People say their marriage vows: “I will love you and comfort you and keep you in sickness and in health. Forsaking all others, keep unto you as long as we both shall live.  Take you for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part.”

We dutifully tell each other that. But unless we bring the fruit of the Spirit into our marriage, these vows are impossible to keep.

If you get married with the idea that the person you’re marrying is going to transform your life – turn you into a loving kindly, gentle, cheerful, happy person, you’re mistaken. Marriage is first of all a matter of your spirit, and marriage will reveal what kind of spirit is in your heart.

Philippians 2:1 gives us some practical advice for marriage. “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy ….” The interaction we have with our spouse comes from God, not from what’s happening around us.

Does this describe you? Is Christ living in you, helping you to love your spouse, or are you trying in your own strength to make the relationship work?

Verse 2 of the same chapter in Philippians tells us, “Make my joy complete: be of the same mind.” Many times we are unable to move on to verse 2 because of the condition of our own hearts. That may be why you are having trouble with your marriage.

The choices you make in your hours together will determine what kind of a relationship you are going to have with each other. The condition of your relationship will reveal the condition of your heart. According to Philippians 1:2 your goal in marriage is this: “Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” You need to work at being of the same mind!

To do that Philippians 2 verse 3 instructs you to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.” Selfish ambition – pretty strong words! Are you looking out for yourself or for your spouse?

For every two people in the marriage bureau, there’s one couple ending up in divorce court. Why? Because to have your own way is more important than the marriage. Being “like-minded” is a command of God, a basic fundamental requirement of any two people that have to work together. Being ‘like-minded” is tough – the circumstances of our lives are always changing, but the commitment to be “like-minded” can help you navigate the difficult places in your marriage.

Take a step . . .
Ask God to bring to your mind one way you can reach out to your spouse in an unselfish way. Then make yourself do that thing!

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This is a summary from Dr. Brandt’s manuscript Marriage God ’s Way.

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Your job as a couple is to create some boundaries and rules that will guide you in your marriage. But if you’ve never created any rules before, and you or your partner don’t like rules and boundaries, it won’t be an easy task.

One of the reasons this process is so difficult is outlined very clearly for us in Isaiah 53:6: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us have turned to his own way.” We’re all human, wanting to do it our “own way.” But the reality is one can’t have it their way and make mutually agreeable rules and guidelines. If your attitude is “my way is more important to me than the marriage,” you won’t be able to function as a married couple.

The good news is that your marriage doesn’t need to be a failure. If you find you have the problem of self-centeredness, talk to God about it, He can change your heart. Ezekiel 36:26 tells us, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” There’s hope my friend, and it’s in God!

Take a step . . .
Take a few minutes to think about your marriage relationship: Why did you initially marry your spouse? What qualities do they possess that you appreciate? In what ways do you want your “own way” in the relationship? Ask God to change your heart toward your spouse in whichever way you most need it – be open to His leading.

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This is a summary from Dr. Brandt’s message Marriage.

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This is a summary from Dr. Brandt’s message Marriage.

The demands of a child will keep you constantly aware of your spirit, your diligence, and your sincerity.

Guiding children is a long, hard, demanding responsibility. But so is any rewarding job. Expending the energy to interact with one another is part of living. Parenthood is a twenty-year-long haul, and it becomes the most demanding when children are in their late teens.

Guiding children requires that parents set limits for their children, which notably demands working together to set limits, but also to administer them. Thus, parenthood is a continuous, ongoing test of the marriage partnership. Not only must limits be set, but as a child or children grow older, they need to be adjusted. All of this requires good will and cooperation between parents.

Interacting with people is tiring. There are good days and there are bad days. One day you have happy children. Another day it seems they are grumpy all day long.

Some days all goes smoothly. No one is stepping over the limits or challenging the calls. Other days you are called upon to make some debatable decisions. Guiding children isn’t something that interferes with your life-it’s part of life. Half the battle in parenthood is accepting the task and the never-ending surprises and frustrations that keep coming up.

Setting limits and dealing with the inevitable resistance from the children to some of the limits is a real test of the marriage. There is either cooperation or competition over setting the limits and how to supervise them. You are doing or requiring something you believe is worthwhile and in the best interests of your child. If you hold on to that conviction, you will have enough conviction to see it through.

If parents are competitors rather than partners, they will likely have two sets of limits-one set when mother is home alone, another set when father is home alone.

The result? Bedlam. Or withdrawal of one of the parents from the discipline process. The children will begin to play one parent against the other.

You will either enjoy the job or it will irritate you. You either cooperate with your partner or you compete. You either diligently rise to the demands of the job, or you neglect it.

You build your own self-respect or self-love as you cooperate with your partner in setting limits and administering them…as you remain loyal, cooperative, submissive, and committed to do all in your power to guide your children into becoming wholesome, happy, contributing adults.

