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Fixing up a house may require you to see past what a house is and realize the potential that it has instead. Likewise you may have to look past the problems in your marriage and take deliberate steps to change things. Many marriages today have a broken and useless love, a love defined by selfishness and unrealistic expectations. Join us as we learn together how to change the love in your marriage with thoughtful and calculated ways!

How You Can Become Deliberate in Your Love

Realize the Potential of Your Fixer Upper

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10

Instead of just letting things happen to you in marriage, instead of being casual in your approach to marriage, you can instead take deliberate actions to add “good works” to your love.

According the Miriam-Webster.com deliberate as an adjective means:

:Characterized by or resulting from careful and thorough consideration.
:Characterized by awareness of the consequences.
:Slow, unhurried, and steady as though allowing time for decision on each individual action involved.

Synonyms include: advised, calculated, considered, knowing, measured, reasoned, studied, thoughtful, thought-out, weighed.

1. Be Deliberate in the Pursuit of Your Spouse.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

Consider the picture of Jesus pursuing you.

His pursuit is not motivated by what I do, but what He thinks about me.
- Even though I feel unworthy of those thoughts.
- He loves me for who I am!
Before I knew Him, he knew me and sought after me, He even died for me.
- When I was and still am a sinner, He gave himself for me.
- I remember when I felt the call and pull of His Spirit prompting me to put my trust in Him.
When I made the choice to love Him back, everything changed!
- The pursuit ended in an incredible relationship.
- When we are together it is like it is just the two of us and no one else in this world.
Your spouse is worth the pursuit of love.

Look Your Best for Your Spouse

As a wife, you don’t have to look perfect, you just have to be his.
- Your best is enough to satisfy your spouse because God planned it that way.
- You don’t have to be Barbie, you just have to be you for him.
Give the best that you have for your spousr
- Do you remember when you were dating or courting?
- For example when I was dating my would be wife, my vehicle was perfect, my hair was its best, and I had gifts for her, because I was pursuing her like I wanted her.

Love and passion must be pursued

The following are practical ways to pursue your spouse:

For the Wife

Wear his favorite outfit.
Dress up for him.
Cook his favorite meal.
Compliment him.

For the Husband

Purchase her favorite flowers.
Buy her favorite chocolates.
Plan a date night.
Plan a gettaway.
Purchase her something special.

When you both are pursuing love you discover this incredible relationship. It is just the two of you and no one else. God made marriage something incredible that you can enjoy everyday with each other. It doesn’t have to be second rate, it does not have to fade- Deliberately PURSUE your spouse!

2. Be Deliberate in Protecting your Covenant.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Genesis 2:21-22

In the beginning God made man and woman and He put them together. They were alone in this world. There was only one woman for Adam, and there was only one man for Eve. Therefore, this gives us a principle for marriage, that their is only one person for you to share your life with- it is with your spouse.

Protect Your Ears.

Listen to each other like there is no one else in the world to care about.
- There is something incredibly intimate about listening to each other like no one else exists.
- To think that out of 7.7 billion people in the world you have each other to share your lives with everyday.
- Stop what you are doing, put your phone down, turn off the television and just listen to each other.
Know the details of your spouse like there is no one else in the world.
- What are the things that your spouse likes?
- What are his/her greatest fear?
- What are his/her greatest hopes and dreams?
Let your spouse have your full attention.
- Deliberately make an attempt to listen to what they are telling you.
- Deliberately make an attempt to listen to what they are not telling you!

Protect Your Eyes.

The husband’s eyes should only be filled with his wife, and the wife’s eyes should only be filled with her husband.
Consider the progression of pornography.
- Magazines had to be purchased and hidden.
- With the rise of high speed internet it could be secretly viewed in the privacy of homes.
- Now with the proliferation of smart phones it is viewed on personal hand held devices.
Also, consider the impact of pornography on marriage.
- It pulls you in by offering something more than the last image.
- It destroys what God intended for your mind to focus on. You cannot be content with a regular relationship.
- Job lived in a completely different time, but he had a commitment that is desperately needed today.

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?
Job 31:1

Let your spouse be the only person who fills your eyes and God will give you a contentment, satisfaction, and fulfillment that the things in this world cannot.

Protect Your Rings.

Only flirt with your spouse.
Consider the impact of your actions on your marriage.
Hug your spouse, not everyone else.

3. Be Deliberate in Your Cooperation.

Learn to value the opinion of your spouse.

Let what your spouse thinks matter to you.
Consider the wife who dismisses the importance of her husband.
Also, consider the husband who dismisses the importance of his wife.

Learn to submit to one another.

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Ephesians 5:21

God did not intend for you to dominate your spouse but to love and cherish one another, which is what you vowed to do on your wedding day!
- The folly of the wife who dominates her husband.
- Likewise, the husband who dominates his wife.
Jesus submitted to God, the husband submits to the Jesus, and the wife submits to her husband.
- In this submission to your role, you should treasure and value the thoughts and feelings of your spouse.

Learn to become us instead of me.

If it was all about you, then why did you get married?
As you fulfill your roles in marriage you become a team.
One reason you cannot solve your conflicts in marriage, is because you cannot see past your own selfish wants, desires, and needs.

Conclusion

How You can become deliberate in your love.

Be deliberate in the pursuit of your spouse.
Be deliberate in protecting your covenant.
Be deliberate in your cooperation.

God has something amazing planned for your marriage!