Principles for a Fireproofed Marriage

I was blessed by attending a one night event put on by a Christian organization featuring Kirk Cameron.  Where I had a slightly negative perception of Kirk going in; I left the event with a very positive perception, repenting of my former unjust judgment and criticism of the man and his ministry.  The event was entitled How to Fireproof Your Marriage playing on the movie called Fireproof that starred Kirk Cameron.  This post is my notes from the session.

It is the selfish hearts of men and women that is the biggest problem in relationships.  As Jeremiah 17:9 leads us to the truth and realization that only God can fix these problems supernaturally by HIS grace.

Another words, our hearts are the heart of the problem when marriages go bad.    We are told the way to the Kingdom of God is through many tribulations (ACTS 14:22).  God is a tester of faith a purifier of gold and silver (what our hearts are likened to in Scriptures).  The concept of fire proofing your marriage is one that presupposes the trials,  the fires of life will come and test our love and faithfulness for our partner.  To fireproof the marriage it is necessary to put in the right foundations such that when the fires come,  and they will;  the marriage and relationship will not be burned or hurt by the flames.  

Kirk teaches that there are three steps that must be addressed to fireproof your marriage.  This post will cover those three things and review the six strategies Kirk presented for husbands to take the lead in strengthening their marriage.  Outside of the titles,  all words and commentary is Pete’s and is only as good as his recollection and understanding of what the speaker intended to say.

1.  Get things right with God first

God must be first in our lives as loving God with your whole heart, mind and soul is the foremost commandment upon which all others hang.  Any attempts to fix a marriage without having God first and us having a right relationship with God will not bring lasting solution and right standing with God.  Before we go about fixing our spouse or fixing the marriage,  we must first get right with God ourselves.  We need the supernatural grace of God to see us through the trials of life and keep us dead to selfishness which will undermine any carnal approach to fixing a marriage.  Like the fireman in the movie,  he had to be brought to the place of seeing his ungodly behavior and the hurt he had caused others.  But once we repent and walk with God in faith,  trusting HIM,  things begin to happen as the Spirit of God moves in our lives and relationships.  God created the institution of marriage and sanctified it and expects us to love one another and serve one another being united in HIM.

2.  There is only one person you can change and it is NOT your spouse

Only GOD can change someone’s heart.  When we have problems in a marriage we must walk like Jesus showed us how to walk.  We love, we forgive,  we are gentle, kind, nice and we speak truth with love as our motive.  We do not take vengeance and we are dead to self and so we learn not to be so easily offended when people and especially our spouse disappoint us in their behavior or response.  Far too often,  the men in particular try to take what Kirk called the Singing Sinatra way which is singing the song “My Way”.  No indeed,  if we belong to God, we are dead to self, so it is not our way,  it is the way of the Lord and that way is impartial unconditional love or agape.

Separation = Alarm Bells

A tell-tale sign a marriage or relationship is headed for trouble is when we see separation occurring.  When the couple begins to drift, with different interests, friends and focus this should be an alarm bell going off that something is wrong.  Self pursuit is likely at play and even things like me sitting here on the blog for hours at a time or Facebook when I could be praying or doing a Bible study with them is evidence of possible drifting and separation occurring in the relationship.  Yes,  we got to work at this and be alert to not lose awareness of where our marriage is in regard to separation.

Unconditional Love is the Key

Self must go.  Selfish behavior must be put to death daily.  We must surrender the mindset of  I, ME, MY that so desperately wants to be lord of our lives.  Men were told to love their wifes as Christ has loved the Church.  Christ loved the Church unconditionally and without merit, having died for us when we were still sinners.  Jesus does not condemn the church or its members when they make a mistake; HE is forgiving, patient and merciful.  Jesus is always there to bring comfort to His bride in her time of need.

The bottom line is this.  Jesus laid down His very life for the Church when we were still dead in our sins and were undeserving of any favor from God.  Jesus died for you personally.  Men we need to also lay down our lives for our wifes; to serve them and nourish them as Jesus has done for us.  We love our wives whether they love us back or not.  That is how Jesus loves us.  As stated above,  this standard cannot be accomplished or maintained without the supernatural work of grace in our hearts.  That is our duty as godly men and true Christian husbands.  As I write this,  I realize how short of this I have fallen.

So as it relates to point #2,  we can only change ourselves by submitting to the righteousness of God thru faith.  When we do this,  God will move in our lives and will give us a new heart and by grace will transform us into a new man or woman.  We will be dead to self but alive to Christ which means we will put others first and our purpose for living will be to love one another.  If your marriage is struggling,  you need to first get right with God yourself, but then secondly, give your spouse a NEW YOU by letting God have your whole heart.   Glory be to God!

