Lisa Bevere - The Power Of Love In Marriage

have a warning you guys can sit down how powerful was that worship it was amazing so many people crying so I'm I'm hoping that I'm actually going to make you laugh instead of cry so I do have four sons I am going to throw up pictures of what my home world looks like I am surrounded by so many men that I'm actually now growing chin hairs okay that is still me so do we have them where are the people there they are okay this is what my world at home looks like it is male-dominated that is my 20 year old son Arden who just caught a shark a couple nights ago and people are now questioning my salvation but anyway then my firstborn son Addison who is 28 my husband of 33 years who is holding his breath in in that picture about ready to faint I don't know what we did sticking him sideways with all these sons that actually work out on a regular basis and then I have my second-born son Austin who is 25 my third born son Alec who is 23 almost 24 actually Austin's 25 26 on April the third and then my grandson Asher and I'm gonna show a grandchild a little closer we're gonna show you a sure up-close we have a picture of him okay I picked this one for a reason it's not the cutest picture of him but it tells a good story he has a scratch on his face and he's a scratch on his face and I had gone and done all of the Hillsong colors last year came home from London and I wanted to know who the heck had scratched my grandson's face and so I got down and I was like does gee mama need to go to daycare and talk to somebody who would dare to scratch you and before he could even answer I saw a hand go up and it was Sophia if he can show my my granddaughter Sophia okay so Sophia is the first female born to my family in more than 50 years I was the last one we thought a gentle breeze was going to come into our world she is meaner than all of the boys put together okay I have another granddaughter Lizzy is sweet yeah see that's the right response to Lizzy she is sweet we we just love Lizzy she's kind of like hey I don't know if anybody noticed but I'm teething I've pooped and if you guys don't have time to change my diaper I'll just go back to sleep she is like super easy going and then I think we have a picture of all three of them together that actually tells the real story there okay you are seeing what Sofia looks like in action Asher is sweet and gentle and nurturing Lizzie is afraid and Sophia is out of control so that is kind of what my home world dynamic looks like and I'm super excited about tonight because I really believe that John I have been through some stuff and if you've been through some stuff then you can help other people get through some stuff we don't think everybody needs to make the same mistakes that we've already made and I've got two more pictures some of these are PG okay I have a picture of my son who did erase a couple you didn't like a couple summers ago that's my son number 106 one two he wants something called the Tough Mudder I don't know if you've ever heard of it it's for crazy people it is for people who like to be electrocuted and swim through ice while they run ten miles at 12,000 feet above sea level so basically Alec won it I was super excited I believe that my genetics have produced that I believe that if I ever wanted to race in the Tough Mudder I would win I don't think John would win he golfs I feel like I am the one who has created those ABS for Alec and so last year he competed in something called the Spartan Race and I was super except we've got another picture of that one I was super excited because I thought I could add another layer of my toughness to my being so I was like did we win the Spartan and he was like no mom I didn't win he said but I learned something he said it is actually more fun to help other people over obstacles than crossing the finish line alone and so I believe that I am here tonight to help you over some obstacles instead of just crossing a finish line alone we have a race to run and our our race actually started here in Dallas Texas and I'm going to show you what we began with you've seen where we are now but you need to see what we started with we started in the 80s so if you can yeah there we go the 80s you can put it down the 80s the 80s were an incredibly awkward time to be a Christian it was the worst music it was the worst relational dynamics if you were having a problem you weren't allowed to even say you were having a problem because it would be a bad confession it was the most ridiculous time and John and I got married in that ridiculous time 1982 and so I'm gonna just paint a little bit of a picture of what the beginning of our marriage looks like so you couldn't understand why it would be even qualified to be up here first and foremost my husband led me to the Lord on our very first date he saw me in a bikini with cutoff shorts at breakfast in the college dorm and prayed and said god I would just like my wife to have legs like that he hadn't dated anybody in two years I don't know if these were the kind of prayers that God answers but basically he invited me to a Bible study picnic all I heard was free food I went to the picnic people were singing it was awkward and uncomfortable they were singing I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart and they had passed out a song sheet and yet some people were raising their hands now when you are a twenty-one year old girl and you are a college student and people are raising their hands of course you're going to assume what I assumed that they had a question as I was like how could you possibly have a question during this stupid song and so I read to look down and read the song sheet and just think I can't wait till I can get out of here but the next song grabbed ahold of me there was a line in the song that says that when God would look at me he would no longer see me he would see Jesus and I interrupted John they said is this true and he said as what try says is it true that God could ever look at me and not see my sin and he was like yeah he was like a nice Catholic boy he didn't have anything to hide I was like I need a covering I definitely need that and so we went walking on the campus of Purdue John began to preach to me from Genesis to the Book of Revelations I began to panic because I had seen the end of a thief in the night and I knew people were gonna get their