Journey To A 
Happy, Healthy Home

Lesson 1 . . . Maximizing Your Marriage—Part 1

(Note: The answers have been filled in on this sample lesson.  An Answer Key is included in the back of each book.)

God wants all of us to have a “happy, healthy home.”  However, a “happy, healthy home” doesn’t just happen; it takes a lot of learning, growing, and hard work.  It all begins with knowing the four essential ingredients for maximizing a marriage and then having the understanding and wisdom to incorporate them into our own marriages.  How does Proverbs 24:3-4 describe this truth?

By ⁽¹⁾ wisdom a house is built, and through ⁽²⁾ understanding it is established; through ⁽³⁾ knowledge its rooms are filled  with rare and beautiful treasures.

On your wedding day you start building your marriage.  However, a great marriage, like a great cake, requires several essential ingredients, and if you leave out just one ingredient of the marriage recipe, your marriage will not turn out very well.  In this lesson we will look at the first two essential ingredients for maximizing your marriage.

 Essential Ingredient #1:  ⁽⁴⁾ Commitment

Basically, this ingredient is understanding the deal you made when you got married.  One deception that causes many marriages to fail is the fantasy called “falling in love.”  This is a dangerous delusion because if you can fall in love, you can fall out of love.  Marriage is not “falling in love”; it is a commitment to ⁽⁵⁾grow in love.  A happy marriage is not something we fall into; it is something we must work on daily for a lifetime.  It is not easy.  That’s why we stand before God, family, and friends, and promise to remain faithful and true “‘til death do us part.”

A maximum marriage is not built on feelings or emotions.  In the Bible, the heart refers to the seat, or core of your emotions.  What does Jeremiah 17:9a reveal about your heart?

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Our hearts, or feelings, are very deceitful because they change, but the love that makes a happy, healthy marriage doesn’t change because it is a commitment.  Even if you were not madly in love when you first got married, that’s OK.  You start where you are and “grow” in love, not “fall” in love.  Love is not a feeling or emotion we fall into; it is a commitment we make.  How does 1 Corinthians 13:7 describe love?

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always ⁽⁶⁾perseveres. 

Love is not an emotion or feeling because emotions and feelings change.  Love is being committed to a person even when that person isn’t very lovable, and the emotions or feelings are long gone.  Love always perseveres in a marriage; it never gives up.

Love is not a feeling or romantic ⁽⁷⁾ infatuation that goes away; it is a lifetime commitment you make to another person.  However, marriage is also a deal you and your spouse make with God.  It is often a very difficult deal to keep, and at some point, most couples would like to call it off.

Many times a husband or wife feels like Abraham felt.  God promised Abraham a son through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.  However, at age ⁽⁸⁾    90   , Abraham thinks God can’t deliver on the deal, so he asks God to give him an heir through his good friend Eliezer (El-ee-ez-er) instead.  Abraham has been waiting for years.  He is discouraged and tired because he thinks he has no choice but to call off the deal.  When Abraham tells God he is ready to give up, God takes him outside and tells him to look up at the heavens and count the stars, if he can.  Then, what does God say to Abraham in the last sentence of Genesis 15:5?

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In other words, God tells Abraham, “The ⁽⁹⁾deal is still on.”  Many times a marriage relationship gets into a similar situation.  Marriage can be very discouraging, difficult, and even seem hopeless at times.  You think, “God, this isn’t going to work. You will have to give me happiness and fulfillment through someone else.”  You feel like you have no choice but to call off the deal.

However, regardless of how you feel or the ⁽¹⁰⁾ circumstances in your marriage right now, the marriage deal you made with your spouse when you stood at the altar before God is still on.  The miracle-working God who gave Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac, when they were well past childbearing age, is the same miracle-working God who can help you have a great marriage regardless of your problems.

To maximize our marriage, the first thing we need, regardless of the hurts or ⁽¹¹⁾failures, is to understand “the deal is still on.”  So, maybe you need to look at your spouse right now and say, “The deal is still on.”

Maximizing your marriage requires keeping God in the deal.  There is no problem in your marriage you cannot work out, if through prayer you keep God in the deal.  In Matthew 21:22, what does Jesus tell us about the power of prayer?

“If you ⁽¹²⁾believe, you will receive ⁽¹³⁾ whatever you ask for in prayer.” 

This is a promise from the lips of Jesus Christ.  However, all Bible promises are based on two premises.  First, before you can claim any promise in the Bible, you must be living as best you can in obedience to the Bible, God’s Holy Word.  Second, you must pray according to God’s will.  How does the Bible affirm this fact in 1 John 5:14?

This is the ⁽¹⁴⁾confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his ⁽¹⁵⁾will, he ⁽¹⁶⁾ hears us. 

This means when you pray for your marriage, you must pray in God’s will.  And, God’s will is for you to have a happy, fulfilling marriage, where both your needs and your spouse’s needs are met.

