1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Satan loves to use pride to bring down marriages, homes and churches. We must humble ourselves. More than appearing to be right in our situations we must strive to be righteous.
1. Disaffection, hostility, isolation, seperation, distancing, division, usually the other persons actions cause this
1. Dr. John Gottman a professor at the University of Wshington wrote about the 4 horses couples ride to their own destruction. These horses represent dangerous and wrong ways to communicate. These are bad habits that must be broken, usually prideful immature people use these techniques.
1. Criticism – makes the other feel like they cannot do anything right. They feel like they are inadequate as a person. It covers the person in shame.
2. Contempt – intention to insult and abuse them with words . words are wielded like a bat, calling names, making fun of, put-downs. The results of physical abuse are apparent outside black eyes, bruises, the results of contemt results in inner pain
3. Defensiveness – not wanting to confess to my wrong doing. Don’t want to take ownership of my actions. It is always his or her fault. The abuser oftentimes says you make me do this. All of us can get people to side with us. It is important at times for us to be godly enough to receive rebuke and correction.
4. Stonewalling cold unresponsive a stone wall, non participator, decide to stop working on the issues, this does not get better by itself
1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
2. Raising the Bar
Is when for example –the husband is thirsty and gets ticked off when the wife doesn’t get him some iced tea or the wife gets upset when the husband doesn’t get her some apple pie from the buffet
Both people rationalize that if they really loved me they would have know that I wanted my iced tea or my apple pie this thinking is flawed because it is very inward focused. It does not consider what the other person is involved with at the time.
Raising the bar is a form of desperation used by spouses who are wore out. They are insecure and wanting some assurance that they are still loved and valuable to their husband or wife. So they set some hurdle that only they can see-in secret. This usually causes much pain and little gain, because nobody can read. This is a destructive act which leads to
3. Sensing Failure in the Relationship
Fighting usually brings about shame and guilt due to the mean things that are said and done. This brings about shame and guilt. When your husband or wife is beat down, and made to feel like they cant do anything right they begin to walk around with guilt and shame. They feel like a failure, and they will begin to shy away from the relationship. The sense of failure brings is to
4. Evaluating the relationship negatively
At this point you make your husband/wife evil villains. They are no longer just someone you are having trouble getting along with they are now evil and you make them someone who is trying to hurt you. So then their comes along the need for
5. Self preservation –
As your husband or wife becomes more evil in your eyes walls go up thicker and faster. You look at every move the other makes as a calculated attack just to make you unhappy. This leads to more distancing.
At this point I am unhappy w/ this marriage becomes I hate this marriage and then becomes I am want out of this marriage
Eph 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Eph 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Pride and selfishness is a big part of our problem with relationships
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
There is usually pain /pride that causes us to rationalize our sin of mistreating those we love.
Rationalization - to attempt to justify behavior normally considered irrational or unacceptable by offering an apparently reasonable explanation
How perverted is it to be in pain and begrudge others their happiness and try to make them as miserable as you are?
Steps downward in spiritual cycle in home
1. You sin against your spouse. The more you get away with the more destructive it gets.
2. You feel guilt/shame but instead of repenting and admitting wrong doing and asking for forgiveness which is God’s way of handling these things you rationalize.
3. You find value in what you’ve done. Theres a benefit there for you.
You get what you want
4. You convince yourself God is ok w/ your actions
5. You fear that your true feelings will become exposed so you keep what you’ve done secret.
6. You yield to temptation #1 again. Each time it becomes easier because our hearts become hardened and we have reaped benefits that we want to get again.
You and your spouse find yourselves polarized you are living in 2 different worlds.
1. No structure- normalization is out the door handling disagreements is immature, ungodly.
2. No direction or purpose – the team is broken and each one is working for their happiness while hurting the relationship.
3. NO safety – Instead of embracing there is embarrassing, hateful comments, can not lean on the other.
4. No honor – I pet 3:7 that a high value, great respect, high worth is to be place upon you rlady. Eph 5:33 …and the wife see that she reverence her husband. To estimate highly, hold in high regard
He s an idiot, shes a lazy hog, ….
5. Deep anger and resentment
This is when you desire to see your partner to suffer
1Pe 3:8 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:
1Pe 3:9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
1Pe 3:10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
1Pe 3:11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
1Pe 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
