3 Things to Know and do For Your Marital Partner

If many of us had understood that we'd be married to someone someday, we'd have been intentional about doing certain things for them even before we meet them.

It's one thing to believe that God can guide you on whom to marry, it's another thing to do something for them before you meet them or after you have met them.

Understanding is a crucial matter in any relationship. How you'd relate or react to your partner is tied to your understanding, how they'll relate and react towards you is a function of their understanding.

When you know certain things about your partner and you do the right thing, it will go a long way in making your relationship blissful.

What you need to know about him or her

1. They have a past

I have a past. You have one. Your would be spouse also have one.

Some people's past are beautiful, some ugly or terrible. But no past is too bad that with God and your understanding, you can't live with.

Whether you have met each other or not, arm yourself with an understanding that they do not fall from heaven. So, be prepared to deal with whatever past you'd discover about them. This is one of the reasons why you must depend on God to guide you in your choice of who to marry.

God won't bring you a person whose past you can't deal with. But if you choose without Him, I'm afraid if their past won't destroy your union when you discover it.

2. They have a mindset

Our mindset is as old as how grown-up we have become. It's formed by our education, religion, experience, exposure and philosophy about life.

Your partner's mindset may not tally with yours, you need wisdom to handle this. One of the areas where you must be one flesh is in the area of your mindset. Don't be one flesh in body when you haven't become so in spirit and soul.

When you marry someone, you also marry their mindset and you need understanding and patience so your mindset can blend.

3. They're not perfect

Nobody is perfect, we are all work in progress to become one.

Your partner's age, years of being saved, church, education or experience does not determine how perfect they may be. However, perfection is relative. What you term perfection may not be what your partner defines perfection to be.

Love accepts an imperfect person, and with understanding, it relates with them until they both grow to be perfect.

Never expect your partner to be 100% perfect. This is why there's need for realistic compromise and understanding to tolerate one another till your imperfection sublimes.

Now that you know your partner or would be one isn't an angel who is flawless and doesn't have any track record of negative past, you must be ready to do the following for them.

1. Pray

Whether you have met him or her or not, you need to pray for him or her. Prayer goes a long way in addressing lots of things in their lives only if you pray for them while waiting or continue with same when married.

Prayer can correct a wrong mindset, repair the effect of a bad foundation (past) and improve their state of imperfection. This is called intercessory prayer and it has to be persistent.

Pray for him or her if you haven't met them. This is faith at work, and it'll prevent you from worrying.

2. Be patient

Having met him or her, be patient with him or her. Love is patient. It takes patience to achieve oneness, it's a process and it's not automatic. You need patience so that you can both understand each other.

There is nobody you can't live with, except a wrong, if you are patient and relate with them with understanding. However, patience is not learnt through formal education, you learn it through experience or God gives you.

It takes patience to marry the right person and to make your marriage successful. If you don't relate with your partner in patience, your impatience will destroy lots in your marriage.

Impatience will make you feel suspicious, jealous, assume, throw tantrums, and would affect your union.

3. Communicate

It's believed that communication is the lifeblood of every relationship.

If you're yet to meet with your spouse, speak into their life prophetically; if you are married, engage in meaningful conversations with yourselves.

Mutual communication helps you achieve emotional intimacy. Without effective communication, separation will creep into your relationship. When communication is absent, you will live as strangers.

Talk about your fears, future, hope, success, failure, dreams, aspirations and any matter of concern. You can't underestimate the power of effective communication in your relationship. It saves you from visiting counselors frequently if you two can open up to each other.

Now that you know what you need to know about your partner, and the things you need to do, what's preventing you from doing these?

© Adeniyi Tim Oluwamayowa 2020

BE AT PEACE WITH GOD

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1 KJV)

Man, by creation was God's favorite and delight. There was harmony between God and man in such a way that God usually fellowship with man in the cool of the evening. When sin came, man lost his place in God and he became an enemy of God.

Everyone born through natural conception are God's enemy because of the sinful nature inherent in man by birth.

However, to have peace with God, one thing is needful; you have to be justified by faith. To be justified means to be made righteous in the sight of God.

You can't be made righteous in God's sight by your works of righteousness, that is, being morally right, you are justified by your faith in Jesus Christ. Trying to live a life that pleases God without your faith in Jesus Christ doesn't earn you approval in God's sight.

Do you believe in Jesus? If yes, demons also believe and they tremble. But if your belief does not transform your life to make you justified by faith, you can't be at peace with God.

Taking care of the poor, widow, needy or living a life that's free from moral wrongs does not make you be at peace with God if you do not have faith in Jesus.

The greatest peace you can ever make is to be at peace with God. Jesus came to reconcile mankind to God but are you personally at peace with Him?