heads cut off and I couldn't figure out how to become a Christian so I finally just interrupted him and I said I didn't join this Christian thing right now and he was like okay alright so we prayed together and on my very first date with John I got born-again spirit filled and healed and I decided anybody could do all that in the first date you might as well marry him so basically when we went to premarital counseling we didn't listen we were 21 and 22 we knew more than everybody else that premarital counseling thing was for people that God had not put together but God had put John and I together so we never imagined we would fight we got married and then basically three months into our marriage I had a vision it was the vision of a perfect man this man looked like my husband but he did not act like my husband and I decided that my calling in life was to change John from the man he was to the man he could be if he would just work with me at first I was gentle with my vision at first I would just say things like honey you need to chew with your mouth shut but then all of the sudden it just got fiercer and fiercer but John had visions of his own visions of a sweet supportive submissive wife and we began to fight like you cannot believe you know when you do not have children around to watch you you will do a lot of stupid things I remember one fight in particular John you know said you know listen we need to get this right before we go to bed we can't let the Sun go down on our wrath well I really feel like he misinterprets that scripture because I feel like you start fighting after it's already dark you have till sundown the next day and so I was not willing to resolve it he decided I couldn't leave the room and go to bed until I resolved it so he blocked my exit from our bedroom like this he made his body a letter of X now I know that I've only just met a lot of you but what do you think that would inspire in me do you do you think I would say hey you're right I'm gonna sit down and let's just hash it out no I backed up as far as I could I went into the bathroom of our second bedroom and I used to run track at the University of Arizona I looked right at my husband and I ran full speed at him knocked him flat on his back and I said hey no man keeps me in a room I don't want to be in another time we were in another disagreement and he pushed me why are you laughing he pushed me so only she fights we've ever had he pushed me and said sit down on the bed but I was already moving out of the room and only half of my bottom made it to the bed I fell on the floor and it came up with a lamp in my hands now I would like to tell you that this was a table lamp but it was a three foot or four foot floor lamp it was about this high it was like above my head before I knew what even happened John was like what are you gonna do with that I was like I don't even know I got in my hands he was like can you put it down I'm like yes I'm gonna put it down right now called one of my Dallas friends said have you ever been in a disagreement with your husband and all of a sudden you had a lamp in your hands she was like no I was like me neither we would never do anything like that John and I God put us together and it really looked like that because every single Sunday there was a miracle we drive up on the church parking lot we would fight the whole way there and we would begin to wave like Ken and Barbie to everybody like hey praise the Lord let's do lunch today and during church service we maintained constant body contact if the pastor said husbands love your wives I would grab ahold of John's knee and put a death grip on it if he said wives submit to your husband John would almost break a finger people would say we just see the hand of God hovering over your lives yeah he was Garry to smack us both in the head first four years WWF wrestling next four years we lived in the aftermath of all the nonsense that we had created and then in year 8 of our marriage we decided to rise and build so we wrote story of marriage because there is a lot of things that we have done wrong and we don't think you need to make the same mistakes but there also are a lot of things that we did right by accident so we decided to write them down so other people could figure them out I love it that Matthew 25 23 says well done good and faithful servant and the area of marriage we are yet servants John and I and should all of us be never masters and I love the idea that God has made marriage as a covenant rather than a contract because if it had been a contract I would have broke the contract probably the first six months of our marriage and my husband and I would no longer be married contracts are agreements created to actually restrict movement when you contract something it means you shrink it or you reduce it in size or reach contracts are limited partnerships based on distrust and if you violate a contract you void a contract and if you violate a contract with the Sicilian they put a contract on you which reduces all your options I am Sicilian so basically I just thought I would put their in there and but marriage isn't a contract it's a covenant and a covenant is an unlimited partnership based on trust and contracts are under the jurisdiction of law and fear but covenants are under the jurisdiction of love and grace and covenants are actually created not to restrict movements but to enlarge the lives of both members of the party everything that John and I have everything that we experience everything that our children experience is an all in it is shared in common my victories are his victories his victories are my victories my suffering becomes his suffering his suffering becomes my suffering and God created a covenant of marriage to represent how he wants covenant people to act whether it's family whether it's married whether it's single they keep a covenant with God but the truth is marriage puts attention on this quite possibly like nothing else in Matthew 19 11 through 12 and the message I'm gonna read how Jesus describes marriage he says not everyone is mature enough to live a married life it requires a certain aptitude and grace every married person say Amen marriage isn't for everyone but then he goes on to say but if you're capable of growing into the largeness of marriage do it marriage is not a place where people shrink into roles marriage is a place where both