The marital relationship is supposed to be a place where your feelings and emotions are safe with your spouse because you are in partnership with each other—being careful and considerate with each others feelings. You don’t expect to be laughed at, taken advantage of, or assaulted with poisonous putdowns and/or physical abuse. And neither should you do any of these things to your spouse.

And yet this is what is happening in homes all over the world in epidemic proportions—even with those that claim to be Christ-followers. We know that to be true from what we read in various publications and also because we hear this from so many of our subscribers to Marriage Missions. It’s absolutely heart-breaking. And it’s ABSOLUTELY WRONG and something that needs to be addressed and worked against.

God shows us all throughout the Bible, that it is not His will that we live our lives in such depraved ways. We are to live our lives together in such a way that it shows to everyone we come in contact with (especially our marital partner) that we are transformed in a positive way by the love of Christ, not conformed to “the pattern of this world” (see Romans 12). We are to live our lives in such a way that we communicate the gospel both with and without words—by our actions AND our words. We have to be mindful of both.

As it tells us in the Bible,

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves—DO WHAT IT SAYS. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man, who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.” (James 1:22-26)

“I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-3)

Are you living your married lives with each other in this manner? Is your marriage a place where you are “bearing with one another in love?”

Dr Fred Lowery, author of the book, Covenant Marriage said this:

You’ve got to build a safety net—an atmosphere so that each person is able to be honest. I can say what I feel. I can express my feelings, my emotions, knowing that I’m not going to be made fun of, laughed at, or put down or taken advantage of. You build that kind of closeness.

It’s pulling back the layers of our life because you’re safe with that person — that one person where you can open the shutters of your life and be absolutely real, knowing that you’re going to be loved in that process. There is no greater key to marriage than safe communication, because if you can’t communicate, you can’t have a great marriage.

That is what we hope to address throughout this year. Our goal is to help us all to make our marriages ones where the love of God flows freely—where we unconditionally exhibit the love and grace of Christ to each other. We see this as a year of “Choices/Changes.”

It is a year where we hope to inspire all of us to work to tear down every “stronghold” of our married lives that “sets itself up against the knowledge of God” and “take captive every thought [and action] to make it obedient to Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Simply put, a stronghold is “a place having strong defenses; a fortified place; a strongly defended place.” Sometimes having a stronghold in our attitude towards certain actions can be a good thing—when we strongly defend and do that which is right.

But when we strongly hold onto an attitude or behavior that “sets itself up against the knowledge of God” —that which God says is wrong, we need to tear it down and destroy it. That is our goal —to work on those areas of our married lives that are sinful strongholds, where we need to make pro-active choices and changes that reflect the love of Christ in all we do.

Where we are making good choices, the changes will be those of gradual increase. Where we are making bad choices in how we are living out our married lives with each other, the changes will need to be more pro-active in tearing down strongholds of sin that oppose the ways of Christ and work towards building up that which would please the heart of our God, our spouse, and those who witness how we live what we say we believe.

To do this we need to define what sin is because “until we understand what it is, we’ll never take its consequences seriously” (Ravi Zacharias).

And also, unless we fully recognize sin we may not see how important it is to root it out and destroy it. Susanna Wesley gave this definition:

Sin is whatever:

• Weakens your sense of reasoning…

• Impairs the tenderness of your heart…

• Obscures your sense of God, or…

• Takes away your desire for spiritual things.

In short, if anything increases the authority of the flesh over the Spirit, no matter how good it is in and of itself—that to you is sin.

We want to ask you: whatever “problems” you’re having in your marriage, do any of them fall within one of those categories? Really think about it. If so, you need to recognize that this is a sin stronghold that needs to be destroyed.

And another problem: it happens all too often that people try to “normalize” sin by getting others to buy into it. This is something that Dr. Charles Swindoll warns us about. He said:

You need to recognize how the enemy of our faith encourages us to:

• Notice another person’s sin more than our own.

• Define sin as less heinous than it really is —perhaps regarding it as understandable, in some cases even desirable.

• Explain sin as a legitimate reaction to life’s disappointments and therefore, worthy more of compassion than judgment.

• Treat sin as something merely naughty, like a childish prank.

• Evaluate sin as a merely regrettable path to legitimate relief from pressure and pain —a path made necessary by whomever designed the world.

If you recognize any of these sinful strongholds in your thinking and/or your actions within your marriage we hope you will work together with us to tear them down making this the year of “Choices and Changes” toward a better marriage—catching and reflecting the love of God in every way possible!

Keep in mind, “Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen your love and reverence, trust and obedience for Jesus Christ. Your marriage is not about you. It’s about Christ—becoming as Christ” (Emerson Eggerichs).

That is our continual goal!

God Bless!
Cindy and Steve Wright

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