Welcome to the Marriage Breakfast Club!

Welcome to the Marriage Breakfast Club Blogspot.
Come in and stay a while as we discuss the meaning of marriage along with highlights from our weekly marriage class hosted by Blood-N-Fire Ministries in Dallas, TX.

Marriage was created to be a blessing. For those of you who don’t feel that way….keep reading!!!
At some point in your life, you have dreamed about meeting the Mr./Mrs. Right, your soul mate. If you are a girl, then you probably thought about this at least 20 times a day and mistakenly thought that you had met “the ONE” by second grade, only to find him holding hands and passing notes to your BEST FRIEND. Now you are probably at the point in the “dating game” as someone in our class described it, where you are/or were in search of someone to fill your deepest needs, someone who will watch football and LIKE IT, or someone who will send you flowers and box of chocolates just because they love you and don’t care how much you gain from eating them all at once. Whether you are single or married, you can have this mindset. Sounds a little selfish, huh? It all becomes about finding someone to make you happy, and as our pastor’s wife said, if you can’t be happy when you are single, then you SURE won’t be happy when you are married. Now, I am sure that those of us who are married, don’t intentionally go into marriage seeking that…instead we just want to spend every waking moment making this person happy. But, when we begin redeeming those little gift cards we got in the mail, once that knot is tied tight, disappointment slowly creeps in. As a woman, we realize that our Mr. Right doesn’t want to decorate our bedroom in flowers and enough candles to light the entire neighborhood, and he realizes that Mrs. Right tends to be opinionated and bossy when deciding that the see-through frog toilet lid is neither funny nor trendy, and that the fuscia color scheme will best suit “their” style. This is when something begins to rise up in us that wants to grab that toilet seat and say, “Well, that is what I want”, but we just silence that animal and say, ”Ok, dear. Anything for you,” only fearing that eventually everything will be for her/him. So how do we stop this vicious cycle, which is exactly what it becomes?

Each of us are born with a sinful nature that at its core seeks to meet its own desires. Life becomes about Me, Myself, and I. Until we are born-again into the Spirit of the Living God, through salvation with Jesus Christ, we are bound to this nature. But, if you have been set free and have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, you are no longer a slave to yourself. Romans talks about how we are not under the law of sin any longer, but that we are set free to live by the law of love. Look at it this way. When your mother tells you to stay out of the cookies, that is all you can think about…mmm…how good would a morsel of that yummy goodness be?? And the more you think about it, the more you want it, and the warning from your mother begins to fuel the fire, because you begin to think…”She knows how good they are and she just wants to keep them all to herself!”, not rationally thinking about the fact that you are about to eat and how she doesn’t want you to spoil your dinner. That is the law. However, when Jesus came to set us free, he placed His Holy Spirit inside of us and we begin to love the Lord, because He loved us when we were unlovable. Now, the love of God was spread abroad in our hearts and our actions become motivated by the love for God. Now, we walk into that kitchen, and as we see those freshly baked cookies mom just pulled out of the oven, we think about the last stomach ache we had from eating cookies before dinner and we realize that when our mother warned us long ago, it was because she was looking out for our little tummies. We remember that our mom always gives us a cookie after dinner so we walk past them for a hug instead.

This is the kind of love that should be active in our marriage. For those of you who think that you have a right to have your needs met and you will only, at that point return the favor to your spouse, you are thinking, as my pastor’s wife described, with a “contract” mindset. Protect your rights and limit your responsibilities. But God, knowing how evil and unlovable we were, out of a “covenantal love” sent his Son to sacrifice his life. He gave away His rights as GOD (as he came to earth as a human) and took responsibility for our sins, dying on the cross and wipe out our sins with His precious blood. Having been freed from sin and the law, we should respond back to Him in that same covenant and give up our self-proclaimed rights and take responsibility to live a life that pleases him…out of LOVE. So, just as we married our spouses because we loved them, we should live our lives in this same manner; giving of ourselves, submitting to one another, and taking responsibility for our flaws, insecurities, and mistakes. This frees us to be committed, connected, and conquerable. Now, every wall that begins to go up can be brought down with our love for one another and more importantly for the Lord.
You see the thing is, when we give of ourselves unselfishly, out of love to our spouse, they will eventually return the favor. We went to a Jimmy Evans conference once, and he said that if a husband wanted his wife to be more intimate with him, that he should serve her in a way that speaks her language. (We will eventually get to what that language consists of). Eventually, a payoff will come. Now, this doesn’t mean that we should serve out of an expectation of a night when our needs alone are met, but out of love, serving one another, sacrificing our needs for our spouse’s. The law has become love. We no longer “give in”, we just give. And the Bible says, he who gives, should give generously.
So, take the time this week to examine your marriage and ask yourself if your,"Is my marriage based on a contract or covenant?" If it is contract, then ask the Lord to teach you "all things", to show you how to love your spouse convenantaly, just as the Lord Jesus Christ loves you. Find ways to out-give your spouse, and remind them that you are commited to them and of your love for them.
God Bless!!!