Breakthrough Community!

Request prayer here.