MARRIAGE

One of the most fear-inducing, unpredictable but most amazing institution in life is the institution of marriage. If there's anything else that many feared the most based on stories heard, information handed over or what they witnessed personally, is this thing called marriage.

Marriage is beyond the coming together of a man and woman to become husband and wife. If this is only the understanding you have about marriage, you will be shocked to know that there's more to marriage than living together as couples.

Do your thoughts about marriage make you fear, or the uncertainties in it worries you? I bring you glad tidings from the Lord.

To get the best out of your marriage, one thing is needful; it is called understanding, and it is the foundation on which other things thrives.

First, work on your mindset. Others may have a failed or enduring marriage, you must be optimistic about yours. Your understanding about marriage will affect your mindset.

The difference between a successful or failed marriage has much to do with the mindset of the persons involved. If what you understood about marriage is to consider divorce at the sight of minor issues, your marriage can't reach a decade.

More so, if what you understood about marriage is that when a woman acts womanly, beating her up is the best way to deal with the situation, then something is wrong with your mindset.

If because he couldn't fulfill his role as a man financially for a while, then frustrating him is all you think would solve the problem, your mindset is wrong.

Marriage is sweet, it depends on the cutlery (understanding) you use. And it could be sometimes worse than hell, it's still a function of your understanding.

You need to understand God's purpose for marriage before you venture into it, that's if you want to do so according to His will.

God didn't create marriage first, He created man before marriage was institutionalized. Marriage was created so that a man and his wife would continue the fulfillment of God's purpose for their lives - and to enforce dominion by multiplying God's influence on earth (establishing His kingdom).

When you lack this basic understanding and you think having marital sex, giving birth to children are all that there is to marriage; what happens when there's delay in having a child or there's sexual dissatisfaction?

Know why God created marriage before you go into it. If you don't, you will bastardize this amazing institution.

To make sure that your marriage succeed, you need to understand yourself before you think of settling down with someone else.

Do you know yourself - God's purpose for your life, your perception about life, temperament and all those things you need to know about yourself?

Can you marry the kind of person you have become? You need to work on this so you can correct those things that would make you have a failed marriage or become a wrong partner.

Because many do not know who a wrong person is and how to identify one beyond face value, they think everyone who meets their specs is the right person.

You need to understand who a wrong person is so you can do all that's in your ability to avoid one. A wrong person doesn't believe in what you believe, neither do they value what you value.

The physical appearance and those compatibility checklist of a wrong person who looks like a potential suitor, which is unknown to you, may exceed your average score, but what truly makes them wrong is the condition of their heart - their motive for desiring to marry.

Almighty formula won't reveal the condition of their heart, but that you seek His face earnestly in the place of prayer.

Do you also know that marriages fail when the wrong person marries the right person; when two wrong persons marry each other and when the right persons applied the wrong principles to run their marriage?

Marriage is not complex or evil as it has been painted to be, what many lack is understanding. If the ground on which you stand about marriage is wrong and you venture into it, when rain falls, the floods came and the wind of life beats upon your marriage, great will its fall be.

What do you understand about this thing called marriage? What have you read about marriage? Which source did you get your knowledge about marriage from?

Remember, guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life, and as a man (or woman) thinks in his heart (about marriage and in relating with their partner) so is he.

© Adeniyi Tim Oluwamayowa 2020

HOLINESS(A lifestyle) Concluding part..

Component of Holiness

E. To be holy one must be obedient to God’s Word.

In addition to the positional, personal, and purity components of holiness, there is an ethical component. Holiness requires obedience to God’s Word.

Leviticus 19:2-3 says, “Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.”

Again, Leviticus 20:7-8 says, “Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.” Notice the inseparable connection between “being holy,” and obeying God’s Word.

A reading of the context of Leviticus 19:2-3 and 20:7-8 reveals that holiness is exceedingly practical. For example, it is demonstrated by respectful treatment of parents, sexual purity, avoidance of anything associated with the occult, compassion on the poor, honesty, kindness, justice, refusal to be a talebearer, and not avenging oneself or bearing a grudge (Lev. 20:9-27; 19:4-18).

Conclusion

We began our message with the statement, “Holiness is not optional for a Christian.” We conclude our message with the same assertion: holiness is not optional for a Christian. We also learned that there are five essential components of holiness.

To be holy one must:

be connected to God—the source of holiness,

be separated to God as His possession,

be separated from the common (ordinary),

be separated from all that God says is unclean or morally defiles, and

be obedient to God’s Word.

1 See Job 6:10; Isa. 40:25; 43:15; Ezek. 39:7; Hos. 11:9; Hab. 1:12; 3:3.
2 See 2 Kings 19:22; Isa. 1:4; 43:3; Jer. 50:29; 51:5.