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This is an excerpt of chapter 11 from Dr. Brandt’s book I Want Happiness Now! currently available as an e-book.

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There is no one person as intimately involved in your life as your marriage partner. So, your partner will make you more conscious of your inner life than anyone else. How are you contributing to happiness in your marriage?

Attitude

With your partner in mind, consider these verses:

• But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him(Col. 3:8-10).
• On the other hand, with your partner in mind, consider these verses: Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against any one; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you (Col. 3:12-13).
• …be subjected one another in the fear of Christ (Eph. 5:21).

The will to cooperate is an important key to building self-respect. Cooperation implies that both husband and wife make the decision to dedicate time and effort in developing a mutually agreeable way of life.

Submission

No matter how committed you are to cooperate, it is inevitable that sooner or later you will become dead-locked over some decision. There is a way to settle a dead-lock if you are committed to resolve the divisions between you.

Someone must have the last word. The Bible says:

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord (Eph. 5:22).

In the decision-making process, the wife should participate vigorously and forthrightly in the search for a mutually agreeable solution. The husband should think twice, or more, before going against his wife’s judgment. If the wife still disagrees with her husband’s tie-breaking decision, she should say so. The husband has two options when there is a deadlock: 1) Make the decision himself, or 2) Ask his wife to make it. Once done, both husband and wife submit to the decision and do all in their power to make it work.

Commitment

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25).

As I travel around the country, I am appalled at the number of individuals who are walking away from their marriages and calling it quits.

If a man approaches his responsibility to marriage as Christ did toward the church, then the man will be committed until death. He will submit to the responsibility for maintaining a wholesome relationship with his wife. There may be a period of time–perhaps years–when he has no choice but to stand by a totally rebellious, obnoxious, rejecting, or immoral woman, whose behavior is not worthy of his loyalty. His self-respect will remain intact if he retains the will to make it work, even though all his efforts are rejected.

Conversely, the behavior of many husbands can be totally obnoxious, mean, self-centered, even immoral. They may make no effort to be responsible husbands. They may totally reject any responsibility for the marriage. Yet, the will to stay committed will sustain a woman’s self-respect.

…you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior (1 Peter 3:1-2).

Sexual Responsibility

Sexual response dies when there are deadlocks and ill-will between the partners. Accordingly, when you do not respond to one another, look elsewhere for the reason.

There is a specific directive in the Bible to guide you in managing your physical relations:

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time that you may devote yourself to prayer, and come together again lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control (1 Cor. 7:4-5).

Clearly, your partner’s wish is your commandment. Obviously, the spirit here is one of mutual concern for one another.

Marriage, like no other human relationship, will keep you up to date on the condition of your inner life. It is a personal decision, unrelated to marriage, whether or not you repent of a negative inner life, and allow God to flood your soul with His Spirit.

You build your own self-respect or self-love as you remain loyal, cooperative, submissive, and committed unto death to do all in your power to make the marriage work.

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This is an excerpt of Chapter 10 from Dr. Brandt’s book I Want Happiness Now!

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That scripture’s standard doesn’t leave much lee-way, does it? There’s little room for individuality or for you to do your own thing. But those who proceed into marriage with an individualistic mindset create disharmony in their relationship, and usually end up lonely and unhappy.

However, when two people come to the place where they have the same mind, the same judgment, the same outlook, and the same goals, yes, they have given up their individuality, but they don’t lose their creativity. The relationship is centered on cooperation rather than opposition. They are working together.

Cooperation creates the oil that makes an effective relationship possible. And the golden thread that runs through that oil is love. Not the kind of love the world offers, that is stimulated by other people and other things, but the kind of love that God gives you. His love enables you to let go of your own way.

His love will allow you to relate to the other person with an attitude that is described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (presented here in the Philips translation).

The love of which I speak is:

Slow to lose patience.

It looks for a way to be constructive.

It’s not possessive.

It is neither anxious to impress, nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

Love has good manners, and it does not pursue selfish advantage.

It is not touchy.

It does not compile statistics of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people.

On the contrary, it is glad when truth prevails.

Love knows no limits of its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope. It can outlast anything, and it is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

When you have this kind of love, you have what no human being can give you – you have the foundation for building an effective marriage.

Take a step . . .

Do you have this kind of love? If not, and you find yourself struggling in the midst of holding on to your own individuality, take a moment to open your heart to God in prayer, asking Him to fill you with His kind of love.

“Lord, I’ve been wrong. Forgive me for wanting my own way. Fill me with your spirit of love that will allow me the security to let my individuality go. I want my creativity to be centered on cooperation with my spouse, rather than opposition. In Jesus Name, Amen.”

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This summary is from Dr. Brandt’s message Key to a Successful Marriage.

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