Marriage - Fight the Good Fight!

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Ecclesiastes 4:12

My husband and I fight like cats and dogs. I think people took bets our first year of marriage on whether we’d survive to celebrate our first anniversary. Well, 20 years later, we're showing them. But what they don’t know is that we have a little secret to surviving the highs and lows of marriage… FEAR!

No, we don’t fear each other. However, we do fear SOMEONE.

I recently read a heartfelt post from a mom that encouraged women to make their men cower once in awhile. It was written in response to a husband found cheating on his wife. While I fully agreed with the underlining message of the post suggesting that we must raise our daughters to be empowered, independent, educated and strong, one aspect of the article made me cringe. Growing up, my sisters and I received wonderful advice from our mom about education, independence and confidence. That advice shaped me into the woman I am today and I’m very grateful. But the suggestion that women needed to breath fire and make their men cower made me cringe a bit. I thought to myself, “I don’t want a husband who cowers and fears me.” That would be emasculating and he would eventually resent me.

The post was written in regards to adultery, so I understood the message the writer was conveying; women should be a force to be reckoned with and, in the same situation, I would probably breath fire. But, as I see the world falling further into darkness and the return of Jesus imminent, my outlook is shifting from the temporal to the eternal. If I’m going to be empowered in the days I have left, I want that power to come from God and not myself. I want my daughter to be confident, strong, empowered but I want her to know that all power worth having comes from God.  And if she and I are going to breath fire, I want it to be Holy Spirit fire. The fire that takes hatred, anger, and selfishness and consumes it in a blaze of God’s glory and leaves in the ashes joy, peace, wisdom, grace, and love.

So back to marriage survival 101…
I truly believe that the only reason my marriage has survived and thrived is because of our FEAR of God. What? The Bible says God is love. Why should we fear Him? Because God says to! The fear of God I’m talking about is reverence, awe, respect, acknowledging WHO HE IS.
Creator
God Almighty
The Great I AM
The First and The Last
Alpha and Omega
The ONE who holds our lives in His hands, our every breath and heart beat
The ONE who counts our tears and knows our every thought before we have them

When we acknowledge how great God is, when we see God for who He is, then we see ourselves clearly for who we are. We become less and He becomes greater. We take ourselves off the throne of our lives and put Him back on the throne where He belongs.

Here is what God says about the kind of fear He expects:

Fear God [revere and worship Him, knowing that He is] and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man [the full, original purpose of his creation, the object of God’s providence, the root of character, the foundation of all happiness, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun] and the whole [duty] for every man. Ecclesiastes 12:13 (AMP)

God says the whole duty of men and women is to FEAR Him.

Let all the earth fear the Lord [revere and worship Him]; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.  Psalm 33:8 (AMP)

God takes pleasure in those who fear Him and these are His promises for those who do:

• The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love. (Psalm 147:11)
• The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. (Proverbs 1:7; Psalm 111:10)
• The fear of the Lord is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding. (Job 28:28)
• The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. (Proverbs 8:13)
• In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge. (Proverbs 14:26)
• The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. (Proverbs 14:27)
• The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them his covenant. (Psalm 24:14)
• He is merciful to those who fear Him, from generation to generation. (Luke 1:50)
• All who fear the Lord have no lack. (Psalm 34:9)
• The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm. (Proverbs 19:23)
• Blessed is that man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments! (Psalm 112:1)
• God fulfills the desire of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them. (Psalm 145:19)
• A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (Psalm 31:30)
• Blessed is that man who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways! His work, wife, children, and grandchildren will be blessed. (Psalm 128:1-5)
• Our holiness is brought to completion in the fear of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 7:1)
• The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and life. (Proverbs 22:4)

Can you hear God’s heart?

Oh, that they had such a mind as his always, to fear Me and to keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with all their descendants forever! Deuteronomy 5:29

As the days grow darker and the signs of the End Times grow stronger, the devil knows his days are numbered. Jesus already won the war, the victory is His, but the devil is still battling and he does not want to go down alone. He is targeting God’s people and one of his favorite targets is marriage. He has declared war on marriage because marriage represents God’s covenant with His Believers. God calls Jesus our Bridegroom and the church His Bride.  The devil hates that! If he can get a foothold into our marriage and destroy it, he knows that he not only destroys our love for one another, he also blemishes our Christian testimony, and the ripple effects of that destruction go beyond your children, parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, ministry, and so on and so on. And he gloats and rejoices and moves on to the next victim.

Everywhere I look, marriages are being ripped apart. However, even more heartbreaking than our human marriages falling apart are the collapsing marriages between the Bridegroom (Jesus) and the Bride (Christians). Christians are being deceived by the world and tempted into detrimental sin by the enemy’s lies. Because of their lack of knowledge of the Word of God, they are being lead away to their own slaughter by a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Apathy and lukewarm relationships with God are causing them to fall into the arms of adulterers who are offering cheap pleasure instead of everlasting love.

Did you know that when you put your faith in Jesus Christ and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior, He gives you an engagement ring? That engagement ring is the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). That ring is a divine promise and unbreakable seal of possession. You are His bride and He is coming back for you. God has given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the inheritance we will receive in Heaven as brides of Christ and children of God. (2 Corinthians 1:22)

I read a book once that described a warrior who had two men constantly fighting so he had them bound together, back to back. He told them that they would stay that way until they learned to work together. That’s the image that came to mind of my husband and I. We are linked, arm-in-arm, back-to-back, learning to work together, bound by our fear of the Lord and a reverence for His Word. I never want a husband who fears me. I want a husband who fears The Lord!

No marriage is 100% secure. Not even mine. The devil is always roaming searching for his next victim to devour. He’s waiting for a sign of weakness in our marriages to make his strike. My husband and I will probably fight like cats and dogs until one of us dies or preferably we are both Raptured because we have a little problem -he thinks he’s always right and I know that I am. We are always battling our selfish flesh. But the one thing we agree upon is that God comes first. We both know that every blessing we have comes from God’s goodness and grace. The more we love God, the more His Holy Spirit helps us love one another. We want to continue to receive the promises listed above for those who fear Him. We want His protection, wisdom, provision, salvation, and blessings for our daughter. I pray that is always the case, that we fight the good fight until we cross that finish line together.

So BRIDES of Christ (BELIEVERS), are you ready to fight the good fight? Remember who your everlasting Bridegroom is. Put on your armor and pick up the sword of God’s Word and get ready for battle. Pray for your spouse daily, in the authority that’s been given to you as a child of God and in the Name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that they always have a fear of God. My husband asks me to pray for him every morning and wants me to send him scripture verses via text. I envision my daily prayers for my husband like this: We are standing back to back, and the battle is raging all around us, he’s watching for the enemy on one side and I’m watching for the enemy from the other, our child is sheltered between us. Every time, he leaves the safe zone, he tells me, “Yolanda, watch my back and cover me.” Taking out the sword of God’s Word, my prayers unleash God’s army of angels to cover him throughout his day.

So husbands and wives, if you want to breath fire, if you want to destroy the dragon, then breath the Holy Spirit fire throughout your house, praying and singing in the Spirit. Pray for yourself first, that you always have a fear of God. Secondly, pray for your spouse and children that they are filled with the Holy Spirit, have a righteous fear of the Lord, and that they learn to hide God’s Word in their hearts. Because the Bridegroom is coming soon to take us to the Wedding Feast! Hallelujah! And we want to be found ready and waiting! I don't know about you, but I seriously can’t wait!!!

Love,
Yolanda

PS: I highly recommend the movie, WAR ROOM (2015). It's an amazing film that will inspire and prepare you for the spiritual battle by learning the power of prayer.