PAYING THE PRICE FOR A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE

First, let me congratulate you over your decision to become man and wife. Aside salvation decision, marriage is one of the greatest decisions anyone can make.

Marriage is status conferral. It confers on you the status of honourability (Hebrews 13:4) and responsibility. The moment you are married, society considers you an honourable person. Your status of as a man or woman changes. When you meet the man, you would ask, “How is Madam?” and when you meet the woman you would ask, “How is Oga?” You are now “Oga” and “Madam.”

No matter how highly placed you are, if you are not married, you are not considered “responsible.” No matter how poor you are, the moment you are married you are considered “responsible.”         

Aside your decision to marry is your decision of who to marry. Who you marry is critical because it will determine what your life on earth and in eternity will be. Your life can be made a living hell on this plane of existence or a foretaste of Heaven on earth. Socrates once advised:

By all means marry. If you get a good wife (husband) twice blessed you will be; if you get a bad wife (husband) you will become a philosopher.    

Today, I want to speak to you on what I captioned: Paying the Price for a Successful Marriage. It is said that you cannot make an omelet without breaking an egg. You want to eat an omelet? You have to sacrifice at least an egg or two.

For every PRIZE there is a PRICE. Marriage is the only institution you do not graduate from until you die. In marriage, you are a student for life. Some people think that marriage is all dovy: we do not quarrel, we love ourselves, etcetera. It is all a lie. You have to work on your marriage to make it work.

To make your marriage work, first:

1. BURN THE BRIDGES

“So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant” (I Kings 19:21).

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24).

In marriage, a new relationship is created. Previous relationships become inconsequential. All admirers and admirees should cease. Your parents should now play only advisory roles, not directors.  

2. AVOID COMPARISONS

^“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” (II Corinthians 10:12)

Avoid comparing your wife to your mother and avoid comparing your husband to your father. Do not compare each other to just about anyone. To do so is to hurt and destroy your union.  

Do not compare your friends’ wives to your wife and do not compare your friends’ husbands to your husband. Do not compare your marriage or family to another’s.    

3. NOURISH AND CHERISH

“So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” (Ephesians 5:28-29).

Marriage is not a restaurant where we are called to be served, but to serve. One of the duties of man and woman in marriage is to feed each other.

Feed to be fed.

Many people come into marriage with “Entitlement mentality” in which they expect to enjoy certain privileges. Men have their expectations while women have theirs.

It takes sacrifices for a couple to Nourish each other. Nourishing your spouse should be a holistic affair: physically, emotionally and psychologically. You have to forget yourself for your Significant Other.   

4. AVOID “STOLEN WATER”

“Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” (Proverbs 9:17-18).

Marital fidelity is not a subject to trifle with. It is a grave matter. It is not only a sin against your spouse, but against God, society and yourself.

Stolen waters may be sweet and bread eaten in secret may be pleasant, but know that death is the end.   

5. BEAR WITH EACH OTHER’S WEAKNESSES

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.  Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2).

One of the mistakes we often make in marriage is to think that the person we marry is an angel, not a human being. Even angels have their weaknesses.

In marriage, you marry both assets (strengths) and liabilities (weaknesses).

CONCLUSION

Woman, make RESPECT for your husband the pivot of your relationship with him. (Ephesians 5:22).

Man, make love for your wife the pivot of your relationship with her (Ephesians 5:25).

Avoid anything that will make you to keep secrets from each other.    

   

A HEARTY SERVICE TO GOD

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. – Colossians 3:23-25, NASB

Your decisions determine your destiny. The decisions we make today determine how our lives will turn out in future. Our eternal destinies are determined by the kinds of decisions we make today.

The greatest decision anyone can make in life is the decision to serve God. Investing in God’s Service pays the greatest dividends. In the days of Prophet Malachi, people felt it was “useless to serve God.” Consequently, they cast aspersions on serving God and made mockery of those who did. At Malachi 3:13-15, God said:    

“Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the Lord. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of Hosts?  So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up, but they also test God and escape.’”

In spite of the society-wide disinterest in serving God in Malachi’s days, a handful of people who knew the value of serving God continued to meet together and encouraged one another to keep faith alive. At Malachi 3:16-4:2 we read:  

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name. “They will be Mine,” says the Lord of Hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of Hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” - New American Standard Bible (NASB)

God does not just pay, He rewards! The difference between pay and reward is that while PAY (a verb) means “To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or service,” REWARD (a noun) is “something of value given in return for an act.” At Hebrews 11:6 we read:

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.    

At Matthew 19:29, God gives us a snippet of what reward is, “hundredfolds” (NKJV):

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.

One classical example of reward for serving God was that of Hebrew midwives who decided to key into God’s agenda and jettisoned Pharaoh’s instruction. At Exodus 1:15-21 we read:

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.” So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. (NASB) 

When we serve God, He rewards us.  

KING DAVID: AN EXAMPLE OF ONE WHO SERVED GOD HEARTILY

Two outstanding testimonies about King David resonates throughout recorded history, which should lead conversations and define the narratives about man’s most important work on this plane of human existence:

“I have found David, Son of Jesse, a man after my heart….”  (Acts 13:22).

