The Importance Of Wisdom In Marriage

Proverbs 14:1

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 24:3-4

By wisdom a house is built and through understanding it is established;

Through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.

Its another beautiful day and another beautiful opportunity to share the beauty of God’s word. Over and over again we keep coming across negative stories about marriage and in most cases it appears as though the wife is the victim. The next question to ask God then would be is it okay by God to allow His beloved daughters waste away in the hands of cruel men in the name of husbands? If God is not partial why then will He allow some women have understanding husbands and a beautiful marriage while He allows other women fall into the hands of monsters as husbands? These questions are issues I will trust the Lord to answer for us in this blog post and a series of blog post that will be coming up in the course of the week. If you are such a person who wants to hear God’s response and learn the secret of enjoying a peaceful marriage, then I will beg you to follow on the blog posts that I will be sharing in the course of the coming days

In Genesis 2:18 after God had created all things and certified that they were good, He looked around and realized there was still one thing missing. Yes, the man God created was good, but he was not perfect, and so God decided to create perfection in him by creating from him a woman that will fill in the gaps of perfection in the man. So one truth that we as wives should always know and understand and appreciate is that what will bring about the perfection that we so long for and desire in our husbands resides in us. We are the entity that God has placed in the lives of the man to complete him and perfect him. What is required to make your husband perfect as God has designed him to be is within you his wife. No wonder Solomon says in Proverbs 18:22 that “he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from God.” He also said in Proverbs 12:4 that “A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like a decay in his bones.” With what Solomon is saying, the input of a wife in the life of her husband has a lot to do with the turn out of the husband’s character. Just like it is important for the man to sow good seeds in the life of his wife, so also is it equally important for the wife to sow good seed in the life of her husband.

So as a woman how do we go about this task of helping our husbands become perfect if indeed we are the entity required to bring about the perfection in our husband’s life that we desire. In the theme passage of this blog post, Solomon said a wise woman builds her house. That tells is that wisdom is the most active virtue that a woman requires in order to attain success in marriage. A godly and wise woman will in no doubt make a very success wife to a successful man.

According to what the Bible reveals to us in Proverbs 24:3-4, it is only by wisdom can a house and your marital home be built, no other way round it will work. If you are having problems with your marriage the big advice I will give to you is to pray to God for wisdom to build your home. You need wisdom to be the God given suitable helper that God has made you in the life of your husband.

I have come to realize that there is no husband who is faultless, as long as he is human and has red blood flowing through his veins, he will get on your nerves, he will upset you and make you angry every now and then. And big of all, he will betray your trust, he will disappoint you on more than just one occasion, but when you have the wisdom of God you will be able to grow beyond the betrayal and still remain the God given helper that God has appointed you to be in his life.

Without God given wisdom, you will remain a foolish wife who tears her house down with her own hands. By saying wisdom I don’t mean getting advise from friends who don’t understand what you are facing and the peculiarity of your spouse or the assignment God has given to you to do in his life, but seeking wisdom from God who created your husband and molded you from him to be his suitable helper. Because it is God that created your husband, He knows perfectly how to handle him. He also created you from him and so knows perfectly well what He has placed in you that should bring about the perfection that is required in the life of your husband. These are deep things that you possess but might never know are there within you or might never know how to use it. Your friend or mother or sister or even the paid counselor isn’t going through your stuff with you, so they have very little understanding of what it takes to be a wife to your husband. But God know because He formed you both in your mothers' wombs.

After you have gained wisdom, also seek understanding, know the pattern and trend of your spouse and handle him with the knowledge of who you know him to be. Some men are by nature introverts while others are extroverts; some are cool headed, while some are short fused. Humans are by nature irrational, you cannot generalize behavioral traits as though men are static, human behavior is not constant. So the Bible says you will build your house with wisdom, establish it through understanding and beautify it through knowledge.

The issue of building a matrimonial home is an individualistic experience and no one but God can help you build it no matter how close the person or group of people are to you. Your mother cannot build your matrimonial home for you no matter how she much of love she has for you. She can prepare you in advance and give you bits of guideline that might or might not be applicable to your circumstance as your husband’s traits might be totally different from the experience she has. So if you are one to depend on your parents to help you build your home, permit me to say without sounding judgmental that you are foolish and with your own hands you will work at tearing your house apart.

