Main Text:Deut.11:18-19.
Memory:
And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deut.11:19)
The battle for the kids is the battle you must fight to ensure that your children do not go with the world. This is a very important battle these days because the world is filled with distractions within and without. Never in the history of the world has there been so many alternatives to God from which children must of necessity choose unless they are taught that your God is the ultimate source of quality life and eternity of peace. These other alternatives are so attractive that it takes the help of someone who has evidently charted the course to guide them in what to do.
How to fight the battle for the kids:
* Introduce Them To Your God
Let your children know the God you serve, the importance of being faithful to God as well as the consequences of being unfaithful to God.
* Let Your Home Model Love And Acceptance.
Do anything you can to model a good home to them because as you forgive each other, submit to each other, demonstrate love to each other etc., you will be teaching the children vital lessons that they can’t learn effectively elsewhere.

* Lead By Example
If you always tell lies and sometimes involve them in doing so, you may not expect them to really live a honest life since they did not see it in you.
* Educate Them, But Do It Wisely.
Do everything you can to ensure that your children are properly educated but do it wisely. For instance, many make the mistake of indiscriminately sending their young children alone to foreign countries to be educated without proper guidance. Many have lost their children to the world through such arrangements.

* Create Time To Be With Them.
You must deliberately spend time with your children. Spending time with them will afford you opportunity to discover traits in them that you would not have discovered otherwise.

* Build Trust
You need to build up the level of trust between you and your children. This is so important because they will be confused about issues of life for which they will ask questions that require answers. If they don’t trust you, they may ask from the wrong source which may shape their future habits negatively and destroy their lives.
* Discipline With Love. Pro.19:18
Many parents find it difficult to discipline their children because of the affection they have for them. Please note that if you love your child so much that you can’t discipline him or her, such love is questionable.

* Set Rules And Ensure Compliance.
Let your children know that once rules are set, they should be obeyed.

* Pray For Them.
After and in spite of all you might have done in terms of personal efforts, the place of prayer cannot be overemphasized in the upbringing of your children. Apart from being a prayer point on your daily prayer list, always seize every available opportunity to pray for them.

In conclusion, you must win the battle for the kids if you want to have a fulfilled old age and not disappoint God.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
* Is there anything we can do to improve on the way we are bringing up our children to ensure that we win the battle for the kids?
* Do you really feel that you are praying enough for your children?

PRAYER
I will not fail in the battle for the kids in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
A GOOD CHRISTIAN HOME IS ONE OF THE GREATEST LEGACIES YOU CAN GIVE YOUR CHILDREN. -Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main Text:2 Cor .12:7-10
Memory:
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2Cor.12:9)

The battle of sexual realities in marriage has to do with facing realities about variance in the sexual needs between you and your spouse. This becomes a very serious challenge in many homes when either of the two fails to realize this and adjust accordingly.
If you plan to win this battle, you must study the sexual needs of your spouse, compare it with your own and do everything possible to close the gap in a compromise that will reduce conflict in the home. A wise couple should really face the following realities:
1. There is hardly any couple whose sexual desire is at par with each other. It is consequently not strange that there is variance in your own and that of your spouse. Often, that of the man is higher, but then in many other homes, it is the woman that complains of being denied of sex.
2. What turns a man on is often different from what turns a woman on. A man may be turned on by simply sighting his wife probably dressing up or something; a woman, however, is more complex since her feelings are involved.
3. In most cases, women are more resilient about sex than men; the reaction of a man that is denied of sex may be more violent than that of a woman.
4. As you age in marriage, there may be declining attractions and consequently the need to adjust to changing sexual desires. You may discover that you are not easily turned on the way it used to be. The real problem with this situation is that whereas it is so when you are with your spouse, it may not be so with another member of the opposite sex; that is one of the major reasons why many men stray as they get older.
5. As you age also, you should not have the feeling that your spouse does not need sex again. It may be a costly assumption.
6. If you get yourself involved in a relationship outside your home, your spouse may become less attractive to you sexually.
17. Without sexual harmony in your home, very simple problems may become so big and cause so much damage that you may be wondering later what happened.

