Foundations Of Love
Beginnings
When Brent and I got married 12 years ago we had great hopes, dreams, and aspirations. We met in November and did an outreach together, it was a great success and we were so thankful God had moved so mightily! While dating we sat down at a Starbucks and wrote out different things we could do together for the Kingdom, we were so excited to take it all on! Timing is everything and after we were married our expectations were that we would go and do these things. Reality was we were just married and we had to figure out how to become one before we could truly work together. Inspiration was there, but the means to make it a reality was not within our grasp just yet. We had to build a foundation of love.
Foundations
Our first several years of marriage were mainly focused on the basics that are foundational. We both had Jesus at the center of our lives, we had the same beliefs, we loved each other so much, but that isn’t enough to have a strong marriage. You need to have other things to make it work such as trust, respect, and learning to communicate. So many of the essential ingredients were there, but we had to put them together following a recipe that has stood the test of time. The Bible.
Principal For A Strong Marriage
The principal of love has to flow in your relationship each day. This doesn’t just happen. You and your spouse have to work hard to wake up each day, die to yourself, and extend mercy. When you and your spouse come together in marriage you are like two rivers meeting and learning to flow in one direction . Love comes out of our relationship with Jesus, so we have to make sure we make Him a priority. When I was single this was so much easier. Spending hours praying, reading the word, and doing what I wanted. I only had to take care of myself. Love is something you need to receive daily, it comes from time with the Master and pours out from you as you go through out the day building a strong foundation of love in your marriage.
Order
Order for our marriage is so important! If you don’t get this right, God will keep taking you back to the beginning until you get it right. You and Jesus, your spouse and Jesus, husband and wife, then children, and everything else. We get out of order as circumstances change in our lives and we have to go back to that strong cornerstone, Christ Jesus. We have to make sure work, children, hobbies or even each other don’t take first place in our lives. When they do it gets a little shaky. We need this order that God has set up to remain in a state of balance and peace. He is the sure foundation!
Boundaries
After we establish order, prayer, the word, and love in our marriages, we have to set up house. We need a set of rules and principles that define who we are, what we believe, personal convictions, and lines we won’t cross. This should take place before marriage as much as possible, but since most aren’t even thinking past the wedding day, now would be a good time to sit down and write out what we believe. Before children come we need to decide on discipline, lines, what we believe for their education and what we will be doing for their spiritual education. Do we pray together, read aloud the bible, how we will act, dress, etc.?
If you don’t think these matter or that we will just deal with them as they come, I’m afraid you will be in for a surprise. We need to know Who and what our family values are built on. These will probably be adjusted as a need arises, but the foundational truths and rules should not be changed with the event. Otherwise we be standing on sinking sand and see our family fall apart. We have seen it all too often.
Love For One Another
Love is a choice and an action. We choose how we treat each other, and if we want to show love to our spouse. As my husband and I grew in the Lord and toward each other, we genuinely found ways to make the other feel loved. How? Communication! Learning how to talk, respond instead of reacting, respecting one other and our views on different things. Once we worked on this,(we still do,) we started to create an intimacy that brought the fruit of patience, time, and trust. We needed to have communication to understand each others hearts and to love one another, which lead to a wonderful intimacy not everyone has. We know each other and respect that we both have ideas, thoughts, hurts, and bad days. This is all because we invested in our marriage. No one could do it for us, we had to muddle through the bad days, enjoy the good, and stand on the foundational of love through it all!
Serving
Serving Jesus together is a solid foundation we have built our marriage on. Have you ever noticed how much better you understand something when you teach it to others? When you stop thinking about all of your problems and reach out to someone else. We serve Him because He is our everything and because it is our reasonable service. But mainly it’s because Jesus love is so great for us that we are overwhelmed with loving Him. We want to please Him because of His great mercy. Once you see the great plan of God then you can serve others. The foundation of love that is set in your home and marriage then can be passed on to others that need this same great love. Our challenge to you is to find a place to serve in your church with your spouse. You will see that love multiply in such a way you will never be the same. We now, in the last couple years, are starting to accomplish what the Lord laid on our hearts when we met!!!
Scripture
Monday: John 15:12 says, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” You start by loving God, then you love one another as He showed His love to you!
Tuesday: 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” The bible is where we go to build foundational truths for our marriage!
Wednesday: Hebrews 11:10 says, “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God.” When we pray and spend time in the word we are looking for the sure foundation for our life and marraige!
Thursday: 1 Corinthians 3:11 says, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Our order starts with Jesus first!
Friday: Matthew 7:24 says, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:” Boundaries start with the word! Hearing and obeying it! This is a foundation of love in your marriage.
Saturday: Ephesians 5:33 says, “ Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”Showing love for one another is all about love and respect that you show each other.
Sunday: Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” This is a foundational truth of love in your marriage!
Contact
Please feel free to contact us at janene@happilyevermarried.org and read and share more blog posts at http://happilyevermarried.org
Thank you for investing in your marriage and you too can have a happily ever married marriage!!
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