👉🏽 Continued from; https://kubwaexpress.com/2022/02/06/first-service-of-the-4-super-sunday-on-avoiding-heartbreak-💔-in-relationships-john-edward-okoh/
The slightest trigger: it is unimaginable to think of most marriages being put asunder for the slightest reasons. I.e the lady feels she is no longer getting the flower she use to get, calls she got before they married. Or the man feels the lady is no longer looking the shape he married after giving birth to kids or over the years.
*The alternates to godly Relationship*:
All these problems then create tension and pressure in the relationships. As a result of The pressure of seeking for love, financial stability and security in relationship, many people have resorted and surrendered to the following:
🔹 Many have resort to Trial Marriages: this is a mindset that said “let’s live together for awhile, to see if this will work”.
🔹 the desperation to marry at all cost has also led to co-habitation: co-habitation means let’s not get too committed, let’s just enjoy ourselves for awhile. I have free sex and I will pay the rent. Or I will cook for you, you’ll take care of my babies. Co-habitation!
Next, is intimacy without commitment: meaning I have sex with you but don’texpect anything from me. Have my babies but not my money.
this pressure has also led to marriage with pre-conditions: it is called prenuptial marriage agreement: it is a kind of marriage that says “I’ll marry you but you can’t put your name on my things. You can stay in my house but don’t you ever come into my room. I’ll marry you but you can’t touch my commitment to my first marriage and my children.
This leads to distrust, people start having secret bank account, secret properties, secret affairs etc.
Point 1- Choosing a life partner: this is the most important decision every person will make next to their decision to follow Christ (except you’re a nun or eunuch). This decision is more important than the decision to buy your first car or house. It is equally more important than building your first house. Why? Because you can spend millions to buy a car and not ride with your wife. You can buy your first house and it becomes hell to live with your spouse. Therefore, it is more important to understand marriage than buying or building your car or house. Pro. 1:5, 2:3-5
👉🏽 It is hard to imagine most people car last longer than their marriage. Why? Because they were subjected to undertake driving test by the government. But when it comes to marriage you don’t have the government compelling you to go for marriage training.
No law that saying before you marry, you must read this book or that book. Why? Because government is more concern about your car on their streets than they are about your life in their community.
👉🏽 All major profession requires certain kind of training to prepare you with the necessary skills required to succeed. You can’t just wake up one morning and say you are now a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant? You are trained, yet there is hardly any nation where people are compelled to go for formal learning or training before embarking on marriage. There is hardly any formal institution where people go to study “marriage profession” that was designed by God to last for a Lifetime.
👉🏽 Even the church that ought to champion this, still haven’t understood the subject herself.
No wonder we have so money failed marriages and broken relationships, even among believers. Could this be the reason we are where we are in this country; with so many divorces, relationship heart breaks, giving birth to children you can’t train, thereby creating the problems we now face as a nation?
Hence a successful relationship is as a result of the application of knowledge, not the exchange of love. This is why King Solomon in his wisdom said in proverbs 24:3
3:By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; 4: through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.
Therefore, choosing a life partner must not be taken without careful and prayerful consideration.
*Marriage is not a criteria to serve GOD, neither is it a requirement to fulfill his Will.
Point 2 – God won’t choose your partner for you:
Adam blamed Him for doing that (Gen 3:12) and ever since then He has stopped choosing life partner for people. Now, it is “he that finds” (pro 18:22). So do not be carried away by someone coming to claim God showed you to them in their dreams. Today, the responsibility to choose who you marry is yours.
👉🏽 But GOD still helps you to choose right, by giving you brains to think, the Holy Spirit to discern, Pastors to give you good counsel, and Parents to guide you. Yet with all of these enablements, some people still end up taking dumb decisions in choosing a life partner.
Therefore, love is not the foundation for marriage. Don’t get married away because you love someone. Why is this important? Because it is possible to love something you don’t know how to use.
👉🏽 Example, I love golf course. But I don’t know how to play golf. I love those military jets but I don’t know how to fly them. So, it is possible to love something you don’t know how to use. You can love a car and yet you don’t know how to drive. You can love someone and not know how to pull a successful relationship together. So, you have a knowledge gap problem.
Love does not keep marriage together. Folks who are divorced will tell this statement is very true. Why? Because they were once in love. Again, successful marriage is the result of the application of knowledge not the exchange of love.
Prov. 4:7 says… Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
8 ……Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.
👉🏽 You need the knowledge to understand what it means to be female and the uniqueness of a male. You need to understand communication skills, how to manage emotions, the dynamics of disagreements.
You need continuous knowledge to protect your home and relationship from perishing.
Hosea 4: 6……..my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
🔹 You cannot reject what was never available. Therefore, your ignorance was a choice even in your relationship.
So, the most misunderstood elements of relationship is love
. Now, there are four major types of love:
👉🏽 Philos (storge) parental or brotherly love
👉🏽 Eros – erotic love, fleshly or sexual live
👉🏽 Esterigo – friendly live
👉🏽 agape – God kind of love, a love with no string attached. This is the kind of love that forgives a person who commits adulttary on you.
Only agape makes permanent relationships possible. I say agape can help you to use God’s material to get God’s result in a relationship.
Concluded.
