3 Big Things That Will Totally Reset Your Marriage
Your marriage may need a total RESET.
Things build up between a couple. Every Valentine’s Day, millions of married people try to “recharge” their marriage with chocolate candy.
Is it possible for a marriage to actually “reset,” to become like brand new?
I recently bought a very cool battery charger. Obviously, it had the normal “recharge” mode. This particular one I bought, however, had a “renew” mode.
You can push “renew” and it removes all the build-up on the plates inside the battery. After a couple of days on the charger, the battery is like factory new.
What if you could do that with your marriage?
These 3 things will help you do that!
1. Remember your COVENANT.
A covenant is made of up two “chambers,” like a heart. The left one is the “legal” part of marriage. It is a contract. But marriage is more than that. It is also steadfast love or “loyalty.” That’s the other chamber of the heart in marriage.
We need to get both chambers pumping:
1. The “legal contract” side so that sentimentality and feelings don't rule your relationship (“I love you, I love you not”). And,
2. The “loving connection” side so that marriage does not feel like simply a duty or obligation. Instead, it says, “I honor you, I forgive you, I love to be with you more than anyone or anything.”
“All the fights, the arguments, and the anger must be brought to the cross of Christ to be truly forgiven.”
2. Remember to FORGIVE.
God made a covenant with Israel in the desert (the Ten Commandments). Within days, they had broken it with an idolatrous golden calf. What did He do, reject them forever? No, He forgave them and “renewed” the covenant.
Your covenant marriage partner will give you abundant opportunities to forgive! God spoke His covenant name to Moses: “The Lord, full of compassion and grace, slow to anger, and abounding in covenant love and faithfulness.”
Speak out loud all 5 of those qualities over a spouse who has disappointed you.
3. Remember to FORGET.
In the book of Genesis, Joseph’s eleven jealous brothers sold him as a slave in Egypt. He went through years of slavery and imprisonment in an underground penitentiary. After his release, he married and then named his first child, “Manasseh”: “made to forget.”
You have to forget. Ask God to help you forget in these three areas:
1. MEMORIES—All the retained memories that you hold onto in your mind: The words spoken, the disappointments, the times they were not there for you.
2. WORDS—All the fights, the arguments, and the anger must be brought to the cross of Christ to be truly forgiven.
3. SECRETS—Secret habits, secret addictions, secret pornography, secrets affairs, secret attachments, secret financial arrangements. Cleanse your conscience so that you don’t have to hide the rest of your life.
This stuff is way more important than chocolate candy.
This Valentine’s Week, don’t just “revive” or “renew” your marriage: Go all the way and “reset” your marriage!