people become everything that is better about them I'm just gonna be quite honest with you my marriage has put more of a consistent pressure not because my husband's a bad person but a marriage exposes what is bad in me more of a consistent pressure than anything else it attacks every hidden area of selfishness and fear of my life it has exposed my lack of trust my ability inability to forgive my marriage has actually created patience in me which I don't even think I ever had before that and as refined my definition of what it means to love somebody and even what it means to like somebody marriage more than anything else has increased my capacity to serve and that is how we are supposed to approach marriage it isn't about what my spouse does for me it is about what I can do for my spouse everything I should do everything John should do and he does a better job than me you already know that I would be a piece of work to live with okay everything that John does is really actually creating the best environment for everything that God has seen in my life to flourish and God is the one who originated marriage he is the one who designed it Genesis chapter 1 verses 27 through 28 I'm going to read out the message said God created human beings he created them godlike reflecting God's nature he created them male and female so I'm gonna stop just a moment right there it shows us something God creates us male and female to reflect his image but everything in our culture right now is trying to get the men to be more feminine the women to be more masculine and hoping by we moving both genders into the middle then we'll get some kind of position of strength but that's a lie a position of strength is men being men and women being women it is not blurring the genders it is actually celebrating both genders not to the neglect of one or the other I'm not trying to be mean but there is no such thing as a sex change operation there's only a sexual function change your chromosomes will not change you are either X & Y or X X and you can have all the surgery you want if you are a man you'll never have a uterus I'm sorry Bruce anyway it's just not going to happen but the truth is we have a broken society and that is why people are trying to think that they can get healing through sexual expression and it's messing with the image of God and so we need to be a people who understand that gender is our entrustment to express how God interacts with the earth and so we need to do this well it goes on to say God blessed them he said prosper reproduce fill the earth take charge be responsible for the fish in the sea birds of the air and for every living thing that moves on the face of the earth then God looked over everything he had made it it was so good so very good this ability to actually cause everything under our care was something given to Adam and Eve together and it was something called Dominion and Dominion is the right to exercise authority on behalf of those under your care but the fall messed up a bunch of areas and now all of a sudden instead of Adam and Eve being two people with one heart you see division coming in for the very first time instead of multiplication you see chaos instead of order and instead of Dominion you see domination on the man's part and manipulation on the woman's part you see the fall come in and attack every single layer of relationship it attacked our relationship with the Living God and I think the church has done a great job saying hey the fall broke your fellowship with God but it didn't just break my fellowship with God it broke my fellowship sister-to-sister it broke our fellowship brother-to-brother it broke our fellowship husbands too it broke our fellowship parents to children and it broke our fellowship people to the earth every single area that have been under Adams care came under attack but we are no longer under the fall and that is why this church is being so intentional to give you the tools that you need to recover what has been lost and what has been stolen but happily-ever-after effort does not happen by accident and all of the movies just show us ending at the beginning of the movie and you saw what happened to me three months into the process I was like oh my goodness now what are we supposed to do well we're all supposed to actually begin with the end in mind we're not supposed to think about our most amazing days or how we met the most amazing days should be how we finish what we produce how we end well so we have to be a people that understand that God loves to bless marriages families relationships when he sees unity he commands a blessing healthy normal marriages families relationships associations prosper reproduce invade space displace chaos fill the earth take responsibility and exercise authority do not settle take the Word of God take your position exercise your authority from the very beginning or genesis of mankind marriages were never meant to be a power struggle they were meant to be a power union we're not supposed to be enemies the fall originated the battle of the sexes before the fall there was no battle men and women are not enemies we are intimate allies the problem with intimate allies is you know how to hurt somebody more than anybody else on the face of the earth because they've opened up your heart but we can switch that and we could speak to the most intimate wounding and bring life and strength and healing whenever we decide that we really believe that God's mercy is new every morning and we have a chance to begin again it's important that our marriages are vibrant because the world is looking for the answer and the Bible says our gonna know that we're Christians by our love one for another it isn't because we're now seeing good music as opposed to the bad music in the 80s it's not because you know we have cool buildings instead of ridiculousness but it's actually because they're going to evidently be able to see that we care and that we love each other they can't see how we love God they can only see how we treat one another God is the one who chose the very flawed very challenging dynamic of marriage to describe his relationship between Christ and the church Malachi chapter 2 verses 15 and the message said God not you made marriage and I just want to say right now if God not me made marriage then I don't have the right to redefine it I don't have the right to give my