In as much as it helps to seek help from those who have godly experience and they can share with you from their wealth of experience whereby you pick what you know will work for you and drop what the Lord has laid on your heart that will not work, but the ultimate responsibility lies in your hands to build your home. Seek God for help, work with the instructions He lays on your heart and follow through diligently and you will enjoy positive and lasting result that will give you peace. 

Books I authored are now available in hard copy. You can get details of the books and order a copy by just clicking here or by clicking on the book of your choice. They are also available on createspace.com, links are provided under each book title. Get copies for yourselves and sow into the lives of your loved ones. These books are guaranteed to make big and positive impact in your life and that of your loved ones. You and yours are blessed in Jesus Name.

Share Your Views On The Issue of Violence In Marriage, Here Is Mine

One news that keeps coming to me in forms such as a prayer request for a woman in a violent marriage or a woman experiencing some form of mental disorder as a result of the challenges in her marriage. Just yesterday I read the story of a woman who was allegedly butchered by her husband and the picture of her decapitated body posted online was terribly graphic. Even though I have shared several messages on this blog with regards to handling disputes in marriages, I can’t but seek the face of God again on the matter most especially with the fact that God has stated over and over again that He hates divorce. By human standard it will just be okay to say that the victim in the marriage runs out of the marriage and out of harm’s way just to keep safe and maintain some level of sanity, but the word of God does not change and if we will please God, then it is important to trust Him wholly with regards this marriage issue.

I will appreciate that those who read this message will drop a comment on what they truly feel on the issue of violence in marriage, yet I will drop my own thought on the matter too. I wish to learn from those reading this as much as I would want to share my own thought with them too. I will be sharing a few scriptures mostly from the book of Proverbs to help us get a better understanding into this issue. 

Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 12:23

A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly.

Proverbs 17:9

He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

Proverbs 20:3

It is to a man’s honour to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.

Proverbs 18:2

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions

Proverbs 18:6

A fool’s lips bring him strife, and his mouth invites a beating.

Proverbs 15:14, 18

Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.

A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.

Proverbs 16:32

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

I can go on searching and digging out from the word of God the underlying cause of violence in the home. A friend once shared that for those yet to be married, a man should avoid marrying a woman who cannot control her tongue and the woman should avoid a man who cannot control his temper. This cannot be more true. When the temper and the tongue are properly checked and put under proper control such a marriage will enjoy good peace and harmony.

The true strength of a man is not in the weight of his punches or the hardness of his slaps, nor is it in his ability to use the whip but in his ability to put his temper in check and handle his situations with maturity and wisdom. Unlike what most people believe, the Bible is telling us that it more honourable to avoid strife than to be quick to quarrel. It is better to be patient than to be a warrior. It is equally better to control ones temper than to take a city. When you engage in a fight and overpower your opponent, you have this temporary sense of pride, but how long does it last when by so doing you have gained for yourself an enemy that is unnecessary. More so when this enemy is one that should be closest to you and one whom the Lord has asked you to love like you love yourself.

A lot of times you console yourself that life is better off without her, but deep within you is that truly the case? Haven’t you allowed pride create in you an unneeded vacuum that is unnecessary for you and might also lead you away from the presence and goodness of God?

And for the wife; Is that talk and the pouring out of the venom in your heart through your mouth worth the beating and mutilation of your body that might possible ensue? Will keeping quiet even when your husband keeps nagging disfigure your face or body? In my opinion, sometimes it is the woman’s mouth that actually inflicted on her the beatings rather than the punches of her husband. Rather than air your opinion and cause for yourself the trouble that might follow, I will say please share that opinion with God. Let God see reason with you and act accordingly on your behalf. Proverbs 16:14 says “A king’s wrath is a message of death, but a wise man will appease it.” So if an earthly king’s wrath is a message of death what can we say of the wrath of the King of all kings. The God of the heavens and the earth. Just think about. Can you fight your battles better than God can fight it for you? God says “It is His to avenge and He will repay.”(Deuteronomy 32:35) And then Paul says give room for God’s wrath (Romans 12:19).

