Valentines Day

When it comes to romance, maybe the wise thing for us to remember is that one day cannot offset 364 days. How we love the rest of the year speaks infinitely louder than the most creative gifts given on February 14.  
​
I believe there are four keys to making a marriage prosper and endure and guys if we don’t get this, we are doomed to a lot of hardship.  (Apologies to the unmarried and to gals, but this Reveration is for married men or those engaged to be married).  

1. My first and most important priority is to love and fear the Lord!  “So be very diligent to love the LORD your God for your own well-being.” (Joshua  23:11)

How happy is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways! You will surely eat what your hands have worked for.  You will be happy, and it will go well for you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your sons, like young olive trees around your table.  In this very way, the man who fears the LORD will be blessed.  (Psalm 128:1-4)

• One of the reasons relationships fail or are miserable is we put our focus squarely on our wants at the expense of our walk with God.  Often when I am most discouraged with my marriage I am also most off focus in my walk with God.  My center of attention has shifted to my own needs.  We see this problem in the life of Samson.  Listen to what he said to his parents in Judges 14:3:  

But his father and mother said to him, "Can't you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me, because I want her."

2. My second priority is to marry someone who loves and fears the Lord. “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)
"For if you turn away and cling to the rest of these nations remaining among you and if you intermarry or associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you. They will become a snare and a trap for you, a scourge for your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you disappear from this good land the LORD your God has given you."  (Jos. 23:12,13)

• If your wife or fiancé does not love and fear the Lord, your marriage is doomed to pain and sorrow.  

3.  My third priority is to love and take pleasure in my wife.  “A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.” (Pro. 18:22) 
“Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.   A loving doe, a graceful fawn—let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever.”  (Pro. 5:18,19)  “In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:28)

• The key to romance is to really enjoy your mate!  Therefore you meet her needs and have fun doing so.  If I don’t enjoy my wife or she does not enjoy me, I’m not emotionally and physically satisfied.

4.  My fourth priority is to make sure my wife has all she needs to thrive.  In Proverbs 31 we find key behavior from the husband that allows his wife to thrive.  “The heart of her husband trusts in her. . . Her husband also praises her. . . Give her the reward of her labor, and let her works praise her at the city gates.”

• God prepares and gives us a wife that will complement us in the ways we need help and vice versa.
• Don’t try to carve your wife into your own image or concept of what she should be!

​The next time you feel critical toward your spouse or find yourself angry because of something she has done or not done, said or not said, consider this. God chose us to be His bride. Despite our sins, He forgave and loved us.  In spite of our inadequacies, He chose to have an eternal relationship with us. When we responded to His love He covered our imperfection with grace.  Isn’t it awesome that Jesus models the way for us in the way He treats us!  Something to think about . . . in reveration!  
 
Inspiration
Our finest love is a preschool watercolor to God’s Rembrandt, a vacant-lot dandelion next to His garden rose.—Max Lucado in  3:16
 
©2009 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)