opinion if God made marriage the maker of a marriage is the one who created it and he's the one that ordained it his spirit and habits even the smallest details of marriage and what does he want from marriage children of God that's what Malachi goes on to say so guard the spirit of marriage within you I'm just gonna say this you know we're all considered to be a bride so whether you're single or widowed or divorced or married right now there's still the spirit of marriage in you the spirit and the bride say come there is a spirit of marriage inside which is a covenant spirit which is a spirit that longs for an intimate relationship if you never raise a child God still wants to raise you up as a child of God I already said how in my marriage it was the most refining thing there were things in my life that would never ever been addressed unless I had an intimate other in my face 24 hours a day I remember when we first got married I was like I'm ready for you to go home I'm ready for you to leave me all right let's just go to a movie again and then I can like debrief but that's not what happens you have somebody there that is constantly reflecting you I was reading recently this writing of this this Jewish rabbi and he would say there's a misinterpretation in Genesis he may be wrong but it's interesting I'm gonna try to get all my money's worth out of it but basically he was saying that the interpretation that God made a helpmeet for Adam is wrong he's the word for he said his to and he said it was somebody who could stand on equal ground and speak into his life and so I think that we have forgotten that the wife is actually for the husband to speak to him and the husband is for the wife to speak to her and when you live with somebody where they're saying anything or not it speaks to the areas in your life that are wounded and that are flawed so we are living actually though in the aftermath of a generation that mistook what marriage was I don't know what your background was John's family was amazing their parents his parents were married for like 60 years and they were just godly they weren't even Christians at the time when they got married but they just lived godly my side crazy people crazy people my grandmother was way ahead of her time she married divorced her first husband remarried him divorced him upgraded now usually it's the guys that upgrade upgraded upgraded him got in a fight with him had him put in a mental institution while she was having an affair with an even further upgrade guy who she ended up marrying and basically killing in a fight because they were arguing and he dropped out of a heart attack so basically my grandmother was married four times to three men crazy people just crazy I have uncles you know that don't talk to my mom I mean everybody is a crazy person when I was introduced to John's mother she was just traumatized she was like we've never had divorce in our family why are you bringing divorce I was like that's not my name my name is a divorce wait a minute I you know I've just felt like I brought all the bad to the table and John brought all the good to the table his people were good with money my people were bad with money my parents had tons of money squandered it all John's dad had little money he saved it invested it all he's gonna leave an inheritance to all of his children my parents cost his money so I remember just you know John's dad never like got drunk my dad I never I don't know if my kids ever saw me sober it was just the polar opposite and I remember crying out to God and saying I I don't know how to do this and God said I'm not interested in John's good or your bad I want to do a new thing I want a holy generation and do a holy generation we're not gonna draw on John's past or your past you're gonna have to look up the scriptures and you're gonna have to begin to let me write a story for you that is different than anything you have seen because I'm doing something different thank you for the one person clapping back there thank you thank you for understanding that I know you guys are waiting for me to breathe I understand but God is doing a new thing in a new way and John and I wanted the freedom to customize our marriage and a lot of the marriage Creek comes that we looked at the wives were not a problem they were just not a problem the and I was a problem and and then also the other thing was they kind of felt like if you want a godly marriage you need to build a three-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath well what if we wanted a five bedroom what if we wanted one bathroom well I mean like we just felt like we wanted to give people the freedom to customize their marriage according to their season and according to their purpose we all use the same raw materials of respect and love and faithfulness but how you build actually God gives you the freedom to be creative because God is creative so you know I I began to think about how when God begins to do a new thing how he picks very unlikely people but how did God pick Abraham how do you how did God pick Abraham I'm picking people in the front row what do you think how did God why did God choose Abraham what do you think one with the pink iPad I'm so sorry yeah yeah I know you were trying not to make eye contact how did how did God pick Abraham because what he was worshipping his family is worshipping a false god and and he was what he was least likely I like that I don't know if that's the right answer scripturally but okay so what what about over here Britney you can't answer cuz you know okay what do you think your see people nobody's looking at me okay can I get a guy what do you think mister green shirt what do you think why did God pick Abraham okay see I this is proving my publishers point I like to answer questions that nobody is asking so basically why did God choose Abraham okay Jenna's we find her answer in Genesis 18 verses 18 through 19 said Abraham like with angels he's like Abraham so surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him for I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him there was something about Abraham that God said I know how he will raise his children before he had children and I think that's why he had to wait so long for that promise God says I know Abraham does not seem to be a good choice he's the background of idol worshipers but I'm just thinking that if I