Do you know that when you keep quiet rather than talk it is more dangerous for the offender because by so doing you are leaving room for God’s wrath which is a message of death for the person who is offending you? I didn’t say it, but that is what the Bible says. So rather than speak whether you are right or wrong and fetch beatings and bodily harm for yourself wouldn’t you just be quiet and pray and let God handle it for you.

When we do these things we will seldom have cases of disputes in the home not to talk of quarrels or fight that invariably births violence. What we see and hear of quarrels, beatings, fights in marriages are avoidable issues that the hardness of our hearts and pride have brought to bear in our homes.

On last thing I have noticed with us women is that submission to our husbands has been an instruction we find hard to obey. An average woman will respect her husband 100% but will only obey his instruction 50%. That is not what God has asked us to do. Ephesians 5:24 says we should submit to our husbands in everything, just as the church submits to Christ. You and I constitute the church so we understand submission to Christ. Is it possible for a wife to see her husband and reverence him in the manner with which she reverence Christ? If we must know that is what God has asked us to do. Nothing less is acceptable to God.

To submit according to the dictionary is to “yield oneself to the power or authority of another.” So God is saying you should yield yourself to the power or authority of your husband. When you yield yourself to the power or authority of your husband you will not argue with, you will not challenge his instructions and orders even when in your view they are not right. When you do this you will avoid quarrels in your home. When he maltreats you and does not show you respect as the Lord has asked him too, let God in the know of the situation in prayer and continue to obey. In due time the Lord will avenge. Your been quiet is not a sign of your weakness, rather it is you giving room for God’s wrath which is a message of death for those who do not repent.

Now you ask, is this doable? I say with confidence that it is doable, it has worked for many and it will work for you if you don’t habour hatred in your heart for your spouse.

So I close by saying, for the man you possess a shameful strength if what you do with it is to bully your wife. And for the woman I will say, if you cannot put your tongue in check and be the wife that improves her husband irrespective of……., then you are not fulfilling destiny. Do not let your tongue and bad attitude drive you to an early grave. 

As mentioned earlier, I look hearing from me what this issue. May God bless our homes.

Books I authored are now available in hard copy. You can get details of the books and order a copy by just clicking here or by clicking on the book of your choice. They are also available on createspace.com, links are provided under each book title. Get copies for yourselves and sow into the lives of your loved ones. These books are guaranteed to make big and positive impact in your life and that of your loved ones. You and yours are blessed in Jesus Name.

 

The Mystery of How God Chooses A Wife For His Man

Hosea 1:2-3

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Hosea 3:1-3

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me for many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”

Like the title of the post says, it is sometimes a mystery how God chooses a wife for His men, but in truth all that God does is perfect and faultless. So we are going to pick some very useful lessons from these scriptures above and by the special grace of God, when we apply the lessons we are about to learn in our marriages we will beguaranteed of God’s perfect and faultless result.

The first lesson here is the fact that God asked Hosea who was a prophet of God to take for himself an adulterous wife. True, God gave him reasons why He asked Hosea to do that, but God could have found a better way to make His illustration of Israel’s adulterous nature. But because what He asked Hosea to do was what He sure knew He could work with and perfect, the Lord chose the option of the adulterous wife.  

In our world today many men have found themselves in assumed faulty marriages and concluded that they made a wrong choice of marriage, but in truth, the Lord could have and in fact would have prevented that marriage union from holding if He could not make perfect that which is assumed faulty and wrong. The problem we as humans have with marital challenges and all other challenges we face is that we try to solve our problem with our limited ability. No man knows it all but God. You will always merry-go-round on your challenges if you have just employed your limited understanding in solving the problem.

So many times I have read comments whereby people say God told them to run out of their troubled marriage or get a divorce and when they obeyed they began to have peace of mind. And this has posed many questions in my mind about the authenticity of the God that spoke to them. God said in Malachi 2:16 that He hates divorce, Jesus reinstated God’s stand on divorce in Matthew 19:4-9 when He said that what God has joined together let no man separate. But He gave marital unfaithfulness as the only reason why a man can divorce his wife. Paul finished off on the subject when He said in 1 Corinthian 7:10 a wife must not separate from her husband and a husband must not divorce his wife, but in the event that they do, they are to remain unmarried or be reconciled back to one another.

