What are you believing for yourself and your family for 2020?
Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – marriage, relationships with children
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life (Satan did not create fun, he just perverted it.)
- Field of endeavor (job or vocation)
- Friendships (social relationships)
- Marriage is a covenant and not a contract.
- Contract Defined: A contract is an agreement between two parties and is designed to protect your rights and to limit your responsibilities.
That is the reason that we enter into a contract.
- In a covenant, we give up our rights and we pick up our responsibilities.
Every person in the Bible who entered into a covenant knew that they were giving up rights and picking up responsibilities. This is the opposite of a contract.
In our society today, there is a contract spirit that people are entering into marriage with and it is leading to divorce. It will not work.
- You cannot enter into marriage limiting your responsibilities and protecting your rights.
- The only way that you can enter into marriage is to give up your rights and pick up your responsibilities.
How do we know that this is the only way that it works? Because this is the only way that Christianity works. The reason we have so many unhappy, defeated Christians today is because they entered into salvation trying to protect their rights and limiting their responsibilities.
They try to enter into a contract with God and not a covenant. You cannot enter into a relationship with God that way.
- God did not enter into a relationship with us in a contract, He entered into a relationship with us in a covenant.
When Jesus came into the earth to redeem us, He gave up all of His rights and assumed all of our responsibilities.
Therefore we enter into a relationship with Him in the same way.
Which spirit would you rather have in your marriage? The contract spirit or the covenant spirit?
You must be willing to lay down your rights and pick up your responsibilities in your marriage if it is going to work.
We are going to talk about today about the three rights that we have to lay down if you want a Godly marriage:
Genesis 2:21-25 | NKJV And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. (22) Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. (23) And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” (24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (25) And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Marriage was in the world before sin was in the world.
God did not form Eve the same way that He made Adam. He took Eve from Adam’s side.
The word “covenant” actually means “to cut.” God cut Adam and took Eve out of his side so that marriage could be based on a covenant and 4000 years later God cut His Son and took His Bride out of His side so that our relationship with God would be based on a covenant.
These are the rights that we have to give up:
- The right of priority.
Genesis 2:24 | NKJV Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
God did not say this for Adam and Eve’s benefit. How do we know that? Adam and Eve had no father and mother. God was speaking to us when He said this.
This says, “I give you the right to be the first priority in my life and promise to protect that place against anything that YOU perceive as competition.”
In the spiritual, God is always your number one priority. In the natural, if you are married, your spouse is your number one priority.
Every other person, every other hobby, and every other activity now becomes secondary in priority to your spouse.
Incidentally, if you do not have your spouse as number one and you are not treating them with honor, respect and service then God is not number one in your life.
A way to tell if your spouse is truly first, is that she will begin to tell you to go and do the things that you enjoy doing rather than you doing them and leaving her out.
It is Heaven on earth when your spouse is your first priority. You know how I know that? Because your relationship with God is Heaven on earth when God is your first priority spiritually.
- The right of ownership or possession.
I give you the right to co-own and administrate everything I own in my life.
This verse says, “The two shall become one flesh…” You must substitute the word “mine” for “ours.” Nothing is yours anymore. Even in a blended family, they are not your kids and my kids, they are our kids.
Money is a huge area that this needs to take place.
1 Corinthians 7:4 | TPT Neither the husband nor the wife have exclusive rights to their own bodies, but those rights are to be surrendered to the other.
Some of you who are married got excited about this verse. This verse does not just mean in a sexual sense either.
You know what this also means? Pick up the vacuum cleaner. Take out the trash, etc.
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- Selfish people cannot have a successful marriage just like selfish people cannot be successful Christians.
- The right to privacy.
This says, “I give you free and unhindered access to every part of my life. I give you the right to complain and to confront me in any issue without fear of retaliation.”
Genesis 2:25 | NKJV And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Shame comes from hiding. Before sin they had no shame but after sin, they became ashamed.
When you become a believer you cannot hide from God anymore and when you get married you cannot hide from your spouse anymore.
Every part of you is open. Your spouse has the right to bring anything to you.
Your spouse has to have free access to every part of you, your heart and your emotions.
Men, you must be willing to share everything with your spouse including your emotions.
Ladies, do not clam up to your husbands and then share everything with your friends.
If you have a problem with your spouse do not take it out of the relationship to discuss it; take it to your spouse. This is basic Christianity.
Matthew 18:15 | NKJV “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.
If you are here and your marriage today looks more like a contract than a covenant what can you do?
God came to a man named Abraham and told Him that He wanted a covenant with him and wanted to give up His rights and pick up Abraham’s responsibilities and then wanted to bless him in all of that.
400 years later, Abraham’s descendants decided that they did not want a covenant with God and rebelled against the covenant; they wanted a contract. God said, “Fine” and gave them the law to show them they could not keep the contract.
God then sent Jesus in the spirit of covenant by grace so that He could fulfill the contract for us.
- You bring the spirit of covenant into the marriage and it will always overcome the spirit of contract. Grace always overcomes the law.