Category Archives: Marriage

Five Things a Husband Can Do To Jumpstart His Marriage

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Maybe you think there’s no hope for your marriage.

Maybe you think it’s too late and there’s nothing you can do.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, that’s what the enemy wants you to think.

Start today!

Don’t wallow in the past.

You can’t go back and start again, but you can start over today!

Be a man of integrity and show her how much you love her through your actions.

Remember, you’re not alone.

Every couple experiences hurt, pain, heartbreak, and feelings of despair.

Put your trust in God and take the necessary steps to make your marriage what God wants it to be.

He wants you to experience deep joy and commitment while glorifying Him.

If you’re not tending to your wife’s needs, both spiritual and physical, you’re doing her and your marriage an absolute disservice.

Marriage is a full time, life long, and holy commitment.

Here are a few ideas to get you started in the right direction. This isn’t a comprehensive list and it’s not in any particular order. But it’s a great starting point!

1. Love your wife like Christ loves the church. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” You should love her fiercely, without abandonment or conditions. If you begin to love your wife like Christ loves us, everything else will begin to fall in place.

2. You need to be the spiritual leader of your home. You both need to hear from God, but YOU are ordained to be the head of your household. “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” Ephesians 5:23

3. Pray for her everyday. Pray for her every chance you get. Ask her what her specific needs are, and what she’s believing God for. Pray often and out loud together too.

4. She needs to be exclusive. Honor her. Never put someone else’s needs above her needs. Besides Jesus, no one (or thing) on this earth should ever receive greater attention, care, or adoration than your wife. And you should not only be her husband, you should also be her best friend. Never compare your wife to another woman or fantasize what it would be like to be with someone else. Here’s a sobering thought… Jesus said if you even look at another woman you’ve committed adultery in your heart. If you’re viewing pornography stop immediately.
You don’t have a “pornography” problem, you have a sin problem.

5. Tell her she’s beautiful. Your wife should be your ultimate standard of beauty. In other words; if she’s a 5’7″ brunette with green eyes and weighs 150 pounds then this is your standard of beauty. No other women should ever compare or compete with her standard. If she dyes her hair red and gains/loses weight, this is your new standard. She’s it, end of story.

Bonus: Romance doesn’t just happen and it’s certainly not a mystery. Romance is purposeful and well planned for. If you’re not purposefully pursuing your wife romantically, you’re doing your marriage and your wife a complete injustice. Be her fantasy! Love her fiercely and pursue her with passion. Need inspiration? Read the Song of Songs and pray God gives you ideas, plans, and revelation on romancing your wife.

Jason Banks is a Worship Pastor in Ashland, KY. He earned some degrees, owns a business, and loves his beautiful wife and four children.
©2018 http://www.theoriginalbanksy.com

Disposable Marriage

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Date nights… Date nights here at the Banks Ranch are very few and a million miles in between. But that’s the life of a “big” family. So when an opportunity presents itself, we go for it. A few weeks ago was one of those days. Thank God. Seriously, I LOVE date nights. I love being with my wife and spending time with her without interruptions. You parents know what I’m talking about. “Mom, hey mom, Dad, daddy, hey dad, DAAADDD!” You guys that don’t have kids and don’t date your wives; you’re idiots. And that’s my professional opinion.

Well, we ended up eating Hibachi with two of our closest friends and then off to the movies. I had no idea what to expect out of this movie because I hadn’t even seen the trailer, and had no clue who was even staring in it. Wow… Five minutes in and we were way out of our element!
It. Was. Raunchy.
I wish we would’ve left but we stuck it out.
I wanted to leave! (Don’t judge me. Get the plank out of your own eye and we can talk about the speck in mine!)
So there we were hunched down in our seats looking around hoping no one recognized us while looking at the floor for a good majority of the movie. Adding insult to injury the theater was absolutely packed. Ugh. I couldn’t help but look around and see what we’ve come to as a society. Don’t roll your eyes and think we’re killjoys or prudes.
We’re not.
And I’m not one of those Christians who believes playing heavy metal songs backwards reveals chants to Satan. But this movie unabashedly undermined the sanctity of marriage, celebrated infidelity, and made an absolute mockery of wedding vows AND parenting. This flick was putting out some seriously unbiblical messages concerning marriage and had a not-so-subtle anti-faith message.

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. Romans 10:17

If faith comes by hearing the word of God then the opposite must also be true. If we’re constantly bombarded with an anti-faith message it wears us down. Especially concerning marriage. It causes us to doubt God, to doubt our spouse, and it stirs up jealously. A line in the movie from the lead actress has stuck in my mind since. She was lamenting the fact she was married young and “missed all of her twenties.” She was justifying her desire for adultery because she’d missed the dating scene by being married at 20. So why’d this stick in my mind? Jill was 20 when we were married and so was Jill’s best friend. I’m looking around at the theater patrons while they’re cheering and rooting for the “other man” to prevail and win over this conflicted wife. And I’m thinking, “how many women in this theater wish they were sleeping with this young good looking Latino?” This is the attitude of marriage these days. When things are difficult it’s just easier to give up on your spouse and your marriage and move on to someone else.

I wish everyone would look at marriage, or any relationship for that matter, and ask where the problem is. Is the problem really the other person or is it with our self? I read a statistic saying fifty percent of first marriages and sixty percent of second marriages end in divorce. So maybe, just maybe, all the problems people think are their spouse’s fault are actually problems with themselves? Then they give up on their spouse and carry all those issues into their new marriages.

I’ll admit it… Jill and I missed a lot by being married young.
We missed opportunities for heartbreak.
We missed opportunities to compromise our purity.
We missed the heartache that comes when you’re being lead by your head and not Holy Spirit.
I think about all the wonderful things we would’ve missed had we not have gotten married young and it saddens me. We would’ve missed the opportunity to grow up together and know each other on a level of intimacy most people will never know because they just give up too soon. We were married five years before we had our first child and we learned a lot about life. Just like any relationship we’ve had our ups and downs and moments of despair but we’ve stuck it out because we choose to love each other and honor our vows. There were times the enemy came and yelled untrue things in our ear, but we chose to be different and beat the statistics.

Marriage wasn’t designed to be disposable. Marriage was designed by our creator God as a life long commitment to bring glory and honor to Him. Our job, as a married couple, is to point people to Christ and raise our children in a Godly home with two parents who deeply and very passionately love each other, extend and show grace, care for, and put each others needs ahead of their own.
I love my wife.
I’ll defend her and care for her until my last breath.
Husbands, set out to love your wife like Christ loves the church.
Wives, honor your husband.
When you truly love your spouse, your love doesn’t hinge on emotions.
It’s grounded in a fierce and exclusive devotion to the one you love.