If all of these are clearly stated in the Bible then the question is, why would God who has clearly put His word forward on the subject and He is not man that should tell a lie or the son of man that should repent of His ways then tell a man or woman in our generation that to separate or divorce is the only solution to the problem of their marriage. So I ask, "is it really God speaking to them or are they speaking to themselves." When a person who is yet to accept Jesus as Lord an Saviour gets a divorce he/she is assumed excused because he/she has no relationship with God nor does he/she have knowledge of the ways of God. But if someone who claims to know God well tells the people around him/her that God asked him to divorce his wife or her husband then such a person makes mockery of God because God is not an author of confusion. He never goes back on His words. Rather than God tell a man or woman to divorce, He will take the offending spouse away in death and free the guiltless spouse of the bond of the covenant of marriage so that he/she can remarry.

But in the theme scripture of this blog post we see God doing what He is known to do even in troubled marriages; the Lord asked Hosea to go and reconcile with his adulterous wife even though she is loved by another (Hosea 3:1-2). From all indications in that scripture Hosea’s wife had left him to be with another man. She had left him alone with the three children she had for him to be with another man, yet the Lord instructed Hosea to go and show love to his adulterous wife and be reconciled to her. That is the pattern of God that I am familiar with. That is the pattern of God that has been repeated countless times in the Bible. God will never instruct a man to go maltreat his wife because she has many faults, God will not ask a man to abandon his wife because she is troublesome, God will not ask a man to divorce his wife because she has become unruly, God says it over and over again that His pattern of mending issues in marriage is by love and nothing more.

As a woman we tend to mix up respect for our husbands with submission. Though a woman who submits to her husband willingly will surely respect him because the respect will be embedded in the submission she gives to him. But you can respect your husband without submitting to him. What God has asked us as women is to submit to our husband and not just to respect them. Submission requires that a woman places herself under the authority of her husband. A practical way of doing that is by obeying fully the instructions of your husband. If he asks you to sit, then sit; if he says stand, then stand irrespective of whether he is right or wrong or you feel he is right or wrong. You need to put your own knowledge on hold and just obey and let God finish off the rest. 
If what he has asked you to do is out-rightly evil like committing abortion or bowing down to an idol, don't argue with him or fight him, play with time and pray for God to intervene and correct the matter matter for you. He will come to you aid just at the nick of time. Do this, then add plenty of prayers to it and watch God work His miracle in your marriage.

And so I conclude like this: if the God that is speaking to you is saying that you should divorce your spouse you need to put your emotions on hold and check the authenticity of the voice that is speaking to you; is that really God speaking or your emotions? God will not instruct you to do what is contrary to what His word says. God and His words are one and the same. Marriage was not designed for a divorce at the beginning and also your marriage is not designed for a divorce. May the Lord bless our homes in Jesus Name.  

Books I authored are now available in hard copy. You can get details of the books by just clicking here or just by clicking on the books. They are also available on createspace.com, link are provided under each book title. Get copies for yourselves and sow into the lives of your loved ones. These books are guaranteed to make big and positive impacts in your life and that of your loved ones. You and yours are blessed in Jesus Name.

My Greatest Frustration In Life Is My Wife

I have really missed sharing a word from God on this blog, as I had given a word at the beginning of this year that for every day, there shall be a word from God here. Still had to take some days off for some urgent assignment. But not to worry, the word of God will still be shared on a very high frequency on this blog to the glory of God alone. And I am convinced that the word of God though this blog is touching lives and healing homes and I will just beg you not to keep it to yourself, share the blessing with friends and loved ones and those you know who need to hear it. Jesus said the harvest is full but the labourers are few, so let’s join hands and be a formidable workforce for Jesus. We will be blessed in doing so in Jesus Name.

In today’s post I want to share a story, it’s a true life incidence and as a matter of fact the pastor of the church this couple attend is still trusting God on a lasting solution to the matter. I believe by God’s grace it will end in praise. I want us all to read and learn from it. May the Lord bless our homes.

