Main text: Prov.25:26-28

Memory:
Whoever has no rule over his own spirit
Is like a city broken down, without walls.(Prov.25:28)

Self discipline in your sexual life is all about controlling yourself under sexual pressure. The scripture for our consideration above says that if you don’t have rule over your spirit, you are like a broken city without walls. When a city is without walls, it means that anyone/ anything may come in, since there is no gate to control movement. There is no how you will not experience situations in your marital life where you will be tempted to go off the marital sex boundary. In fact it is like there is a rule that says ‘thou shall be tempted’. Topmost on the list of issues that make many not to finish strong is the issue of sexual immorality. It is therefore imperative for any child of God who wants to finish strong to be personally disciplined in the area of sex.
Many have the feeling that once you are married, there should be no discussion about being personally disciplined in sexual matters, since your spouse will always be for you. However, such people may be wrong. Self discipline in sex matters will require you to:

Do without sex for some time even when your spouse is available.
This level of discipline is essential because there will be times that even though your spouse is available, he or she will not be able to satisfy you. For instance, if your husband or wife is ill or somehow not emotionally in position to be available for you sexually, you may easily fall for temptation from another member of the opposite sex, thereby jeopardizing your relationship with God and losing the trust of your spouse.

Be able to control yourself when sexually tempted.
There is simply no how you will not be sexually tempted. A considerable percentage of those you will be dealing with are members of the opposite sex. If you are male, you are going to deal with a lot of women that are lonely and are sex starved due to divorce, separation or several other problems. In the process of consoling or sympathizing with them, you might have gone into it before you realize it. If you are a woman, don’t think that you are immune from sexual immorality. At an unguarded moment, if you are not disciplined, you may fall into immorality before you know what is happening. There are also situations in which you may discover some traits which you would have appreciated in your husband in another man that will make you to secretly desire the man. There may also be someone who you were in relationship with before marriage that you suddenly come across: Such men must be kept at an arm’s length if you want to finish strong.

Self discipline is so important to you as a man or woman that lack of it will make you to jeopardize your home and your relationship with God and once it happens, you may never recover completely from it.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• Do you feel that there are areas you need to pay attention to so that you won’t fall for temptation?
• What are the other reasons why you feel that one must be self disciplined in sexual matters?

PRAYER
Lord, help me to be self-disciplined in the area of sex, so that my body will be for my spouse only in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
IF YOU ARE NOT SELF-DISCIPLINED, FALLING INTO ADULTERY IS CERTAIN. – Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main text: SS.1:1-4

Memory: Song of Songs 2:2
As the lily among thorns,
so is my love among the daughters.

One of the best ways of arousing your partner sexually is by identifying his/her love language.
In an excellent book by Gary Chapman, Five Love Languages, he proposed that each adult responses to one or more of five basic love languages. The languages are:

* Receiving Gifts.
A woman whose basic love language is receiving gifts will feel excited receiving gift from her husband. Such gift signifies to her that the husband loves her and she may respond to such feeling by responding favorably to the husband’s sexual advances. The gift does not necessarily have to be expensive to be appreciated by someone whose love language is receiving gifts; something you brought just to show that while away, you were thinking about your spouse.

* Quality Time.
When the basic love language of your spouse is that of quality time, she appreciates you so much when you devote time to spend with her for instance watching the television or just discussing with each other, taking her out just for the fun of it or generally making yourself available. Such a wife will do anything including positive response to your sexual advances to reciprocate your demonstration of love.

* Words Of Affirmation
Words may be used to easily lift up the spirit of someone whose basic love language is that of words of affirmation. When such a wife just comes back from the hairdressers and you tell her how beautiful she looks with her new hairdo; you periodically tell her how much you love her; or you encourage her when obviously she is supposed to be condemned, you are setting up the highway to her heart. The resultant effect may be that she will be willing to please her husband especially in the area of sex.

