Building a Strong Marriage
Couples must be intentional when preparing for a God-honoring marriage.
Building a God-Honoring Marriage
No one plans to become a broken family or a miserable couple. We marry because we yearn for a lifelong, thriving relationship. How can believers become intentional about building a God-honoring marriage?
PRIORITY ONE: Discover God’s Design for Marriage
We must understand that every marriage is intended to be a masterpiece reflecting the marriage between God and His people. Marriage is the most frequent metaphor used in the Bible to describe God’s relationship with His people. In fact, writing to the Ephesians, Paul called marriage a “profound mystery” because the man represents Christ, the groom, while the woman represents His bride, the church. The marital union of husband and wife is a sacred reflection of the gospel itself.
PRIORITY TWO: Commit to a Covenant Marriage
Today’s civil marriages are much like business contracts—easy to get into and easy to get out of. God’s covenant with His people was a promise to remain eternally faithful even if His people were not faithful in return. In covenant marriage, both spouses are committed for a lifetime—in sickness and health, for better or worse. They do not threaten divorce or consider it as an option.
PRIORITY THREE: Pursue a Passionate Marriage
Couples are not supposed to just stick it out and find a way to make their marriages survive. God calls us to pursue a passionate, thriving marriage. The Song of Solomon expresses the kind of love, joy, and celebration God designed for marriage. That passion is built on much more than infatuation and sexual desire. It is rooted in the physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy God created couples to experience as a foretaste of the eternal unity, communion, and intimacy we can have with God.
PRIORITY FOUR: Become Heroic in Marriage
Christ made the ultimate sacrifice to rescue humanity. Writing to the Ephesians, Paul connected Christ’s sacrifice directly to marriage: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25) and “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:24). In other words, mutual submission to one another requires giving up our own interests to heroically serve the other person.PRIORITY FIVE: Fight for Your Marriage
Every couple will mess up. Too often, however, they also choose to give up. Throughout scripture, God fights for His relationship with His people, remaining faithful in the face of unfaithfulness. He forgives again and again. No couple can avoid strife and arguments, but we can avoid giving the “devil a foothold” in our marriages by keeping short accounts and quickly restoring the relationship regardless of what happens.
recommended books
Your Marriage Masterpiece
By Al Janssen
God created marriage as a beautiful work of art that reflects his glory to the world. But our culture has undervalued and misunderstood it, causing it to lose some of its luster. Like recent restoration projects on the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, it is time to return marriage to its former glory, and the only way to do that is to take a closer look at what the artist had in mind all along.
In this newly revised and expanded book, Al Janssen takes a fresh look at the exquisite design God has for marriage and brings to light the reasons this union was intended to last a lifetime. The chapters weave real-life stories with great teaching and biblical narratives in order to paint a complete picture of all that marriage can be. Readers will examine elements such as passion, adventure, and commitment that come together to make up the colors of God's design. They will also discover new ways to reflect God's love within marriage--revealing his plan for men and women from the moment he created us.
Building Your Mate's Self-Esteem
By Dennis and Barbara Rainey
Self-esteem is either the crippler or the completer of the marriage relationship, says Dennis Rainey. From their personal and seminar experiences with thousands of couples, Dennis and Barbara Rainey have found that one of the most vital, yet most often missing, ingredients in a marriage today is the diligent effort on the part of each spouse to build the other's self-esteem.
The Celebration of Sex
By Douglas Rosenau
A Celebration of Sex answers specific, often unasked questions about sexual topics, presents married couples with detailed techniques and behavioral skills for deepening sexual pleasure and intimate companionship, and is an excellent tool for premarital education. Topics include: creating knowledge about sexual intimacy; enhancing pleasure and enjoying passionate intimacy; overcoming common hurdles.
Love and Respect
By Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
Discover the Single Greatest Secret to a Successful Marriage. Psychological studies affirm it, and the Bible has been saying it for ages. Cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It's the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find. Today, you and your mate can start fresh with the ground-breaking guidance that Dr. Emerson Eggerichs provides in this book. His revolutionary message, featured on Focus on the Family, is for anyone: in marital crisis...wanting to stay happily married...who's feeling lonely. It's for engaged couples...victims of affairs...pastors and counselors seeking material that can save a marriage.
