Text: Gen.26:8-11

Memory:

When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. (Gen.26:8)

One of the biggest problems in the life of many marriages is unfulfilled sexual life – a situation in which the wife of a man consistently denies him sexual satisfaction either in quantity or quality. On the other hand, there is also a growing number of women who are complaining of being denied sexual satisfaction by their husbands. One of the reasons why it is such a problem is that people don’t readily discuss this vital area of their marital life with others because it is by nature supposed to be private between husband and wife. Consequently, it takes high level of trust or setting in of frustration before most people will open up concerning their sexual life.

Many also hardly complain about it because there is hardly anyone to ‘safely’ complain to. This is because many of those that counsel have also not taken time to really study the fact that this is a key area in marriage. Many ministers of God will just counsel the woman to submit in everything to the husband but they fail to teach couples that sex to a woman is a matter of the heart – when a woman submits her body to you without her heart, it is as if you robbed her of something vital.

One major reason why the problem must be addressed is that unfulfilled sexual life has a way of affecting other areas of life, both marital and non-marital, negatively.

Following are some basic truths that you should always be mindful of about your marital sex life.

It Is Your Duty As Well As Your Deepest Expression Of Love.(1Cor.7:4-5)

Sexual intercourse with spouse is an important responsibility of the two parties in marriage. You owe it as a duty, once you are married, to make yourself available for sex with your spouse.

You must also know that when you make yourself available for sex with your spouse, it is one of deepest ways you can demonstrate that you love your spouse.

God Ordained Sex Not Just For Procreation But Also For Pleasure.(Pro.5:18-19)

You and your spouse must get to know that God invented sex not just for procreation but also for pleasure. Romance and sex with your wife is endorsed by the Bible.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse

• Discuss with your spouse what excites you about your sexual life and what frustrates you. Discuss also what the two of you can do to make your sex life more fulfilling.

• What is the place of romance in your relationship?

Prayer Point

Father help us in this home to make sex an instrument of love and unity rather than a source of constant argument and quarrels in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE.

YOU ARE NOT DOING YOUR SPOUSE A FAVOUR WHEN YOU RESPOND POSITIVELY TO HIS OR HER SEXUAL ADVANCES, YOU ARE RATHER DOING YOUR HOME A FAVOUR.

Mike Oluniyi.

Main text: Eccl. 4:9-12.

Memory: Ecclesiastes 4:12

‘And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.’

God loves variety. In all marriages, the husband and wife are differently gifted, so what is missing in one is embedded in the other. Any marriage that can overcome every inhibition to be ‘lone rangers’ and combine the potentials in the two members is bound to achieve great things.

The covenant of marriage is also a very powerful covenant. When you do anything in agreement with your spouse, it appears that God backs it up and it comes out successfully. Consequently, agreement is very important in marriage.

If you can strive in your home to reach an agreement in whatever step you are about to take, especially business or ministry decisions, you will discover the power of unity in the home. I have noticed that in any business where the husband and wife are in partnership, the success rate is very high.

Agreeing in the family is however often easier said than done. As a man, your ego may often prevent you from doing things in agreement with your wife. As a wife too, there are potentially internal and external factors that may be inhibiting you from doing things in agreement with your husband.

Agreement on any matter before embarking on it improves your rate of success in any endeavor and in turn contributes to the success of the home because you will need each other to take every important decisions. Once you are married, God looks at you both as operating a joint account with Him. Can you imagine the difficulty of trying to singularly withdraw money from such account without your co-signatory?

‘And this is the second thing you do:

You cover the altar of the Lord with tears,

With weeping and crying;

So He does not regard the offering anymore,

Nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

Yet you say, “For what reason?”

Because the Lord has been witness

Between you and the wife of your youth,

With whom you have dealt treacherously;

Yet she is your companion

And your wife by covenant.’

(Malachi 2: 13 &14)

Your dependence on each other, fostered by the desire to agree on issues, do improve communication and strengthen the home. When you depend on each other, it increases the chances of success in whatever you are doing and has great impact on the success of your marriage.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse

• What are the obstacles you have identified preventing you from joint decision making in your home.