* Acts Of Service.
When your wife is cooking and you are giving her a hand in getting the children ready for school or tidying up the living room, for a woman whose basic love language is acts of service, it is a demonstration of your love for her. You may be sure that when a woman is assured of your love for her, she will be ready to give you anything.

* Physical Touch.
There are those whose basic love language is that of physical touch. For such a spouse, your touch even just by holding hands, cuddling or even kissing is a message of love to her.

Your identification of the love language of your spouse may be used to arouse her interest in sex whenever there is need to do so. Consequently, instead of complaining about your spouse’s lack of response to your sexual moves, give yourself the task of identifying the love language of your spouse.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• Have you identified each other’s love language?
• How successful have you been in using your spouse’s love language to improve your love life?

PRAYER
My Father and my God, grant me the wisdom and grace to have deep understanding of the nature of my spouse in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
IF YOU LOVE YOUR SPOUSE, YOU WILL FIND THE BEST ROUTE TO HIS/ HER HEART. – Dr. Mike Oluniyi

* Give your spouse the deserved prime place.
Gain the understanding that the position of your home is only second to that of your relationship with God in importance. Even your children will leave to start their own homes and you will be left with your spouse. If you don’t nurture this relationship now, you will be lonely during old age.

* Identify something special in your spouse that makes him/her the best that you could have ever married.
Sometimes, your sex life may be dull because you have not identified something unique about your spouse which makes him or her the best that you could have ever married. A grateful heart to God for giving you the treasure in your spouse may continually prime your desire for him or her and give your love life the necessary impetus to continually soar to greater heights.

* Empathize with you spouse.
Seek to understand and help your spouse to overcome his/her sexual problems. Your spouse may have genuine reasons for avoiding sex. You may need to empathize with him or her to be able to overcome the problem. For instance, if your husband is not having sustainable erection and all you do is to make jest of him, you will only psychologically depress him the more, thereby complicating the problem. However, if you encourage him that it is only temporary and do whatever you can do to emotionally lift him up, then the problem may be easily overcome. Understanding and encouraging your spouse when there are sexual problems go a long way to solving such problems or at least making it manageable.

* Seek to satisfy your spouse sexually.
The sexual demand of individuals in marriage differs. Your determination to do whatever you can to satisfy the sexual needs of your spouse goes a long way in achieving marital stability.

* Pray.
God is the author of marriage, He can help you even in such matters. Whenever there is any problem in the home which appears to be beyond you, you should be able to go to God in prayer. Nothing is too small to pray to God about, neither is anything too irrelevant. If you are the one that is not satisfying your spouse, you may pray that God should give you the desire and strength to go the extra mile to satisfy him or her.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• If you are not having sexual issues in your home, don’t think that it may never happen. Some of the causes of the problem are not really intentional or mischievous; they are unplanned for. Look at the above list again and discuss how you may avoid them.
• If you are already experiencing it in your home and your spouse is the source, what are the steps you can take to assist your spouse get out of it?
• If the source is from you, are you hiding it or being insincere about it or are you bringing it out for discussion with your spouse, so that you may fight the battle together?

PRAYER
Father give me the wisdom to be proactive about sexual matters so that they don’t become real problems in my home.

QUOTABLE QUOTE

IF YOU KNOW THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL PROBLEMS ON THE FAMILY, YOU WILL AVOID IT BY ALL MEANS. – Dr. Mike Oluniyi

Main Text.1Cor.13:4-7.

Memory:
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; (1Cor.13:4)

It is always better to be proactive about sexual problems in your marriage. In other words, do everything you can to prevent those problems because you never know the extent of the damage it may cause in your home. In this session, we are going to look at some of the proactive steps which may be taken.

* Love your spouse.
Love appears to be the most important ingredient that can solve most problems in marriage, including sexual problems. When you love your spouse, you are not likely to deliberately do anything to disappoint him/ her ordinarily including the denial of sex. On the other hand, if you love your spouse, when you are denied of sex, you will treat the matter with understanding. At least, you may be sympathetic to the cause of the denial, thereby avoiding overreaction.