send him into the desert and I make him the promise that he will look for something that he has never seen that he will cry out to me and then when I meet him he will teach his children my way I think God saw John and I and said these two people are ridiculous they are born in the 80s they have horrible rhythm but we just feel that maybe maybe they will teach their children God's ways and command their household in righteousness and I will say that I think God is actually more concerned about what he could get through you than what he can get to you and God is looking for a people who understand the power of covenant and that is why we have to manage our private lives well so that we don't break down this ability to do covenant so I want us to step back a little bit to what it looked like in our beginning and give you some practical tools tools okay so that first four years I did not mean to say stew okay that first I know I did that okay doesn't miss me okay that first four years John had a favorite scripture and you will not turn to it it is proverbs 20:1 nine I can quote it from memory it is better to dwell on the corner of a rooftop than with a nagging fault-finding wife and I would just tell him get on up there because I am not stopping until I change you into my image okay and my favorite verse during that time was you were dealing treacherously with the wife of your youth when you have two people who know the Word of God and have a little bit of a fierce temperament you have people beating each other up with swords it was not pretty it was not comfortable it was embarrassing and we said you know what we need to stop this and I already told you you're four to eight we just walked around I had been known to throw things broke a window dented two refrigerators and so basically we just kind of walked around in the aftermath of what we had done but you're eight we started to rise and build and how you rise and build especially with allies is you become experts in one another's strengths instead of in one another's weaknesses God could have looked at Abraham and said we had a problem here he has no kids but in decide God said you know what that weakness is actually going to be a strength because I'm gonna create a longing in him and God said his strength is he will teach his household so we need to focus in on what are one another's strengths I have a son Alec the one that won the Tough Mudder I remember he was growing up I apologized to teachers non-stop he was a nightmare my first two children advanced classes AP classes Alec was in special ed I'm not I'm not making fun of him when I say that it's actually the truth he just had a really hard time learning I call the teachers would call me like pretty much every other day John said I would just pick up the phone and say I'm so sorry I'm so sorry we practice our spelling words for an hour I'm so sorry and I remember John sat me down and said honey we're stressing about every single day he goes to school and he feels like a failure so at home we're gonna make him feel like his success so we started saying things that made absolutely no sense to him things like Alexander we love the way you think the other brothers like why would you say that he doesn't think he does not think that's why he has D's and F's we'd be like oh no no he thinks he just thinks different and I in my head I was thinking well it's interesting before Alec graduated from high school he was the youngest hire in the state of Colorado by Apple Computer he went in at 18 years of age or 17 years of age he became a specialist and expert than a genius and acting manager before he was 20 and then he was started back into college and he has a small electronics firm paying all of his education so somebody likes the way he thinks and it's interesting that we would say to Alec we love the way you think you think different and apples theme is think different so I think with our marriages if we're going to build different marriages we're gonna have to think different we're gonna have to actually be very intentional with noting the strengths and how many of you know that we are living in a different day we're living in a time in an age where you cannot look back to go forward you're gonna have to look up to go forward we're gonna have to be people who actually build with faith people actually use the word of God possibly to survive but definitely to love one another well because we are not going to be people who live by contracts we're gonna be covenant people we're not gonna opt out we're gonna stay the course and grow into the largeness of life because I don't know about you but I'm not content with what I've seen I am hungry for more I am hungry for signs I'm hungry for miracles I am hungry for wonders and God always starts with one man and one woman and his children he cares about family I was in Hawaii and I happened to like see somebody go by famous so I was like huh I think it's Marilyn Hickey and so I went running after her and she began to tell me about all these miracles that are happening overseas and I said Marilyn why not in the United States of America why and she said I'll tell you why she said it's the breakdown of the family she said God is trying to heal the hearts of the fathers the hearts of the sons the hearts of the mothers the hearts of the wives I'm hungry from war so I'm okay with God doing a deep work in me I'm not gonna think that I have arrived I'm gonna think okay God you brought me this far but I want to go further men have something very key and important it is something called structure my husband is like black and white but I am not grey I'm crayons he gives me an outline and I come in with the color I'm like your life would be so boring without me let me just color your world John Bevere so I love that he gives me parameters but I give him color men have structure when my boys were little I invested hundreds possibly a thousand dollars in Legos why because I believed if kids got down on the floor it would be good and then when my husband tried to sell them in the garage so I was like absolutely no way those Legos are going to earn me favorite grandmother and so basically when my kids come to my house I open a closet and I say behold the Legos of your parents and they just like oh my gosh you're like shaking they come to grandmother's house and they get the Legos it's called G Mama's house