• What steps can you take to eliminate such obstacles.

PRAYER

LORD, I come against every obstacle that has been preventing us from taking decisions together in this home in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE

WHEN YOU DECIDE ON ANY MATTER IN AGREEMENT WITH YOUR SPOUSE, THE QUALITY OF YOUR DECISION APPRECIATES.

Mike Oluniyi.

Crisis period is inevitable in any marriage.

Text: Jn.16:31-33

Memory:

‘These things I have spoken to you so that in me ye might have peace. In the world, ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’(John 16:33)

However beautiful a relationship may be, there must be a period of shaking. It may be loss of job, illness, adultery, investment loss, deviant child, disaster etc. Such crisis is sometimes caused by either or both of the husband and wife, but most of the time, the causes are beyond any member of the family. A drastic change in government policy may sometimes throw a comfortable family into serious crisis just as an accident can leave an indelible mark on the family.

While not praying for crisis, you must be sufficiently committed to your marriage so that whatever happens, your home will continue to be on its feet. There is nothing that will happen in your home that has not happened somewhere else; most of the couples you are seeing are still together because they learnt the appropriate strategy of overcoming their own challenges. Maybe your spouse was caught in adultery, I can assure you other spouses have also been caught in worse cases when compared with your own. They are still together because they have learnt that your ability to overcome the unpleasant challenges that life throws at you is one major thing you must achieve if your marriage will make it.

However, if you find yourself in such situation, it may be better to take the following steps:

1. Convince yourself that you could have found yourself in a worse situation. Whatever might have happened to you, there is still a situation that could have been worse.

2. Find a way of scaling down your standard of living, if it is a financial crisis. For instance, if your children are attending a high fee-paying school, there is nothing wrong in taking them to a lesser one or even to public school. You may also need to adjust your ways of life with respect to the friends you relate with.

3. Don’t complicate things for yourself. For instance, if you are in a financial crisis and a proposal is presented to you that you should obtain a loan, using your house as a collateral, you may discard the proposal because if you fail to pay, you will lose your home and your family will be subjected to greater stress than you are presently experiencing.

4. Don’t lose your faith and don’t lose hope. (Luke 22:31-32)

5. Stop blaming your spouse. Your encouragement may be all that will be needed for him to weather the storm.

While not praying for crisis, you must realize that the unexpected often occurs in marriage, make up your mind that whatever happens, your marriage will not crash. The expectation of God is for you to keep your home to the end. So help you God!

Discussion Points With Your Spouse

• What are the resolutions you have made as a couple to help you during any period of challenge?

QUOTABLE QUOTE.

HOWEVER STABLE YOUR HOME IS, THERE WILL BE A PERIOD OF SHAKING. WHEN IT HAPPENS, IT IS NOT THE TIME TO DISCARD YOUR SPOUSE BUT A TIME TO DEMONSTRATE THAT YOUR MARRIAGE IS ‘TILL DEATH DO US PART’ – Dr. Mike Oluniyi

You Must Learn To Live With The Weakness Or The Imperfections Of Your Spouse.

Main text: 2 Cor.12:7-10

Memory:

2 Corinthians 12:9

‘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.’

Think about your spouse very well; it is very likely that there is something in him or her you would not have put, if you were God that created him or her.

There is no perfect wife neither is there any perfect husband anywhere. For you to have a successful marriage, there must be an imperfection that you have to live with in your spouse. If you see any ‘perfect’ couple, the success in their home is not as a result of absence of weaknesses in either or both of the spouses but as a result of having learnt to live with those traits in their spouse that they don’t like.

Maybe as a lady, you hate someone who snores, but as you slept after your wedding you heard the sound of snoring as if a trailer is ascending a hill, what will you do? If it is particularly difficult for your spouse to stop snoring, it will be better for snoring to become sweet music that lures you to sleep. If you don’t, you will definitely not enjoy your marriage.

