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Learning how to successfully serve in the ministry of marriage.
Marriage what a difficult topic to cover, yet in the Christian community, we cover it often and from many different angles. There's the love language angle, the sacrificial love angle, the partnership in all things angle. However, one angle I haven't heard spoken much is the ministry angle. No! I am not talking about couples going into ministry together, that is actually quite common, I am talking about marriage being a ministry itself. Not a ministry to the Christian community, although a godly marriage will undoubtedly have much influence and be a shining example for the Christian community. However, I am speaking about marriage being a ministry between husband and wife, that as a husband and wife your marriage is a ministry to one another. Let's talk about this!
Aside from marriage being ministry, I believe that marriage is the most important ministry, and needless to say the most difficult. Marriage is the only ministry where you constantly have to expose yourself and give your entire self away 24 hours a day.
In other ministries such as evangelism or even pastoring you are only giving Jesus and your time away. That is to say, you are hidden in Jesus, it’s not you doing the work but Christ through you. However, in marriage you don’t just give Jesus away, you give yourself away while holding on to Jesus. That is to say, that in marriage there should be full exposure of oneself to their partner, nothing should be hidden, but both partners must hold on to God. I also believe that marriage is also the most powerful ministry, I believe this because in marriage you don’t have to go out and find disciples for the way, you can birth them in a Godly marriage.
The Power of a Godly Marriage
The truth is that a married couple that is totally in one accord in the word of God and in their desire to please and serve God, is a dangerous match against satan’s kingdom. This is because they will raise warriors, and set up a legacy of righteousness in their bloodline. So, their children will raise warriors, and their grandchildren will raise warriors from generation to generation. In reality, if broken homes, fatherlessness, and single-parent homes can set up generational strongholds of afflictions, such as alcoholism, and drug abuse over their bloodlines, then a strong God-approved, and God tried marriage can set up a legacy of righteousness over their bloodlines as well. In this, only godly warriors and disciples for Jesus will be born from this kind of marriage. After all, the marriage institution is, in itself, a mirror of the Triune God, what I mean by that is even God himself does not remain alone, He is three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When God created man He said that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18), God knew as He is not alone, that man should not be either. So God instituted marriage, which is the first institution, to mirror the oneness that God has, although separate beings... still one. Just as Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." (John 10:30) We are to be one with our spouses, and there is much power in unity.
Culprits Attacking Godly Marriage
However, it is no secret that marriage is under attack from our enemy. Even in the Christian community divorce is on the rise, and more and more homes are being affected by the sting of divorce. So how do we counter this attack from the enemy? How do we as Christians have victory in our marriages? The answer is, we need knowledge. We need understanding. The bible says in (Hosea 4:6) My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. This is the truth of God’s word, we are destroyed because we are ignorant of satan’s schemes, we are ignorant of his plots, and we need revelation from God to have victory over him. What I want to share with you in this article is the revelation that God gave to me, in a time when I was struggling with my marriage, and what God had to show me for me to have the victory in my marriage.
What God shared with me is that there are specific spirits that the enemy constantly uses to attack marriages. As the old adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The devil has been using these same tricks on mankind for years, and he does not have to fine-tune his tricks, because to this day they still work. God shared with me the culprits that the enemy uses to attack marriage:
Pride
Selfishness
Insecurity
Jealousy
Fear
Control
Unforgivness
These spirits are crippling to a marriage and often go undetected. They mask themselves as another issue all the while these culprits are at work, to underwrite failure on what God wants to try and prove for success. Many people think that their marriages are failing because of many different problems, lack of communication or intimacy between partners, for example, however, what they don’t know is that that is not the problem at all. What they are dealing with in most cases is a spirit of pride at work trying to destroy their marriage. This is how these destructive spirits hide; disguised as other issues while going undetected and working to tear marriages apart. With each installment of this series, we will unpack how each of these culprits work to try to destroy a godly marriage and destroy our ministry to one another.
The Beginning
This journey began for me back in 2016 when my husband had just been diagnosed with End-Stage Renal Failure, it was a blow to our marriage that I wasn't sure we would be able to recover from. First of all, we were already living in different countries at the time, I was actually waiting for my husband to return to Bermuda where I was residing. We were already having money problems, communication problems, parenting problems, then we get hit with this. It felt like the icing on top of the very big and dysfunctional cake. Since we were living in different countries at the time I had to fly to the United States to be by my husband's side during this tragedy, that is where the work began. I thought it would be easy, I thought that none of the problems that we had experienced in health, would show its ugly head in sickness, but I was very wrong. Even though my husband had lost 80 lbs and could hardly walk, and I was doing everything for him, we still found a way to bicker and be unhappy. I mean, I thought that him having to rely on me for everything would make me feel appreciated and we would just be okay automatically because the situation called for amenable cooperation. Needless to say, I was very wrong. It's funny how hardships seem to highlight the issues in a marriage and not bring out the best in them.
I was so overwhelmed, I was doing everything, I was learning how to administer his treatment, cooking his meals, bathing him, and dressing him, yet I was also feeling underappreciated and unloved. I felt like he was nitpicking at everything I did, and not taking the time to tell me how good of a job I was doing. One morning out of pure frustration I went outside to have my morning devotion with the Lord and was set on having a venting session with Him. I stormed outside and was getting my first thoughts together to tell God all about how horrible my husband was treating me; when I heard God clearly say to my heart, "do not complain about your husband to me." I was in complete shock, I said to the Lord, well if I can't complain about him to you who do I complain about him too. I was so angry to hear those words from God, I felt justified in my anger toward my husband and I just wanted to talk about it so that I could get over it and be a good wife. But, instead of allowing me to vent God began to challenge my heart.
He said to me "before you complain about him have you once thought about what he is going through and how he is feeling?" "Every thought and emotion that you have in your heart is all about you, not one single thought or emotion is about his suffering and his pain." Of course, my first reaction from these words from God was offense, "what do you mean his suffering and his pain ? I am suffering because of him!" There's that word again, "I." I began to realize what the Lord was showing me, I was responding to my husband with selfish pride, it was all about me, and not about him. Yes, I was doing everything for him, but I was doing it for me, to be validated, to feel like a good wife, to receive accolades from my husband and his family, it was all about me. Subsequently, when I didn't receive the praise or respect that I wanted I became angry at my husband not thinking about his feelings or his pain at all. I was convicted by the Holy Spirit and had to repent, from that moment began a journey for me with the Lord teaching me how to minister to my husband and how to expel those culprit spirits from my marriage. Join me for the next installment when we will cover the culprit of pride, how to recognize it and how to expel it from your marriage.