John's name is even mentioned in the end the ownership of the house it's like the Legos and the food but basically when my boys were little we lived in Orlando and John would land from a trip and call me from the payphones is before cellphones is how old we are so basically he would call me and say hey babe I'm on my way home my husband's a very sweet man but I know what he was really saying he was saying honey you have no concept of time I know that children are running around without clothes on I know that you probably have not taken a shower in two days you got 45 minutes to get all this right and so we would go into panic mode we would like children like running picking up everything me brushing my teeth trying to get everything in order 45 minute countdown and my boys would always want to build something for John because every young man has two desires that is to destroy his father in sports and to make him proud my boys were too little to destroy their father in sports they have done that now but they wanted to make crowd and so they would build these Lego towers and it was all about how high the tower could go and John would have to measure I didn't understand but guys believe that somebody has to win women think all people win john explained to me no that's not correct somebody just needs to try harder next time I'm like oh my gosh they're three so anyway there was towers and then they would get a car out and they would be like watch this and they would back the car up and they would crash it into the tower it was all about a big tower and a big crash one time and it was only one time I was allowed to babysit my friend's daughter and when she came over I put her down on the floor and she didn't build towers she made rooms she actually like had walls and chairs and tables and beds and she got the people out my boys were okay with driving cars without people they were like why do we need people to drive the cars the glady got the lady Lego came out and she would sit them at the table having them hold their little Lego hands she would put some down for a nap my boys were watching on in horror like what are you what are you doing with our Legos we don't play with our Legos like this and she knew she had some kind of power over our boys and so she had the two legos just kiss my boys right now we have to burn those now we have to burn those Legos they were so stressed out but see what was she doing she was doing what women are good at it is something called nurture and nurture is creating an environment for the young the tender and the at-risk to flourish and that's what this is about they're trying to give you structure it's going to be every what night are we on Monday night and it is for nurture to help your marriage help your family help how you do your finances nurture deter is a language of the heart and structure is important if we're going to build but without the input of women you build big but you don't necessarily build safe sinu we need both the mother and the father the husband and the wife the Son and the daughter input in the house of God the man guards the house and the woman guards the heart my husband has done this so well he has created an environment for what is in me to be surrounded with strength so it can flourish but because of my crazy background I don't know how to do that I kind of felt like my job wasn't to guard John's heart my job was to humble his heart my job was everybody out there clapping for you on the road that's good now when you get home you leave that man of God thing at the door and when you come in you need to change some poopy diapers but the truth is John didn't care what anybody else out there said about him he only cared what I said about him and when I withheld praise and respect and honor it wounded him so I've never seen that model so what do we have to do we had to make it up so he sat down with me and he said hey it really hurts me when you don't do this for me and you know you get mad at me for me talking about myself so much but it's because you're not talking about me enough so if you start talking about me more than I can talk less about myself I was like oh is that yeah this guy knows that's true he's like okay it's like all right so at first it felt really weird at first it felt really forced my husband is colorblind he's likes to say his color challenge but the truth is he has absolutely no idea what color our world is and so he would you know come up into me before every single trip of me like does this work together and I and then he would write it down if it worked out as a thing and after I started to like compliment him I started having fun with it I'd be like no way you're leaving in that outfit you are sexy hunk of man you need to just take all that clothes off and get in the bedroom right now and he'd be like honey I can't they're picking me up in 15 minutes I pick okay I'll let you slide this time in front of my boys I started saying things that made them uncomfortable things like look at your dad oh my goodness he gets better-looking every year I'm gonna hi I'm been pregnant ten times my boys would be like oh my gosh mom you guys are so sick but they were lying do you know why I know that because when my oldest son got married he brought me his wife and he's like tell her the thing I was like what do you what are you talking about tell her about complimenting me and talking about me being sexy in front of other people it's like right I thought that annoys you guys he was like okay it was awkward but we liked it so anyway I learned that by complimenting my husband in front of my children I was doing two things number one I was modeling for my boys what kind of wife they should get somebody they didn't withhold affection somebody that didn't withhold praise some of they didn't withhold honor and I was safeguarding my husband because he is cute and he travels a lot by himself and I would hope now that if somebody knocked on his door in the middle of the night and said you were a sexy hunka man he would say I know my wife tells me that all the time it would not take him by surprise men have external strength this is one of the funnest things that my boys enjoy is flaunting my weaknesses they come home from the gym we live in Cairo it's Sub Zero but they have to take off most of their clothes and then they come into my bathroom and they are standing there