"Three signs of a healthy marriage", Thames Valley churches of Christ

Would you like your marriage to have a healthy purpose? Obi & Peju shared openly, vulnerably and passionately about three signs of a healthy marriage.

• “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.” (Proverbs 29:18 NIV11)
• “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” (Proverbs 29:18 MESSAGE)
• “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.” (Proverbs 29:17–18 NLT)
• Do we have a vision for our marriage?
• Three aspects to vision….

1. Fighting on purpose
   • Revisit arguments
   • Push past pain of past - from earlier life as well as present tension
   • Understand triggers
   • Vision for peace at the end of the review process
   • Safe people helpful to involve in the process
2. Loving on purpose
   • “Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant.” (Genesis 4:1 NLT)
   • “Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.” (Proverbs 5:18–19 NLT)
   • “The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:3–5 NLT)
   • “Our” needs, not "mine"
   • Find a way to talk about sex
   • Don’t use intimacy as a weapon
   • Use intimacy as a powerful connector
   • Pray the scripture promises into your marriage
3. Serving on purpose
   • How can we serve together?
   • Value what the other brings.
   • How can we be a team?
   • “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27 NLT)
   • “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT-SE)
   • “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.” (1 Peter 4:10 NLT-SE)
   • Committed to something beyond us

Questions

Think through your marriage vision.

What’s next?

Where are you going?

How do we want to fight, love and serve?

 

Come back for the next class soon.

 

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