Some imperfections may actually be a blessing in disguise. God can use the weak things of the world to achieve great things.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to

confound the wise … (1 Cor. 1:27-29)

You will be doing yourself a great deal of good if you can learn to live with the weakness or imperfection in your spouse. Come to think of it, there is also one in you, being accommodated by your spouse. Many homes have broken down because of intolerance. The unfortunate part of it is that if you allow your home to collapse as a result of it, your next spouse will not have the same imperfection but will definitely have her own which may be worse than the one you tried to avoid. That’s the reason why many end up having several marriages in their single lifetime.

The following are some of the reasons why many fail to accept the imperfections of their spouses:

1. They are yet to realize that they themselves are not perfect.

2. They are into extra-marital affairs.

3. They are comparing their spouse with someone else.

4. They are regretting marrying their spouse.

5. They are having the erroneous impression that their friend’s spouse is perfect.

6. They fail to realize that what they abhor in their spouse may actually be a blessing in disguise.

7. Unforgiveness.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse

• Is there any area of imperfection in your spouse that you are yet to accept?

• What do you think is making it difficult for you to accept it?

• What is the imperfection that you have been able to perfectly adjust to in your spouse?

PRAYER

I receive the grace to perfectly accept my spouse without any reservations in Jesus name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE

IF YOU DIVORCE YOUR SPOUSE BECAUSE OF A PROBLEM WHICH YOU DISCOVERED IN HER, THE ‘ANGEL’ THAT WILL REPLACE HER WILL NOT COME IN WITH THAT PARTICULAR PROBLEM BUT WITH A BRAND NEW SET OF PROBLEMS – Mike Oluniyi.

DAY 10

ANY ALTERNATIVE TO YOUR SPOUSE IS DEADLY TO YOUR HOME

Text: Matt.19:5-6.

Memory:

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:5-6)

An alternative attraction is a member of the opposite sex from whom you derive part or whole of the pleasure that you are supposed to derive from your spouse.

In the life of a marriage, either spouse must interact with members of the opposite sex. In the process of interacting with others, temptation comes; something catches your attention about a member of the opposite sex. Sometimes it is immediate, but most of the time it happens as you continue to work closely with them, share personal experiences with them or something brings you close to them often. Often, it happens quite innocently as the person you are attracted to does not have the intention of seducing you but at other times, there is a deliberate attempt to do so. Once you are affected, your spouse gradually becomes less attractive to you. Ultimately, such alternative attraction goes beyond ordinary help and goes into sexual involvement which becomes really deadly to your home.

Some of the men who have been involved in extramarital affairs may claim to still be attracted to their wives despite their affairs. The truth is that when you are initially involved in an affair, you may still be considering your spouse and home but you will get to a stage when you become so used to it that you will throw caution to the winds, damn any apparent consequences, and in fact do everything possible to do away with your spouse. Some of the things that cheating spouses do are as follows:

1. They tell lies to cover their tracks and when the one they told before is about to be exposed they manufacture a bigger one.

2. Their interest in the welfare of their spouse reduces with time.

3. Their relationship with God gets negatively impacted.

4. They become gradually ready to do away with anyone, including their spouse, who opposes their plan.

5. They waste a lot of resources that could have been spent or invested on their family on the alternative attraction.

6. They tend to forget the good side of their spouse and remember only the ugly side of their spouse. At a stage, they either abandon their home or do anything possible to drive out their spouse.

7. They tend to become closer to people they were not close to before, such as members of their family, who support such moves they are making.

Once there is an alternative attraction, your sweetheart who you could not do without may become the devil who you have to do away with by all means. If you want to make your marriage successful, avoid getting involved in a relationship with the opposite sex. Don’t start it at all, because once started, it may be very difficult to break.

Any alternative to your spouse is deadly to your home.

Discussion Points With Your Spouse

PRAYER

May I never be involved in digging grave for my marriage by having an alternative attraction to my spouse in Jesus’ name.

QUOTABLE QUOTE.

ONCE THERE IS ALTERNATIVE ATTRACTION, YOUR SPOUSE BECOMES LESS ATTRACTIVE TO YOU. – Dr. Mike Oluniyi.