without shirts and they are flexing and they flex in the mirrors behind me and I smell testosterone and I'm like why do we do this every single night yes I do not have a six-pack yes I do not have triceps they're like just try to flex them and then they're just like spinning my triceps and I'm like stop it my one side can pinch my back fat I can be like oh I feel a fat he comes right in he's like comes through the kitchen and hones right in I'm like this is evil all of this is evil but they locate all of my squishy parts and they squeeze my squishy parts why because they're externally strong they know how to extend things when my kids were little Jon would throw them in the air he would put them on his head he would put him on his feet you know it was all about let's see how we can the far we can push them before they cry gosh at the meantime though I breastfed all of my boys until they asked me to stop I know I'm gonna hold them close when Artem was two-and-a-half he's like I just found out from the other kids at the nursery they stopped this a year ago I am NOT doing this anymore for you but I'm an Italian mother I'm strong holding things close to the heart and I just say I'm gonna say this since I've already brought up the word one time already tonight the strongest muscle in the human body is the uterus sorry guys I may be flexing mine right now but I have no idea it is a muscle that is given to the woman to birth things the second strongest muscle is the tongue what we say and what we give life to is very important to God second Corinthians 5:19 2:20 every is happy I'm using a scripture again the message again God put the world square with himself through the Messiah giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing we are Christ's representatives God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them you and I are called to be persuasive influencers so here's kind of how I want to paint what this moment might look like John and I I already mentioned all the stupid stuff on all the stupid stuff I highlighted a few of the stupid stuff but one of our best things we did actually happen in a Chinese restaurant not too far from here it was off a Preston Road out and if it's still there and we were young we were poor we would order lots of extra rice moo shu chicken split an order extra plum stock as to rice Esther pancake and we would sit in that Chinese restaurant and we would dream we would talk about what we wanted our lives to look like we would say when we have kids that we had no kids at the time when we have kids are we gonna give them an allowance like and they can only have money if they do over and above we were like are we in the spanker kids are we gonna buy them a car and then we said oh well you know we're gonna do we're gonna give this certain but - and then we'll match whatever they say and we like talked about what kind of parenting we wanted to do we talked about how we wanted to relate with each other we talked about how we wanted to spend our finances we talked about what was most important to us was to have the house in the neighborhood where everybody came so we said we're gonna have to invest in foosball we're gonna have an invest in ping-pong you know we we just wrote things down and we dreamed and nobody was there to say you guys are stupid you guys can't do this this isn't gonna happen nobody's ever done it this way before your parents were divorced Lisa John's parents were extremely conservative nobody was there we just were and what we thought was one of the most exotic settings in the world which is pretty hilarious and we just we're dreaming and we would write things down on a napkin but here's one I tell you it happens when people do that and this happens when single people do it happens when married people does it it happened when young people do it happens when old people did Malachi 3:16 says then those who fear the Lord spoke to one another and the Lord listened in and heard them so a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the Lord and who meditate on his name the message actually said that God listens in on our conversations and takes note when you actually just say you know what I want to begin again I want a marriage I want a life I want friendships that honor God I know it's gonna mean they're gonna be uncomfortable because iron sharpening iron means there's gonna be sparks means there's gonna be friction but you know what I am desperate for something more than what I've seen so I'm gonna be more than what I've been I'm gonna live different I'm gonna increase my capacity in my life and my marriage and our finances I don't want to do it the normal way the American Way I'm not gonna get in debt I'm gonna think about the end I'm gonna think about that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children not just his children but his children's children and I'm gonna make some decisions and I'm gonna write some things down Habakkuk 2 2 through 4 says write the vision and make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it for this vision awaits its appointed time it hastens to the end it will not lie if it seems slow wait for it it will surely come it will not delay the righteous shall live by faith you know living by faith doesn't mean that you're just believing God for something owie faith is a substance so when you live by faith you give God substance to work for substance actually means matter or something that takes up space when you live by faith something in your life opens up when you choose to look beyond what you have into your future and through the promises of God then God says okay see they've just opened up an area for capacity that no generation before them has ever opened up John I sat down and we looked and his parents were sweet and they were kind but they were not Christians my parents were not sweet or kind and they were not Christians and we said we want to do a new thing we want a holy generation so we're gonna write it out because how many of you know that life happens and if you don't have intent you don't have follow-through but when you have intent and you prayed the Word of God God watches over his word to perform it you don't even have to figure it out you just throw it out there and God begins to cause things to be orchestrated for his life to be honored in your life for his provision to come and overshadow whatever you