SERVICE IN MARRIAGE

By Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

Service is one of the keys to having a great marriage. Service involves giving yourself joyfully and not grudgingly for the benefit of others. You can give without loving but you can't love without giving.

Marriage is all about service; therefore, you need to learn how to properly serve your spouse. Without service, you can't have a sustainable, successful, blissful and fruitful marriage.

Some people go into marriage with an aim that their partners will meet their needs. This is wrong! You go into marriage with a mindset to give your very best to your partner. This is why it is important to spend more time to invest in your life while you are still single. By so doing, when you get married you will have something worthwhile to deliver to your spouse.

Service doesn't demean or debase the one rendering the service; rather, it brings respect and exaltation.

Service in Marriage

According to Matthew 20:20-28, Jesus is our perfect example because He came to the world to serve. When you go into relationship, you must understand that it not all about you but more about your partner. If you want to be blessed in your marriage, you need to serve your spouse whole-heartedly. A good marriage consists of two committed and cheerful servants while a bad marriage consists of two committed masters.

Note that, the aim of service in marriage is to out-serve or out-do one another and not for competition or rivalry. Thus, there are responsibilities that are attached to being a husband or a wife and this suggest true service.

HOW TO CRITICIZE YOUR SPOUSE CONSTRUCTIVELY

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

Text: Galatians 6:1-5

The issue of criticism cannot be ignored in a relationship. This is simply because we all have our weaknesses and your partner looking at your weaknesses in the relationship might want to react through criticism. Now knowing that we cannot help but criticize and our criticism must be constructive. While criticizing, you must be very careful because your motive must be right otherwise it will be misunderstood and you may fall off your feet.

Criticism is dangerous and can be a destroyer of relationship. If not properly handled and utilized, it may make your partner feel inferior, shameful and lose their sense of belonging. When you criticize someone there is no real guarantee that he/she will change except you do it in the right way.

You can criticize someone without being critical. You need to keep giving him/her pieces of advice from your mind until “you exhaust yourself and lose your mind”. You must operate on the basis of love. Your spouse doesn’t need to earn your love; you must learn to give it as you have the grace of God.

When you criticize your partner, it should be from a genuine concern or simply because you want to be happy together. Proverbs 11:27. If it is of a genuine concern, we will find favour and they will change but when the motive is wrong then you will get the otherwise. Proverbs 18:19-21. Therefore, the legitimate reason for criticism is to improve the other partner and for the relationship to grow. Criticism is a very bad way to make a request from your spouse.

To be able to properly criticize constructively, you need to observe the following:

1.      You need to develop the ability and attitude to overlook a lot of things:

In a relationship, most of the things people fight for or on are irrelevant things because they fail to ignore