Why?

Because “… David served the purpose of God in his own generation….” (Acts 13:36). 

These two testimonies are inseparable: one would always lead to the other. “Serving the purpose of God in one’s generation” is another way of saying that “someone served God.”  

Without equivocation, the most important thing anyone can do in this life is to SERVE GOD. It is the services we render to God that really counts in the whole of eternity. Our secular callings, as important as they are cannot be equated to the spiritual services we render to God, yet they remain the primeval channels of our services to God. It needs to be emphasized that everything we ever achieved or can achieve in this life aside our services to God will pale into insignificance.

Serving God is not a tea-party affair. It is a call for self-denial and sacrifices. It implies living for God (Micah 6:8) and being  subsumed in His Will – to love what He loves and hate what He hates (Psalms 97:10; Hebrews 1:9).

WHY SHOULD WE SERVE GOD?

1.     God is the epicenter on which our lives revolve (Acts 17:26-28).

a.     An Arabic saying has it that “All mankind come from God, live in God and will go back to God.”

b.     New American Standard Bible’s translation of II Corinthians 8:6 is very apt:

“… yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from Whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” 

2.     Scripture testifies that our individual and collective goals should be: “Dead or Alive – To Make God Happy!” (II Corinthians 5:9).

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SERVING GOD?

1.     We are direct beneficiaries of our services to God.

Job 22:2-3says,

Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?

Proverbs 9:12 corroborates Job 22:2-3:

If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.

2.     God honours those who serve Him.

“If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” – John 12:26.   

 At I Samuel 2:30 we read:

Therefore the Lord God of Israel declares, ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever’; but now the Lord declares, ‘Far be it from Me -for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed.

           At Psalm 91:15 -16, God assures:

“He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. “With a long life I will satisfy him and let him see My salvation.”

3.     Serving God adds to our eternal accounts.

“For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.” – Hebrews 6:10

Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. – Philippians 4:17

4.     Serving God singles us out for distinction.

So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of Hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.   

5.  Serving God makes us productive all year round                             

“Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green, to declare that the Lord is upright” – Psalm 93:13-14

WHAT SHOULD BE OUR RESPONSE?

          In view of the foregoing benefits of serving God, what should be our responses?

1.     Fervency in Spirit.

Writing to Romans Christians, Apostle Paul enjoined, “…not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11).

a.     The word, “Fervent” means “passion.” When you apply passion to what you do, you are said to passionate. When one is passionate, he/she simply injects life into what he/she does.

b.     God wants us to inject life into our services to Him.

c.      Jesus was passionate in His Services to God. At John 2:17 after they saw Jesus cleanse the Temple of all manners of abuse, Jesus’ disciples remembered the portion of Scripture, which spoke of Jesus, “Passion for Your House will consume me.”  

d.     King Jehu was passionate in his services to God. When he met Jehonadab at I Kings 10:15-16, we read:

Now when he had departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him; and he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” And he gave him his hand, and he took him up to him into the chariot. He said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” So he made him ride in his chariot.

e.      In spite of their challenges, Macedonian Christians demonstrated cheerfulness in their services to God. At II Corinthians 8:1-5, we read:

 Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.  

i.    Let cheerfulness define your activities for the Lord.

ii.  Sing cheerfully, give cheerfully and evangelize cheerfully; whatever you do, do it cheerfully. When joy defines your activities for the Lord, that joy becomes your inner strength. At Nehemiah 8:10 we read that the “…Joy of the Lord is our strength.”      

2.     Worship God cheerfully.  

II Corinthians 9:6-7 tells us that “God loves a cheerful giver.” If God loves a cheerful giver, then He certainly loves a cheerful worshipper!

a. When we understand what worship is, then worship will characterize everything we do on a daily basis.

b. Worship is a Sunday-Sunday affair. It is not a 9:00AM – 1:00PM weekly business. It is a 24-hour, 7-days a week activity.

c.      “What is worship?” You may ask. Late Brother Jim Massey defined worship as an “Outward expression of an inward sense of praise.”

d.     Let your daily worship of God bubble out from your inside – let your cheerfulness be so contagious that when people see you, they would be attracted to the God you serve. At Zechariah 8:23 we read of what serving God enthusiastically will do:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’”

CONCLUSION

One of the best gifts we can give to God is the gift of cheerful service. When we serve God heartily/cheerfully, we open up new vistas of opportunities to witness for Him. I encourage you to let hearty service characterize your worship of God. When you do, you will become the primary beneficiary, your local congregation will benefit and the Brotherhood at large will also benefit.

God bless you!   

CHRISTIANS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibility as a word or concept is a little bit difficult to define. Synonyms for the word, “Responsible” are “Answerable” and “Accountable.”

Responsibility is the coinage of two words, “Response” and “Ability.” We can understand this concept better when we ask ourselves individually, “What is my Response-Ability?” In other words, “How long does it take for me to respond to expectations?”

Responsibility is being responsible. No one can be “responsible” without “responsibility.”

Responsibility is doing what you are expected to do and taking blame when you do not. Someone once remarked that, “Ability plus Opportunity equals Responsibility and Accountability” (cf. Galatians 6:9-10).