Issue

I am having serious issues with my wife and I am really frustrated by her stubbornness. She just will not change. When I married her she was not educated to the tertiary level, and her level of exposure was and still is really on the low. Initially I didn’t mind because I thought that by the time I moved her from the village to the city and she would see the way things are done there and will learn and improve on herself. But I was and still am very wrong on that assumption. She does not know how to keep the home, she is dirty and always untidy. Her personal hygiene is very low and she just does not know how to make herself look good or make the home look presentable. I tried to teach her and even bought her some cosmetics, but still no improvement. I got her a home tutor to help me put her through on how to be a presentable woman but that also has not worked. She is a bad cook. As a matter of fact out of frustration I have resorted to beating her like a child, I don’t know what else to do to make my wife into the kind of wife that I can show and display to the world. I travel abroad a lot, I see my friends’ wives, and see other women look good and presentable and I just wonder why my own wife has just refused to learn and measure up to the standard of these women I see. I am contemplating divorce, but just mindful of our six children. I don’t want to leave her, but just wish she would change.

Response

First I will tell you well-done for still hanging on to the marriage despite all odds, and your will to open up on the issue is an indication that you have not given up yet and are welcomed to whatever can be done to improve your marital challenge without having to go for the divorce option. I pray and believe that the Lord who originated marriage will breathe live back into every dead area is your marriage in Jesus Name.

First I want to let you know and understand that you got it all wrong from the beginning, and my reason for saying that is: If she didn’t fit the standard of your social status from the beginning it would have been wise you didn’t marry her, and you did not mention that you prayed and heard from the Lord before going ahead to marry her. To assume that you can change her once you relocate her to the city was a wrong assumption too. First, humans are irrational beings and so you cannot predict with any level of certainty what the behavioural outcome of a any set of behavioural input can yield. But if the Lord permitted that marriage to hold without any problem, then its because He is able to fix it when the challenges surface. You cannot change your wife through force and so I’ll point out to you that beating your wife is wrong before God and man, you need to repent of this very uncultured habit and seek forgiveness from your wife and from God.

I have mentioned a lot of what cannot and should not happen in your narration so I think we need to consider a realistic solution to your wife’s problems. First consider praying for her, like I mentioned to the last man who had issues with his wife, it is God who created your wife and Proverbs 21:1 says “The kings heart is in the hands of the Lord, he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases,” and this includes your wife’s heart. So whatever changes you want seen in your wife, just pray about it and trust God to make it happen. When you have a situation that is beyond you, you naturally seek help from someone who is beyond you to help you solve that problem, so let that someone be God. Commit you wife to God and everything about her that you want changed and it is just a matter of time for you to see God do in the life of your wife what you cannot do in her life. Remember He molded her in her mother’s womb and He calls her by name, so there is nothing about your wife that God cannot handle and fix if you commit it to Him.

Then have you considered showing more affection to your wife rather than complain to her about what she is not? Do you take her out on dates to those luxury places you go to and see those fashion conscious lady you want your wife to emulate? Or are you afraid that she might disgrace you when you do so? If you are not taking her out sir, you are not doing enough to help her. Let her go on a trip with you to one of those countries you visit and you will be amazed at the transformation. Take her on a shopping date and you would be pleased at what the outcome will be. If you desire good harvest from your wife, try sowing good seed into her and you will be amazed at the harvest she will bring forth for you.

Spend a year without complaining but simply just loving her irrespective of what she is or is not and it is just a matter of time for her to be all that you want her to be and more. Remember that all that God demands of you for your wife is unconditional love in the manner in which Christ loved the church and died for her (Ephesians 5:25-29), anything else is unacceptable. Do this and give God something to work with in making your wife all that you desire her to be and more. Your marriage is blessed in Jesus Name.   

To the glory of God after a long wait and much effort, the books I authored are now available in hard copy. You can get details of the books by just clicking here or just by clicking on the books. Get copies for yourselves and sow into the lives of your loved ones. These books are guaranteed to make big and positive impacts in your life and that of your loved ones. You and yours are blessed in Jesus Name.

Does Submission to the Husband Include the Submission of the Wife's Income?

I am blessing God for another opportunity to share His word, and I am so grateful and humbled to be a vessel in the hands of God. And I am so positive that today’s blog post will bless many lives to the glory and praise of the living God.

