Couples Building Rock Solid Marriages

1. Couples Building Rock Solid Marriages TRADEMARKS

2. Intro New Couples Prayer

5. The Power of Dreams • Honda Cars • It’s The Real Thing • Coca Cola • How Many Bars Do You Have? • AT&T Wireless • Between Obsession and Madness Lies Obsession • Calvin Klein • Good To The Last Drop • Maxwell House • You’re in Good Hands • All State

7. Are You A Blessing To Your Spouse? The Blessing: The bible depicts it as unconditional acceptance and affirmation. Old Testament: Gen 27:1-40 Jacob steals Esau’s blessing Esau: verse 34 “Bless me, even me also, O my Father.”

8. OT and the Blessing • God used this concept to identify His line of blessing through one family. • The blessing passed through one families offspring. Today, the contrast would be Jesus and through Him all may know God’s blessing of healing and forgiveness. • God’s sovereign choice • Deeply personal as we see with the cries of Esau. Affirmation and acceptance

9. 5 Elements of the Blessing for todayThe Blessing Smalley & Trent • Meaningful Touch • Spoken Message • Attaching High Value to the One Being Blessed • Picturing/providing a special future for the one being blessed. • An active commitment to your mate

10. It All Starts With How You Think • Proverbs 23:7 • As a man thinketh in His heart, so is he. (NASB) • Don’t accept a meal from a tightwad; don’t expect anything special. He’ll be as stingy with you as he is with himself; (The Message) • Are you a tightwad? How do you think about your spouse? • Are they having to earn your blessing or are you just determined to give them the blessing? • Did you grow up receiving the blessing?

11. As Couples • Describe to your spouse what ‘the blessing’ may have looked like or lacked in your home growing up. • Share any ‘tightwad’ areas that you may display and any thoughts of why you may be like that.

12. The Battle • Satan is a head hunter, your mind is the battlefield, His trophies are your imagination. • Are you developing the mind of Christ? • Romans 12:1-2 • Are you allowing the word of God to train the way you think? Or is the world getting it’s way? • Joshua and Caleb • Two different reports of the same situation. One was appropriate/correct interpretation, the other not.

13. How is Your Vision? • 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[a] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[b] your whole body will be full of darkness. • Are your eyes clear? • Being intentional about what/how we see • How do you perceive things? • What’s going on outside is often a reflection of what is on the inside.

14. Simple Prayers: • May my thoughts please you today. • Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;         Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24And see if there be any hurtful way in me,         And lead me in the everlasting way.

15. The only thing that you can control is how you think. • Not circumstances and not what others do. • Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Colossians 3:2 • Rethink the way you think!

16. Is It In You This Year? • As tables talk about what it looks like to train the way you think to grow your marriage on a daily basis. • What actions can you take to transform the way you think about your spouse in order to strengthen your marriage?

17. 5 Elements to Blessing your Spouse: • 1. Meaningful touch: • A key to communicating warmth, personal acceptance and affirmation. • Ask your spouse: What is meaningful touch to them? • Mark 10:13-16 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them.  14But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, "Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. • 15"Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." • 16And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.

18. Jesus could have easily dismissed the value of the children, waved from afar and kept His schedule. • Jesus was a master of communicating love and personal acceptance. • Study His life. • Mark 1:40-42 And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." • 41Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed." • 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

19. Jesus touched a leper. • The longing to be touched. • Touched first, spoke words of spiritual and physical healing. • Jesus recognized his deepest needs. • Are you tuned into your spouses deepest needs? • Healing begins with meaningful touch.

20. Spoken Words • “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” • Stupid and wrong • Your wife or husband value hearing words of acceptance and love on a regular basis. It is a basic need. • Are you making deposits with words? • God spoke…..words are powerful! • John 1:14 “the word became flesh and dwelt among us” God’s ultimate blessing to us came from spoken word in His son Jesus Christ. • Words of life!

21. As couples: Tell each other a few things that you loved hearing your spouse say about you or to you about you.

22. Attaching High Value to Another • The Hebrew word for “bless” is Barak which means : to kneel or bend a knee. • Blessing someone is the idea of bringing a gift to another on bended knee. • In OT a true king would serve his people, one who will humble himself and come to his people on bended knee. • Proverbs 3:27 • Have you come to your spouse on bended knee? • To add value you may need to be less about yourself. • “Tell me what you love about him/her…what attracts you to them.

23. Picturing a Special Future For them • 28Now may God give you of the dew of heaven,         And of the fatness of the earth,         And an abundance of grain and new wine; 29May peoples serve you,         And nations bow down to you;         Be master of your brothers,         And may your mother's sons bow down to you Cursed be those who curse you,         And blessed be those who bless you.“ • A very common Jewish practice as it involved inheritance and God’s prepared plans.

24. We can be a blessing by helping them set goals, dream and know what they are gifted in. • Affirming your spouse in how God created them. • Recognize gifts and character traits as attributes that the Lord may bless and develop. • Not about BIG accomplishments, but about living in the fullness of how God created them. • Jeremiah 29:11 11'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

25. Active Commitment to Your Mate • The glue to hold all of this together. • Show resolve in desire for the marriage to grow. • Base blessing your spouse on your active commitment NOT on what the circumstances bring. The road will be rocky but giving the blessing will mature your love for one another! • Be a blessing!!!