Every man or woman who does not want to make a shipwreck of his or her marriage must make up his or her mind to win this battle, because failure to win it will make you or your spouse stray into the hands of a strange man or woman.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
* Frankly share your experiences with each other and be frank with yourself in area of differences with a view to overcoming any challenges you may be experiencing.

PRAYER
Father, may I be humble enough to recognize the sexual realities in my home and key in to have a blissful marriage to the end in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
THE KEY TO SEXUAL HARMONY AT HOME IS COMPROMISE.-Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main Main Text: Eccl.3:1-7
Memory:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: (Eccl.3:1)

It is not the way your spouse is looking now that she will be in decades to come. Age will take its toll on the present look, shape and movement of your spouse. In fact, there are several things that your spouse is doing now which will not be done the same way in decades to come. There are ways of doing things now which are perfectly acceptable, but which in the years to come may surprisingly become detestable to you due to current realities at that time. Often, it is when you are comparing your spouse with another person’s spouse or when there are unresolved conflicts that you start noticing depreciation.
Remember the following always:
Marriage Is For Life
Marriage is a lifetime relationship. If you are praying to live for ninety years before death and you got married at the age of twenty five, it is better for you to make up your mind that you are going to be together with your partner for sixty five years. Now, if you have only been married for twenty five years and already you are complaining about the look of your spouse, that means you have not really put things in proper perspective. Prepare your mind that he or she is still going to become really old and make up your mind to love him or her despite the changes. There is an adage that says, ‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’. It is really what you have in mind that your eyes will translate. If within you your spouse is appreciated, what you see when you look at such spouse cannot be anything but beauty. Don’t also forget that it wasn’t the way you yourself were looking when you started the relationship that you are still looking. If anybody tells you that at fifty, you are still the way you were at twenty five, that person must be deceiving you.
There Is Appreciation Despite Depreciation.
If your spouse is no longer youthful as she used to be, don’t forget that there are other areas in which she has appreciated in value. She has become better in home management and she has appreciated in value because of the children who are now doing fine in their various vocations. In fact a closer look at her will even reveal that there is a kind of matured beauty that is reflecting in her life. In the case of a man too, if only you can think very well, you will be able to discover that he has appreciated in some vital areas despite depreciation in others.

Finally, never forget that there are seasons of life whether you like it or not. There is the season when you were a youth and the season of life when you will be deceiving yourself if you continue to feel that you are still young; so it is with your spouse. You should rejoice even when you discover that you are no longer youthful because it is not everyone that God gave the privilege.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• Think about it and tell each other where you have appreciated since you got married years ago.

PRAYER
May I continually discover beauty in my spouse throughout our lives in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
WHEN YOUR INTEREST IN YOUR SPOUSE STARTS DECLINING, IT IS USUALLY BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPARING HIM OR HER WITH ANOTHER PERSON’S SPOUSE.- Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main Text: Prov.24:10-12
If thou faint in the day of adversity,
thy strength is small. (Prov.24:10)

Life is full of ups and downs. In the life of a marriage, there is likely to be a time when things won’t work out as scheduled. It may be loss of job, sickness, lack or any unexpected occurrence which suddenly throws you a situation in which you cannot meet up with the target you have set for yourself as a family. No one prays for this kind of situation but it is a battle that must be won when it comes.
The marriage vows taken by the bride and groom on wedding day says;
‘I [name], take you [name], to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness, in health; to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part’

Though many churches today have changed the vows to reflect only the good aspect of married life, believing that saying the other side is like a curse but is it really so? In marriage, just as there is health, there is sickness; not just physical sickness but also financial sickness and all kinds of sicknesses which nobody prays for but they come.