In today’s post I am trusting God to help put clarity on a topic that has raised a lot of objection from married women, and that is “As a God fearing wife, is it compulsory that I submit my hard earned income to my husband?” Also included in the discussion is always the “I don’t have” attitude that wives put up when their husbands request for financial assistance from them. So I want us to objectively look into this issue based solely on the truth of the Bible and not on what should be or as related to the attitude of the husbands. 

Ephesians 5:23-24

For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also the wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 

This is the passage that answers the big question that we wives always don’t want answered including my very self as I write this piece to you. Yes we all might not have big issues submitting ourselves to our husbands in all other areas of our marital lives, but when it comes to our hard earned income, you bet I won’t just let go that easily. In reality, every woman would need frequent consultations with God and several making up of mind to be a second place controller of the money they worked hard to get.

The important issue in this matter is that it’s not how I feel or how you feel about the subject that matters now, but it is the instruction of God on your life that should be first priority. When you make obeying God’s word a priority over your emotions, you will surely receive a reward from the Almighty God whom you have chosen to obey above your emotions.   

So God expects that you should submit to your husband in the manner in which the church submits to God. So if you are not reluctant to put your money in God’s hands, then you should not be reluctant in submitting everything to your husband, even your hard earned income. Because in doing this you are obeying the instruction of God in your life and trusting God to make right every wrong that tramples on your obedience.

Yes, some men are of the habit of holding back their own resources when they know their wives are financially capable to making things happen in the home. And the thought of the wife would be "why is he asking me to spend my money when he has the money to spend and it’s his responsibility to take care of things." Well you are correct in your thought but I will say that obedience is better than sacrifice, if the Lord has asked you to submit in everything, then I will say you should submit in everything and trust God to handle the rest.

When Peter was addressing the men on marriage issues in 1 Peter 3:7, he instructed the men to love and treat their wives with respect so that nothing will hinder their prayers, and Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:8 that a man who does not provide for his family, especially his immediate family (which includes wife and children) has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So if your husband is not wise enough to place you and your children in his spending priority list he is smiling at the wrath of God. The Bible says he stands the risk of his prayers not been answered by God and he is worse than an unbeliever.

So it is important that as wives we don’t take laws into our own hands and fight our battles ourselves. If God says submit in everything, then, you should submit in everything. He who has asked you to submit to your husband in everything has also instructed that your husband must provide for you and your children and that he must love and treat you with respect or he stands the risk of his prayers being turned down. So it’s important that as a wife you obey your own side of the instruction and leave your husband to obey his. Remember it is the Lord who has instructed you to do so, that has also taught your hands to make wealth. The wealth you are holding back comes from God who is asking you to let go. He will only give you the permission to let go because He know He can double and triple that which you are letting go of.

What a lot of men don’t understand is that the secret to continuous increase is when you continually empty yourself for God to refill. When a man empties himself in accordance to the will of God, he will surely be refilled by God before whom he has emptied himself. I have noticed that men who take the time to make the needs of their wives and children a priority in their spending do not always go deadly broke. When such a man is saying he’s broke, he definitely still has a bit of a reserve fund laying somewhere. Men who take care of their families always prosper. This is a secret I am sharing with the men who read this blog.

In closing I want to share my own experience on this issue. In my early days of marriage, I was earning way more than my husband; I was more or less the breadwinner of my family. At that time I learnt to submit to my husband even my income. My husband had control over me and everything about me, even my money. In truth I didn’t agree with a lot of his spending activities but submitted anyway and prayed.

After a time, I lost my job and started off managing the home with was left of my accrued salary backlog and since nothing additional was coming in, soon what was left finished. I didn’t know and could not understand what my husband was using his own pay package for and it hurt very bad then, but I tried my best and I prayed.

Soon my husband got a new job and with it a better salary. To cut the long story short, he now earns over ten times what I was earning then and he is now fully taking care of the financial needs of the family. Looking back I realized that if I had not been obedient to the word of God and submitted to my husband even with my income, now that he is the one bringing in the money, he might visit on me the same cruel deeds if that was the attitude I put forward when I was the one bringing in the money and he would be justified doing so.