* Avoid physical distance between you and your spouse.
Prolonged physical distance does not help marriage at all. If you have a prolonged period of career callings that often takes you away from home, allow your spouse to go with you whenever possible, especially in a situation in which you have to consistently deal with members of the opposite sex.

* Don’t bring your frustrations into the bedroom.
Challenges at your place of work and frustrations in your relationship with others have the tendency to weigh you down and may affect romance and sex with your spouse. Learn as much as possible to shut your challenges at workplace and other areas of life out of your bedroom.

* Communication.
Communication is a vital tool for the health of any marriage. When there is any challenge with the sexual life of a couple, sitting down and talking it over is better than bottling it up. You should feel free to discuss with your spouse about sex while he/she should also be free to do so. The more you bottle it up, the more the tendency to be frustrated.

* Being Contented With Your Spouse.
If you are fond of comparing your spouse with other people’s spouses, you may be doing an incalculable damage to your marriage. Complaints may lead to dissatisfaction which may in turn result in lower appetite for sex by either party. Be contented with your spouse.

* Forgiveness.
For a woman especially, sex is more an emotional matter than physical. When your husband has offended you and you are nursing the hurt, seeing him may turn you off instead of turning you on.

QUOTABLE QUOTE
The grass may appear apparently greener on the other side, but the fact is if you wet your own brown grass, it will soon acquire greenness too. – Dr Mike Oluniyi

Main text: Prov.17:22

Memory:
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:
but a broken spirit drieth the bones.(Prov.17:22)

The consequences of unfulfilled sexual life are almost innumerable because sometimes you may not really realize that some of your complaints or negative actions about your home is really a reaction to unfulfilled sexual life. Every other aspect of the life of a family may be negatively impacted once there is a problem with the sexual life of the couple.
Some of the consequences are listed below:

* Inability to enjoy deep pleasure that comes through a satisfying sexual session.
* Simple matters becoming big issues in the home leading to frequent conflicts. When a man is not sexually fulfilled at home, he reacts to simple matters at home as if they are big problems which often really makes such matters to become big.
* Seeking pleasure outside the home. Many homes have been broken down as a result of members seeking fulfillment outside the home. When that happens, it makes their partners to lose trust in them.
* Unfulfilled marriage. Fulfillment in marriage has a lot to do with sexual relations as a partner that is not fulfilled sexually, under normal circumstances, may not feel fulfilled in the marriage.
* Secondary effects on other areas of family life. A man that is not fulfilled sexually may refuse to fulfill his financial obligations in the home, just as a woman who is not sexually fulfilled may react in an unexpected way to the husband.
* Deep frustration. Unfulfilled sexual life in marriage may result in frustration especially when the problem cannot be shared with others.
* Easy prey to temptation. Someone who is not sexually fulfilled is prone to fall for temptation.
* Inability to work for intimacy in the life of other couples. If you are not sexually fulfilled at home, you may not appreciate or work towards it in the life of other couples under you.
* Gradual deterioration in relationship. One major consequence of unfulfilled sexual marital life is that it may lead to deterioration in the marriage. For instance a man that has started an illicit relationship as a consequence of it may start absenting himself from home.

The truth is that the primary and secondary consequences of sexual challenges at home are unlimited. A man that is sexually starved may not see any other valuable treasure in his wife, thus leading to frequent quarrels at home since there is nothing she will do that can ever satisfy him. A woman that is sexually starved also may unknowingly vent her frustration on anyone that crosses her path which may make those who don’t understand her frustration to come to wrong conclusions about her character.
A satisfactory sexual life may go a long way to determine the success of your home.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse
• Discuss with your spouse the likely consequences of sexual challenges in your home from your own angle.

PRAYER
I come against every obstacle against sexual fulfillment in my marriage in Jesus’ name.
(525 words)

QUOTABLE QUOTE
IF YOU REALLY LOVE YOUR SPOUSE, ISSUES THAT MAY REDUCE YOUR INTEREST IN HIM/ HER WILL BE MINIMAL. – DR. Mike Oluniyi