#3  We must have an effective War Strategy to destroy sin

To fireproof our marriages, we must have a plan to deal with sin quickly and effectively.  We must come to know and call ungodly behavior what God calls it.  That is sin also known as wickedness.  We must deal violently with sin when we see it in our lives.  Kirk used the analogy that if we found a rattle snake in our back yard,  we would not just move it to another place in our yard,  we would cut its head off so it could not come back and later on harm the family.  In the same way, we must deal with sin in our lives.  Most people let sin fester and hang around.  This is how men get hooked on pornography and many adulterous affairs start with a little spark that later becomes a raging fire in our hearts.  We must deal effectively with sin now or else you can be 100% certain,  you will have another battle with  the exact same snake in the days ahead.  The war is real and we must fight the good fight of faith and overcome the sin that so easily besets us.

Romans 8:13-14 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

It is the man’s job as the head of the household and the God ordained head of the family, to lead the family and the spouse out of the wilderness and into the place where God can pour out HIS blessings.  Men are the watchmen for their families yet we by and large have been fast asleep and have let our wives fend for themselves.  Shame on us.

Kirk then read a single verse of Scripture and then explained six points mentioned in this scripture verse that if we men will put them into practice, will radically transform our marriages.

1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

Six Actions For Men

1.  Dwell with her:  Peter tells us husbands to dwell with our wives.  Spending time together is the only way to truly get to know someone.  Practice makes perfect as experience only comes by repetition.  Men must invest time into our marriages.  We must allocate our time and not get consumed with our “other wives”, things such as TV,  Internet, Blogs, YouTube, Sports, etc.

2.  Study Your Wife:  Peter tells us to study our wives and to gain understanding of them.  No wonder I thought, I can never understand why my wife thinks like she thinks or responds like she does — I have never studied her.  We need to learn what our wives love and what they hate.  There is rhyme and reason in determining what is a good time or a bad time to approach our wives.  It has been said that our wives love to be understood!  Intimacy is the icing on the cake of a good day but is not a fire escape for a bad day.  Think about this and how us men usually go right to intimacy to fix a problem.  We need to study our wives.  These recommendations I believe work both ways so to you women,  it does take two to tango.

3.  Honor Your Wife:  Peter tells us to honor our wives.  When we publically recognize them and tell others how much they mean to us, this brings honor to our wives.  Many men likely think this shows them as being weak in the eyes of the world but this is what is pleasing to God.  It takes a strong courageous man strong in faith to honor his wife.

4.  Protect Your Wife:  Peter states wives are the weaker vessel and it is the duty of the man to protect them.  This includes physical protection but also spiritual protection as we have authority in the name of Jesus and need to use it.  Men frequently show great impatience when our wives get scared and stay scared over what we see as silly things.  One of the ways we protect our wives is by managing our aggression when we are in a conflict with them.  When we yell and point fingers and act physically or verbally aggressive we are not protecting our wives.  Men should never use fear as a means to coerce their wife’s behavior.

5.  Open Up to Your Wife:  The grace of life is to be shared together with our wives.  Men tend to bottle up our feelings and go into our caves when we have challenges in our lives.  We tend to go solo when we need to be sharing our thoughts and feelings with our wives.  We cannot expect to have a fulfilling marriage if all we give our wives are the scraps of what is on our heart.  We must open up and tell her what we are thinking and share this part of our life.

6.  Ensure Prayer is not Hindered:  Peter ends this Scripture verse by saying do these aforementioned things so that your prayers may not be hindered.  If we do not do the prior 5 things and get engaged with our wives’ lives,  then our prayers will be cut off and hindered.  When we leave our wives to their own devices and force them to seek other sources for support and answers,  they become vulnerable to others.  But oh how sweet it is for a husband and wife that pray together and stand together strong in the Lord.

Matthew 18:20  For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst

How great is this promises from the Lord?  You can actually be the church and do church together in your own home.  What a great way to meet the  conditions Peter spelled out in this great passage of Scripture 1 Peter 3:7.

I hope these notes and my added commentary will be a blessing to you.  Marriage is tough but it is also a blessing and a gift of God to share your life with someone else.  It is better to give then to receive.  I think if we all truly lived with that adage as our motive,  there would be a lot less marriage problems and divorce in this world.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU RICHLY!

PS -  I want to thank Kirk for a wonderful presentation and let him know God is using him and this ministry is bearing fruit.  Hallelujah.