God wants to help all of us have a “happy, healthy home.”  With His help, a good marriage can be made better, and a problem or hopeless marriage can be transformed into a loving, fulfilling relationship.  According to Jesus in Mark 10:27b, why is this possible?

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From this day forward, make God the third Partner in your marriage and you will begin to see Him work miracles in your marriage relationship.

For Christians, divorce is not an option.  How does Jesus make this clear in Matthew 19:5-6?

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be ⁽¹⁷⁾united to his wife, and the two will become ⁽¹⁸⁾ one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has ⁽¹⁹⁾ joined, let man not ⁽²⁰⁾separate .” 

The word translated united (cleave in the KJV) means to join, glue, or mix.  It refers primarily to metals that are melted and mixed to form alloys, such as bronze, a mixture of copper and tin.  Once blended, the metals cannot be separated.  You may already be divorced and remarried.  If so, whoever you are married to right now is the one to whom you are united.

Jesus used this word to describe marriage because the ⁽²¹⁾ Evil One will use the inevitable difficulties and problems in your marriage to separate you from your mate.  He will do everything he can to divide what God intended to be permanently joined together.

There will be times in the very best of marriages when a husband and wife don’t even ⁽²²⁾ like each other.  There may be occasions when you feel as though you will never love your partner again.  Emotions are like that.

Marriage is not a romantic ⁽²³⁾ fairy tale; it is a commitment for a lifetime.  Making a marriage work is tough.  That’s why we stand before God and promise, “‘TIL DEATH DO US PART.”  As marriage partners, you need to agree that divorce is not an ⁽²⁴⁾option.  Then and only then will you be compelled to work very hard at maximizing your marriage.  

The “deal” you made on your wedding day is still on, and it can be summed up in one word—commitment.  Commitment is the first and most important ingredient in maximizing your marriage.

Essential ingredient #2:  ⁽²⁵⁾      Honor   

This means you say and do things to demonstrate the ⁽²⁶⁾ value and worth of your mate.  A major part of honor is ⁽²⁷⁾respect, which means we value our spouse’s opinions, ideas, feelings, concerns, and needs.  The deepest level of love is when you honor your mate so highly you put his or her feelings and needs above your own.  This is simply obeying what command found in Romans 12:10b?

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Nothing will add to your happiness like obeying this command in your marriage relationship.  Husbands are commanded to honor their wives (see 1 Peter 3:7) and wives their husbands (see Ephesians 5:33).  Each time you praise your spouse you are giving him or her the honor God commands.

You may say, “I don’t see anything in my spouse for which I should honor him or her.”  However, you see in your mate what you ⁽²⁸⁾ look for.  If you look for things to criticize, you will find them; if you look for things to praise, you will find them.

It’s like going to a large parking lot after buying a new car.  All of a sudden you see all the cars just like yours.  You have never seen so many of them before because you weren’t looking for them.

Suppose I try to sell you a baseball and ask what you would give for it.  You offer five dollars.  Then, I show you an autograph on the baseball— ⁽²⁹⁾“Babe Ruth.” Also, I let you know it was the baseball with which he hit his 60^th single-season home run—a record that stood for almost 50 years.  Now, what would the baseball be worth?

Your spouse is ⁽³⁰⁾autographed by God.  Your mate has the personality, temperament, strengths, and weaknesses God created.  To dishonor or degrade your spouse is to dishonor and degrade God.  To honor your spouse is to honor God who created him or her.

You find what you are looking for when it comes to honor or criticism.  You can easily get into a faultfinding mode that is hard to break.  The way out of the faultfinding mode is every time you think of something for which you should praise your spouse, write it down on a sheet of paper.  This will be your ⁽³¹⁾“Honor List.”  Telling your spouse what is on this list will help take your marriage to the maximum.

Honor charges your mate’s ⁽³²⁾ emotional “battery.”  Your spouse’s emotions are like a battery that needs to be recharged regularly.  Each time you start your car, the battery is drained a little, but the alternator immediately recharges it.  The stress, responsibilities, problems, frustrations, hurts, and busyness of life drain your mate’s emotional “battery” every day.  If you don’t recharge your marriage partner’s “battery,” someone else will, and your spouse will be strongly attracted to that person.

Your spouse has a ⁽³³⁾ voltage meter or light similar to your car’s.  It will let you know when his or her “battery” needs charging.  Just look at your spouse’s face to read his or her emotional level.  You can easily see indications of a low emotional “battery.”

Try to recharge your spouse’s “battery” a little every day by finding a legitimate area of ⁽³⁴⁾praise.  Indications of a “fully charged battery” are happiness and a strong appreciation and attraction to the emotional “battery charger.”  The longer this list becomes, the more you will progress to a great marriage.  Nothing can charge your mates’ emotional battery like honor.  List at least one thing for which you should honor and praise your spouse:

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