Using Dr. Eggerich's breakthrough techniques, couples nationwide are achieving a brand-new level of intimacy and learning how to: - stop the Crazy Cycle of conflict - initiate the Energizing Cycle of change - enjoy the Rewarded Cycle of new passion
And if you'll take this biblically based counsel to heart, your marriage could be next!
It Starts At Home
By Kurt Bruner and Steve Stroope
As your children grow, will their faith grow too? As both stories and statistics attest, the number of evangelical children who abandon Christianity in adulthood is staggering. To see effective change, parents cannot leave their child’s faith to chance. Rather, families must start nurturing faith early—you cannot start once your child is grown, you must start at home. Strengthening family and home life is the best way to encourage your children to maintain a lifelong faith. It Starts at Home upholds marriage and family as the proving ground for lasting success. Experienced pastors Kurt Bruner and Steve Stroope provide a clear purpose, an effective strategy, and a simple plan for anyone who wants to be intentional in their homes. Their insights will help leaders recalibrate their priorities by asking them to evaluate their leadership where it counts most. This newly revised edition evaluates the current trends families and young adults face that can contribute to this crisis. Don’t let your child’s faith fade to memory—learn how you can create a home that will prepare them for lifelong faith.
The Five Love Languages
By Gary Chapman
Marriages may be made in heaven, but they must be nurtured here on earth. Dr. Chapman explains how people communicate love in different ways, and shares the wonderful things that happen when men and women learn to speak each other's language.
En Español
Amor y respeto
By Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
El libro del Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, Amor y Respeto, se basa en el pasaje bíblico de Efesios 5:33 (En todo caso, cada uno de ustedes ame también a su esposa como a sí mismo, y que la esposa respete a su esposo - NVI). Su premisa es que la comunicación entre marido y mujer es a menudo frustrada por las formas muy diferentes en las que los hombres y las mujeres perciben el amor. Las mujeres están conectados a la necesidad de amor incondicional y los hombres necesitan sentirse respetados incondicionalmente. ¡Revitalice el amor en su matrimonio! Recomendad por Enfoque en la Familia.
Una Celebración del Sexo
By Dr. Douglas E. Rosenau
Una Celebración del sexo contesta preguntas específicas acerca de temas sexuales que no se formulan a menudo. Dirigido a parejas casadas, muestra técnicas detalladas y habilidades de comportamiento para profundizar el placer sexual y la compañía íntima.
Lo que el necesita, lo que ella necesita
By Willard F. Harley Jr.
No es una sorpresa que hombres y mujeres tengan radicalmente diferentes prioridades. Describiendo las diez necesidades mas importantes de los hombres y las mujeres, Dr. Harley les enseñará cómo hacer que su matrimonio sea sólido. Aprenda cómo sostener romance, incrementar la intimidad, y profundisar su consiencia años trás años. Esta edición en su aniversario número 15 presenta un nuevo prólogo, mas questionarios e inventarios personales.
El desafio del amor: Atreve a amar
By Alex and Stephen Kendrick
Muchos matrimonios terminan hoy en día cuando uno de los esposos dice: "Ya no te amo". En El Desafío del Amor, el libro mostrado en la película Fireproof (protagonizada por Kirk Cameron), usted puede aprender sobre la verdadera naturaleza del amor. Este libro es una experiencia devocional de 40 días que guiará su corazón a amar nuevamente a su pareja. Cada entrada de diaro expone un aspecto único del amor, presenta un "reto" específico, y provee de una área para anotar el progreso que usted estará haciendo. ¡Le reto a aceptar el reto!
Los cinco lenguajes del amor
By Dr. Gary Chapman
Mantener vivo el amor en nuestros matrimonios es un asunto muy serio. Al aprender los cinco lenguajes del amor, tú y tu cónyuge descubrirán sus lenguajes únicos del amor y aprenderán pasos prácticos para amarse de verdad el uno al otro. Sin embargo, con toda la ayuda disponible de los expertos en los medios de comunicación, ¿por qué es que tan pocas parejas parecen haber encontrado el secreto para mantener vivo el amor después de la boda? Entonces, ¿cuál es el problema? El problema es que hemos pasado por alto una verdad fundamental: Las personas hablan diferentes lenguajes de amor. Una vez que identifiques y aprendas a hablar el lenguaje principal del amor de tu cónyuge, de seguro que habrás descubierto la clave para un matrimonio amoroso y duradero.