This experience is humbling for me, because a lot of my prayers with regards to money has been answered through my husband. So as a wife, I would say again in everything the word of God says submit. Holding back one aspect of you from being submitted makes your submission partial submission, but what God is asking of you is total submission and be sure that God who has asked you to submit will reward your act of obedience. May the Lord bless our homes. 

Books written by me are now available for sale http://www.thewordthatsuits.com/Products.php or www.createspace.com. These books are listed on the blog page and you can know more about the books and get a copy by clicking on the book of your choice. May you be so blessed and enriched as you get a copy and tell a friend about it. These are life changing materials that will make big impact in your life to the glory of God. 

More Reasons To Show Gratitude To God

Genesis 8:18-22

So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all creatures that move along the ground and all the birds – everything that moves on the earth – came out of the ark, one kind after the other.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and taking some of the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Genesis 9:1-3

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beast of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Genesis 19:16-22

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it – it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.”

Genesis 19:30-32

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let us get our father to drink with wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father. 

I bless God again and again for another opportunity to share His word with His special people and I pray that His word will make a great impact in our lives and homes in Jesus Name.

I want us to take a second look at the issue of showing gratitude to God as a secret to receiving divine increase from Him for our lives such that in the midst of lack we the children of God will enjoy divine abundance. So we will consider the after effect of a life that has expressed gratitude to God and compare with a life that has not.

In Genesis 8:18-22, we read that after Noah came out of the ark, he selected some clean animals and birds and sacrificed an offering to the Lord on the altar he had built. The Bible then went further to tell us that God smelt the pleasing aroma of Noah’s sacrifice and said in His heart that never again will He curse the ground because of man despite the evil in the heart of man. He went on to declare that as long as the earth endures everything He has created will follow it’s due course as it should be.

But the beauty of it all is that God didn’t stop at making up His mind on certain issues in the life of man, He went further to bless Noah and his sons. He made a covenant of increase with Noah and his sons and every man on earth, and that covenant was a covenant of blessing. It was a covenant of increase and a covenant of divine provision of all that man would need. It was a covenant of protection as the Lord declared that He will cause the fear and dread of Noah and man in general to fall upon every beast that moves on the ground and on every bird that flies in the sky. Then the Lord said that all that moves and lives has been given to man as food. God held back nothing from man as He declared that He has given man everything.

Now this covenant came into existence because of Noah’s sacrifice. Noah was not asked to sacrifice as that was not included in the instruction God gave him when He told him to build an ark. But Noah sacrificed to God to show appreciation and as a form of gratitude to God for sparing his life and that of his household from the destruction that swept the earth and the benefit of that sacrifice is still being enjoyed till this generation. Yes, we still see the rainbow up in the sky in this generation as a reminder to God of the covenant He made with Noah and all man. God has not changed His mind nor has He gone back on the words He spoke to Noah in Genesis 9:1-3, neither has He destroyed the earth as He did in the times and days of Noah even though greater evil than then is seen in the world today.

The second scripture speaks of the man called Lot, whom the Lord showed mercy to and spared from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot just like Noah was delivered from a great destruction, but unlike Noah, Lot totally forgot to show gratitude to God. And there ended the mention of the name of Lot in the Bible. Rather than for Lot to appreciate God for showing him mercy, Lot ran to the cave and lived there in fear. He so lived in fear and became old and all that was said of Lot was that he fathered the children of his daughters in the course of getting drunk with wine. Yet Lot like Noah found favour with God and was spared.

So we see the difference between a life of gratitude and a life that forgot to show gratitude to God. As we truly desire an increase from God in our financial life and in fact in all areas of our lives, it is very important that we cultivate an attitude of gratitude. We need to imbibe a lifestyle of appreciating God for His gifts in our lives, both the little gifts and the big ones. Then we will flourish like the tree planted by the streams of waters bringing forth our fruits in season and in all that we do, we will prosper.

As we begin to crave for the abundance of God in our homes, it is time to start to building altars to the Lord and start to offer sacrifices on our altars that will be a pleasing aroma for Him to smell. When we do that He will pour out blessings on us that we do not have room enough to contain. Proverbs 3:9 says, "Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine." 

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