February is here, which means the Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Like most holidays, the advertising hype and the psychological hype is much greater before the event. Once the event has passed, it isn’t on your mind and doesn’t seem as important anymore. However, in the case of Valentine’s Day and marriages, the chivalry and romance should not get “passed” and left to one day a year. Valentine’s Day is set aside to be a little more romantic than normal, but it should not be the only day we are romantic and chivalrous toward our spouses. May we be inspired to do something regularly for our spouses, like pray for them, give them notes, tell them how good they look, pray with them, take time for them, take part in their hobbies, tell them how much we love/respect them, call them out of the blue, and sometimes, some spouses like it when they get some of their “own” time.
This sermon series, titled “In the ‘Ring’” is couched around the idea of marriage. We are looking at different words/phrases with the letters r-i-n-g in them and applying them to marriage to our spouse, as well as, our spiritual marriage commitment to our Lord. The words/phrase we looked at Sunday were the following: weaRING, bRING things to the marriage, shaRING, God-feaRING. Here are some applications to use this week as you serve Him…
- Wearing your ring is important to the marriage, as it continually reminds you of the commitment you made to your spouse. Appreciate the opportunity you have to wear your ring. As Christians, we also wear Christ. When you were clothed with Christ, you made a commitment to Him. Wear Christ with pride and show off your pristine clothes to those around you this week as you demonstrate what it means to be Christlike to those in your workplace, at school, in restaurants, at the store, etc.
- If you are married, you brought things with you, call it baggage. Anything that was in the past that has an affect on your marriage, whether your spouse knows about it or not, like people you dated/hung around with, if you’ve had other marriages and/or children, if you’ve been involved with drugs, drinking, pornography, etc., your family’s relationship, if you’ve been in jail, if you went to college, etc. would be included here. What did you bring to your marriage relationship? For all Christians, what are things which you brought to your life in Christ? Pray that you will be able to either tell your spouse of something from the past, continue to work through something you and your spouse are dealing with from things of your past, and/or work on giving things to God that are from the past which still affect you in the present and future. It is easier to go through life without baggage!
- Sharing your life with the one you love is priceless! You have memories that are both good and bad, but through it all you become best friends. Share with your spouse how your feel about them. You may say that they already know, but these types of things never grow old – so, go ahead and tell them – again! As Christians and our “marriage” to God we get to share in memories of sharing our faith with others. Make a memory by sharing your faith this week with someone, then share that experience with me…I would like to hear how it went!
- Being a couple which is God-fearing has many benefits toward the marriage. Your commonality allows you to do some amazing things together as the two of you team up with God to serve in the Kingdom. If one of you is not a believer, pray that your influence will be able to positively influence their heart to want to become a Christian. For all Christians, pray that you will continually be in constant reverent fear of God and may that allow you to keep Him as number one in your life!
Have a great week being “in the ‘ring’”!
Awaiting my weekly surprise ~
