Love Dare Day 4 2024
Love Dare- Day 4
Good morning to you who In Christ are loved, forgiven, and secure, more than conquerers through Jesus who loved us!
May Gods grace bless you and your family with joy, peace and rest today!
We are now at day 4 of the Love dare- 10 percent of the way in after today as we wage spiritual warfare against an enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) who believes that his subtle deceptions can drive a wedge in between us in our marriages.
God has said differently.
Todays focus will be expressing love by being thoughtful of your spouse as God is towards us and we are to be towards Him. thoughtful doesn't mean doing nice things (although it can and should lead to that).
It means truly thinking of and studying your spouse to know them better in increasing measure.
As we look at Psalm 139 ( give the whole thing a read) , we realize that God is immeasurably familiar with us. He loves us, created us and knows us with a deep and abiding knowledge. Made in His image, and filled with His Spirit, His design is for us to do the same with our spouses - because I tell you the truth, He calls us one flesh. WE are to daily grow deeper into our relationship with one another in knowledge, closeness, care and concern.
Each day in the series, we point out the enemies schemes to twist Gods Words and kill, steal and destroy us so that we can effectively recognize his activity in our homes and stand firm and victorious against him as we throw him out in every area of our lives that we find him.
Today we will take note of 1 Peter 5:8 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Many of us have heard it, but havent made the connection to the tactics that the enemy uses against our marriages.
That Word “ Devour” is in the greek -καταπίνω katapínō - which means devour, drown, swallow -
In our marriages, we can often stop loving our spouse as God loves us, and be tempted to believe that our work, our children , our hobbies, our family activities, our “ me time”, our “ ministry callings”, our “ careers opportunities”, etc are the focus, and the marriage relationship between man and wife gets put in last place.
These things are all generally good things, but aren’t the first thing that God calls us to as Husbands and wives. Our marriages are underwater and “drowning” in activities that “seem” good, but ultimately subtly pull apart and separate what God has joined together- Our marriages.
Its easily observable. We seldom think of our spouse, let alone continue to seek them out and care for them, unless we have to for some reason. The enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) has his way in our marriages and we never even know it. Our marriages have effectively been drowned, swallowed up and devoured by activity and we don’t even notice until there are severe problems.
A telling sign? In our marriage ministry, many couples come for help, then actually can’t even attend counseling because they are drowning in their schedules and don’t know how to lay things down so that they can get assistance, even for an hour a week. That’s the number 1 challenge that we are currently seeing.
Couples will lay their marriage down, but nothing else. They are now officially drowning and unable to get above water. The enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) has lied to them about other things being more important, and then slowly drowns their marriage until there is no life left.
As always, Gods Word is direct and simple, and His burden easy and His yoke is light. An easy start to getting back above water is todays love dare - Begin to focus on building a habit of daily focusing on thinking about your spouse, who they are, their needs and their day. This will take work.
PRACTICE it.
Get solid here and see what God does :-)
Much love and many blessings in Christ
May Gods grace bless you and your family with joy, peace and rest today!
We are now at day 4 of the Love dare- 10 percent of the way in after today as we wage spiritual warfare against an enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) who believes that his subtle deceptions can drive a wedge in between us in our marriages.
God has said differently.
Todays focus will be expressing love by being thoughtful of your spouse as God is towards us and we are to be towards Him. thoughtful doesn't mean doing nice things (although it can and should lead to that).
It means truly thinking of and studying your spouse to know them better in increasing measure.
As we look at Psalm 139 ( give the whole thing a read) , we realize that God is immeasurably familiar with us. He loves us, created us and knows us with a deep and abiding knowledge. Made in His image, and filled with His Spirit, His design is for us to do the same with our spouses - because I tell you the truth, He calls us one flesh. WE are to daily grow deeper into our relationship with one another in knowledge, closeness, care and concern.
Each day in the series, we point out the enemies schemes to twist Gods Words and kill, steal and destroy us so that we can effectively recognize his activity in our homes and stand firm and victorious against him as we throw him out in every area of our lives that we find him.
Today we will take note of 1 Peter 5:8 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Many of us have heard it, but havent made the connection to the tactics that the enemy uses against our marriages.
That Word “ Devour” is in the greek -καταπίνω katapínō - which means devour, drown, swallow -
In our marriages, we can often stop loving our spouse as God loves us, and be tempted to believe that our work, our children , our hobbies, our family activities, our “ me time”, our “ ministry callings”, our “ careers opportunities”, etc are the focus, and the marriage relationship between man and wife gets put in last place.
These things are all generally good things, but aren’t the first thing that God calls us to as Husbands and wives. Our marriages are underwater and “drowning” in activities that “seem” good, but ultimately subtly pull apart and separate what God has joined together- Our marriages.
Its easily observable. We seldom think of our spouse, let alone continue to seek them out and care for them, unless we have to for some reason. The enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) has his way in our marriages and we never even know it. Our marriages have effectively been drowned, swallowed up and devoured by activity and we don’t even notice until there are severe problems.
A telling sign? In our marriage ministry, many couples come for help, then actually can’t even attend counseling because they are drowning in their schedules and don’t know how to lay things down so that they can get assistance, even for an hour a week. That’s the number 1 challenge that we are currently seeing.
Couples will lay their marriage down, but nothing else. They are now officially drowning and unable to get above water. The enemy ( the Lord rebuke him) has lied to them about other things being more important, and then slowly drowns their marriage until there is no life left.
As always, Gods Word is direct and simple, and His burden easy and His yoke is light. An easy start to getting back above water is todays love dare - Begin to focus on building a habit of daily focusing on thinking about your spouse, who they are, their needs and their day. This will take work.
PRACTICE it.
Get solid here and see what God does :-)
Much love and many blessings in Christ
Day 4: Love is thoughtful
How precious also are Your thoughts to
me. . . .How vast is the sum of them! If I
should count them, they would
outnumber the sand.
—Psalm 139:17–18
TODAY’S DARE
Contact your spouse sometime during
the business of the day. Have no agenda
other than asking how he or she is doing
and if there is anything you could do for
them.
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