have inherited he's like that's not going to be enough I'm gonna give you a legacy of promise and you and I are not coming in on our parents and heritance we are coming in on Abraham's legacy of faith so I want to do something I want to give you guys five practical steps and then I'm gonna pray over you guys because I really believe there's an anointing here to release something to start number one just start with praying just say God you know what I just you have to have your way I don't I don't know if we've honored you maybe all of you are amazing Christians but maybe you have a hunger for something more God we want more capacity in our lives individually we want more capacity our family in our marriages we just ask God to give us vision and dream number to collect inspiration get things like pictures words John I just chose a bunch of words that we wanted for our marriage I got to put in some of the words he got to put in some of the words and the words were like adventure vibrant vital fun unpredictable faithful we just we had just we just threw a bunch of words and there's no judging you can just like throw all the words together make a mosaic out of it but then get pictures get pictures in your mind get pictures around you of the kind of marriage you want the kind of future you want the kind of life that you want the kind of people you want to impact just build the image it's gonna be part of that customizing your home for your season and then find a place to dream it could be a Chinese restaurant it probably will not be in your house because your house is surrounding you by what you already have you probably need to go outside in a garden or Center a park bench or something and dream just dream take off the limits and dream number four identify your goals there needs to be some absolutes in your life things that you do not violate things that you will not cross the boundaries on but you need to have some goals you might say you know what I want to handle all finances better that's a goal well alright that's a great goal but then the next thing is you're gonna have to set a course so have your goals we want to do personal development we're gonna be committed to this Monday night but then said of course that that begins to happen get to know the people that can actually help you along that path if you are young get some older people to mentor you if you say Lisa are almost as crazy as us let's get a hold of their resources so glad I'm not on the stage just go ahead and get whatever you need to resource your life and get around people and ask questions this is a safe place this is a church that house this because they want to see you grow all right so can I get everybody to stand to your feet right now and I want to do a couple things first and foremost are you hungry for something more I have to believe that you're here on a Monday night because you are hungry for something more I don't think you guys would be here if you weren't I believe there's a prophetic anointing on this church I believe this is a prophetic anointing on this meeting I believe that many of you are going to see up close what others have only seen in the distance I believe many of you are going to lay hold of with your hands what the generations before only handled in prayer I believe you are for signs and wonders and miracles you are not for rules and regulations or death and destruction so I speak to that place that place of dreams I speak to that place of faith and substance in your life I command it to increase what is like a mustard seed to grow to a sapling father I thinking and there are people here that you have seeded with dreams and technology there are people here that you have seeded with innovation there are people here you have seeded with Nations father I thank you that people are here that are going to recover all that was lost father I thank you for the Genesis mandate overtaking their lives those will be multiplication weather has been division there'll be order where there has been chaos they'll be Union father and one Accord that they'll speak the language of heaven even as they walk on earth and father I thank you as they lift up the word of God that you will watch over that word to perform it father I thank you that you would give them specific scriptures and passages to begin to declare over their lives father I thank you that forgiveness flows I thank you for new beginnings I thank you for the courage to begin again in Jesus name and everybody agrees say Amen and amen I want every married couple to remain standing and everybody else can sit down only if you're with your spouse it'll be really weird if you're not with your spouse okay so if you're married and you're with your spouse I want you to turn to one another and I'm gonna have the women start first won't you like your husband say baby forgive me for the times I've used my strengths to point out your weaknesses from now on I'm gonna multiply your life I am your X Factor I'm gonna be the best thing that ever happened to you in Jesus name you are a sexy hunk of man okay they like that okay now look at look at your wife and say honey forgive me for the times I've used my strengths to oppress your your strengths from now on I'm gonna give you an environment for your strength to flourish I just learned that wise women build the house of God therefore I'm gonna build my woman and she's gonna cut my work in half you are the best thing that ever happened to me in Jesus name father I thank you for these couples having the power of Dominion the power of two with one heart Father give it back to them in Jesus name let them begin again all over thank you Father it's been an honor and a privilege to be here at this house I love this house I feel related this house because I go to new life in Colorado Springs but it has been a privilege and an honor god bless you

Channel: Godstrong Daily

Views: 117,433

Keywords: marriage, equally yoked, ephesians 5, christ loves the church, relationships, secret, marriage today, jimmy evans, karen evans, gateway church, robert morris, john bevere, messenger international, church, god, christ, jesus, love, dating, purity, wedding, perfect, divorce, money, date, christian, holy spirit, james betty robison, life today, beth moore, kari jobe, save, saved

Id: H2x87Kcmt6Y

Length: 60min 33sec (3633 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2017