§  Sins are classified into two main categories: Sins of Omission and Sins of Commission. Sin of Commission is a direct violation of a given commandment of God (I John 3:4) while Sin of Omission is failure to do what you are expected to do (James 4:17).

§  Succinctly stated, “Responsibility is doing what you are expected of without necessarily being commanded.”  In other words, if you wait to be told to do something, you are no longer “responsible.”

Responsibility is a privilege. At Luke 17:10, Jesus said, “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”          

1. A Christian’s first responsibility is to him/herself (Acts 2:40).

§  Before he preaches to another, he must first preach to himself (Romans 2:21f).

§  Before he saves another he has to first save himself. Save myself from myself or destroy myself by myself (II Chronicles 26:16).

§  Before he encourages another, he has to first encourage himself (I Samuel 30:6; II Corinthians 1:3-5).

§  Before he guides another he must first guide himself.

No one can give what he does not have. The value a Christian places in himself is the value he/she will transmit to another (Matthew 22:36-39).

A number of Scripture passages point to the fact than individual Christians’ activities are the pivot upon which the whole gamut of Christianity rest:   

1.     He must take out the beam in his own eye before he would have the authority to remove the speck in another’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5).

2.     He must first be strong before he can restore the weak (Galatians 6:1-2).

3.     He must always evaluate his work in context of others (Galatians 6:3-5).

4.     An individual Christian must live an unsupervised life (Philippians 2:12) by making his/her calling and election sure (II Peter 1:10).

2. His Responsibility is to the Brotherhood (I Peter 2:17)

The Brotherhood refers to the Body of Christ all over the world. The Body of Christ begins with the local congregation. You must not do anything to bring disrepute to your local congregation (II Corinthians 6:3).

Sometimes we do not realize that what we do and how we live impact negatively on the Brotherhood (Romans 2:24; I Corinthians 8:9-13; I Corinthians 9:12). King David was guilty of not protecting the corporate image of Israel, a symbol of the Brotherhood and it came with its own consequences (II Samuel 12:14).

Whatever you do must be to positively impact your local congregation and the Brotherhood at large.

As a rule, in my family we do not speak ill of the Church, any brother, sister or minister of the Gospel. Everything we say about the Church, local or global must be positive.   

3. A Christian’s Responsibility Is To Defend The Faith (Jude 3)

a.     Two things make one a Christian: the doctrine you subscribe to and the life you live (I Timothy 4:16).

b.     What makes the difference between one Christian religious organization and another is the doctrine preached and subscribed to.

c.      While writing to early Christians, Apostle Jude enjoined them to “Contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered unto Saints” (Jude 3).

d.     Why is “Doctrine” so important to God? It is so because it is the body of beliefs handed down from Him to His Worshippers, which must continually be handed down to successive generations of those who worship Him (II Timothy 2:2).

e.      The doctrine one subscribes to determines to a large extent whether he/she is worshipping rightly or wrongly (Exodus 8:27. There are:  

a.     Doctrines of men (Matthew 15:8-9).

b.     Doctrines of demons (I Timothy 4:1-3), and

c.      Doctrines of Christ (II John 9-11).

        What you subscribe to is who you worship.

f.       Why should we defend the Faith? Any compromise of the vital elements of the Faith leads to its adulteration. This is what Apostle Paul warned against at II Corinthians 11:2-4. The reference to “Eve” and what happened at Garden of Eden is instructive. What led to Adam and Eve’s disobedience was the adulteration of God’s original instruction by the devil. While God, “Thou Shall Surely Die,” Satan said, “Thou Shall Not Surely Die.” All that it took for Adam and Eve to lose the beautiful Paradise of Eden was their acceptance of that adulterated message.

g.     Today, many are peddling erroneous messages about God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Bible, The Church, etcetera. These are clever people who chose what to preach and leave out others. T. M. Clement (Grace and Truth Inc., June, 1991, page 16) was right when he remarked:

“Those who set a truth apart have Truth in part and from the Truth depart.”

One of the greatest enemies of modern Christianity is the bastardization of the Truth.

h.     Early Christians defended the Faith (Galatians 2:4-5).       

4. A Christian’s Responsibility is to Share the Gospel (Romans

    1:14-16).

a.     Sharing the Gospel should not be a rocket science. It thrives on the principle of hungry people telling other hungry people where to find food (II Kings 7:3-10).

b.     It thrives on the principle of “Each one reach one.”

c.      It thrives on the principle of “Saved to save.”

d.     Many people get discouraged because they do not “Know how to Preach.” If you think that this is your situation, then I encourage you to adopt “Operation Andrew and Philip” (John 1: 40 – 46).

e.      Preaching the Gospel is like a traveler who sees the danger ahead of other travelers and warning them against such dangers. By that he/she saves those who believe from destruction.

f.       “He who wins soul is wise” (Proverbs 11:30).

CONCLUSION

As Christians, we have numerous responsibilities, which we cannot exhaust in one-hour discourse.    

When we are alive to our responsibilities we become alive to the Will of God. Do not wait to be told to do what you should ordinarily know you should.

God bless us all in Jesus’ Name!