Some facts to remember when your family is going through the period of declining fortunes:
• Challenges are usually temporary. Every challenge that comes to your family will end one day.
• Despite everything that is happening to your home, many other couples would have loved to trade places with you.
• Don’t become hopeless as there may be alternatives which hopelessness may not allow you to see.
• The worst scenario may not really be as bad as you think. For instance, if you obtain loan and you lose the collateral as a consequence of failure to pay back, that should not be the end of your life.
• Resenting your spouse at this time may only make things worse and lead to the collapse of your home.
• Hopelessness will make your faith to fail and once your faith fails, anything can happen. When you see people that commit suicide or abandon their home in difficult times, it is usually because they lost hope.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not… (Lk.22:32-32)
Nobody prays for a time in marriage when things will appear to be falling apart but you must make up your mind to win this battle if it comes. If business is negatively affected but your union is intact, God will still do greater things through you in the future. If you throw away your partner at this crucial time of adversity or you allow the challenge to allow your faith in God to fail or you became so worried to the extent of losing your health, you would have lost something that may never be regained.

Points For Discussion With Your Spouse
• Are we sufficiently determined to stand by each other in the face of any adversity?

PRAYER
I receive the strength to stand in the face of any challenge in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
HOPELESSNESS WILL MAKE YOUR FAITH TO FAIL; AND WHEN IT FAILS, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. – Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main Text: Heb.13:4-6
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. (Heb.13:4)
One of the greatest battles which you must fight and win in marriage is the battle of faithfulness. However attractive your spouse may be, you will discover other members of the opposite sex that are more“desirable” at one point or the other in your marital journey.
You may just find such people irresistible. There are also some of them that are the ones that find a way of getting themselves attached to you unknowingly, probably by lending helping hand in a special way. Many men have fallen into such traps before they realized it.
Apart from those who fall into immorality through carelessness, many that are caught in adultery appear to do it because of apparent lack of satisfaction or as retaliation for a spouse who has also been unfaithful. However, it is important for you to know that nothing is significant enough to justify you going into adultery.
One of the greatest dangers of adultery is that when you are involved in it, your spouse becomes less and less attractive to you, since you would have found an alternative in the other man or woman. It may also appear as if nobody is qualified to advice you as something will be telling you that you are mature enough to take your own decisions. To cover your tracks, you may also become a serial liar.
Running away from adultery appears to be one of the greatest duties you owe your spouse and God. Before you get involved, think about the following:
• It may appear easy to start an extramarital relationship but it may not be easy to stop.
• The relationship you are about going into may be the poison that will kill your marriage and destroy the relationship between you and your spouse and children forever.
• It is a matter of time, the potential alternative to your spouse will come with a new set of problems.
• When you mar the story of your marriage with unfaithfulness, you may no longer be the model that your children will look up to in the future.
• There is no how you will be unfaithful that you will be able to earn the trust of your spouse 100% again.
• A lot of stories of extra-marital affairs always end in regret.
• Consider the fact that no adulterer will make heaven.
The battle of faithfulness is therefore a battle that you must win if you desire to have a successful home.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
* In your own view what are the dangers associated with unfaithfulness in marriage?
* Remind yourselves of a case of adultery in a family you know and how it ended.

PRAYER
Father, may I never lose the battle of faithfulness in my marriage in Jesus’ name.
(468 words)

ILLUSTRATION
AN UNFAITHFUL SPOUSE FINDS IT INCREDIBLY EASY TO MANUFACTURE LIES.

DAY 41

THE BATTLE OF DECLINING FORTUNES IN MARRIAGE
Main Text: Prov.24:10-12
If thou faint in the day of adversity,
thy strength is small. (Prov.24:10)
Life is full of ups and downs. In the life of a marriage, there is likely to be a time when things won’t work out as scheduled. It may be loss of job, sickness, lack or any unexpected occurrence which suddenly throws you a situation in which you cannot meet up with the target you have set for yourself as a family. No one prays for this kind of situation but it is a battle that must be won when it comes.
The marriage vows taken by the bride and groom on wedding day says;
‘I [name], take you [name], to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness, in health; to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part’

Though many churches today have changed the vows to reflect only the good aspect of married life, believing that saying the other side is like a curse but is it really so? In marriage, just as there is health, there is sickness; not just physical sickness but also financial sickness and all kinds of sicknesses which nobody prays for but they come.

TheSome facts to remember when your family is going through the period of declining fortunes: