The Secret of Being Best Friends

coming up on marriage today with Jimmy & Karen I want to be around people who believe in me I want to be around people who focus not just on themselves but also I mean and when you have two people in a marriage who both believe in each other that's that's you become best friend you're my best friend so you're the one who really want to talk to you and so it's a man you know it's just so important to in tune to what your life once in that area because it really is a secret your heart [Music] [Applause] so I talked about a couple of things the first is I want to talk about steps to being best friends with your spouse here's developing a friendship with your spouse and here's how you do it the first is to be faithful now this is proverbs 17:17 a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity okay this is proverbs 18:24 a man who has friends must himself be friendly but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother now friendship is mostly developed or lost in hard times good times are great you know when we're friends and things are going great that's great it's good but when hard times hit you will either gain my friendship more or lose my friendship more for what happens in hard times now Karen our marriage got healed and the Lord miraculously healed our marriage and people started coming to us for marriage counseling and I came on staff at the church so I was speaking in front of people I'd never done that before I was terrified of that of every issue was well I lost my friendship with Karen Karen became the enemy and I was trying to succeed at church and I was trying to be all things to all people and not fail I lost a couple of years with my kids I don't remember those years I have a glimmer ease of those years but I don't remember him very well and the only thing I remember was just working my tail off trying to not fail and the motivation was fear it was a hundred percent here and I would come home at night in Karen Karen's a great woman she's just a great wife but I would come home at night and what I what I wanted her to do when I came in at night was a beautiful baby you've been fighting evil all day you know you come in here and you don't lift a finger we got you taken care of and that's what I wanted okay that's not what happened and I would come in the house you know after a 12 to 14 day day at work seven days a week and she said I need this Brent needs this and Julie needs this and it graded on me and I thought I am trying to Pastor a church I'm trying to minister to people I've been visiting the hospitals I've been counseling I've been doing funerals and weddings I've been preparing for messages and all this kind of stuff and and and so she would just stand there and look at me I mean I'm just exhausted I'm just gone and she would just look at me like I need this brittany's this and Julia needs this I thought sister you're persecuting the Lord's anointed God gonna strike you dead you better watch it oh my gosh so we started fighting about that and I started sleeping on the couch and I just thought I I'm tired of that nonsense so and I was very self-righteous about I was very self-righteous and I was praying the third night on the couch I was praying and I was praying for Karen for God to change her heart heart and I was laying there on the couch and I said lord I pray that you'd help Karen because she's wrong and here's what the Lord said to me he said you have communicated to Karen in real terms that the church is more important than she is now you repent and I said get behind me Satan that you know but you know when it's the Lord you know so I went into the bedroom in cameras in bed and I said the care I'm sorry and she said what and I said I need to leave the church I'm not prepared I've never been to seminary I don't know what I'm doing I'm terrified and it's just killing me now the church was growing I mean the church has done good it was killing her family and Karen said Jimmy God called you to the ministry just don't turn your heart away from us just come home and be at home and so I stayed working for the church and I went to the elders and I said help me help me to not be all things to all people help me to cut back protect me because I'm I'm no good at this and all that stuff well they did but but here's my point I wasn't faithful to my friend but my repentance to her was one of the things because I was deeply repentant and I changed I changed everything after that you have to be faithful you can't just be your spouse's friend when you want to be or when it's convenient and the hardest time a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity it's the hard times of life that your friendship is developed the most it's the hard times in life where the trust in our relationship is developed the most that's when we have to pay the most attention and if we've made a mistake that's where we have to be careful to go back to make it right the second foundation of friendship is believing in each other and this is what it says in James too the scripture was fulfilled which says abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness and he was called the Friends of God best friends you know you'll never be friends with someone who doesn't believe in you and so did you know by the way one of the reasons for marriage is that it brings us both to our full potential that what we do for each other is we both release the potential in our spouse let me give you example Asst the number one need that a woman has is security and a woman becomes in an atmosphere of security a good husband is a good green house he provides a nurturing protective environment for his wife well when Karen and I got married I never considered her calling I never considered that because I was a chauvinist I didn't believe that women were as important as men and so I believed in Karen I loved her physically and I loved a lot of things about her and I praised her for that but because of the environment that I created for Karen of insecurity she never became so one day I'll stand before Jesus and give an account for what I've done for Karen I don't understand this every husband is God's partner to bring his wife to her full potential but in order for that to happen you have to believe she has potential you have to believe that God made her and her mother's womb to do something special whatever that is and in a husband my job is to be God's partner to find out why God created Karen and to believe in that in other words if I don't get mine she's gonna get hers more important than me getting there I want to get her there I want to make sure that my wife understands if she's a stay-at-home mom if she's a teacher if she's a nurse or a doctor if she's an astrophysicist I want her to know that it is very important for me that she gets where God created her to be that I believe in her and that's what heals women what scars women is for them to be lesser not believed in have to fight for everything that they get so it's a husband's role to believe in his wife to speak destiny and or in other words not boss her around but to agree with her that there's a special call or life for every woman men become in an atmosphere of praise the man's number one need is respect we don't need what women need we need respect men become in an atmosphere or they're respected and praised the a good wife is a good cheerleader a good husband is a good green house but a good wife is a good cheerleader and the more you praise your husband see first Peter 3 says a wife can change her husband without a word as he observes your chaste and respectful behavior respect is so powerful in the life of a man we'll change our behavior for the person giving it to us you can win your husband if your husband's doing the wrong thing you can win your husband as he observes your chaste and respectful behavior it is so powerful when we believe in each other it's inductive I want to be around people who believe in me I want to be around people who focus not just on themselves but also on me and when you have two people in a marriage who both believe in each other that's that's you become best friends the third thing is embracing each other's differences is that we become friends by embracing each other's differences you never you never you never have a friend who criticizes y'all 10 and who rejects your differences now if you married someone normal they're not like you now that doesn't sound good but it's right if you married a normal person they're just completely opposite of you now we need to be compatible but compatibility is not based on sameness compatibility is based on character and values do we believe in the same things are we going the same place do we want the basic same things in life that's what makes us compatible but even if you're very compatible if you marry your perfect soul mate you're just completely different than their and there's three types of differences in marriage there are rejected differences there are tolerated differences and there are celebrated differences when Karen and I got married I completely rejected her differences she was a normal woman but I didn't understand women and I just thought I'm normal she's not like me so she's not normal and you know the there's they'll saying that marriage is about becoming one the question is which one and a lot of times we get married and rather than accepting the differences in our spouse we try to train them to be like us which is impossible you can't change the unchangeable and the surest way to fail is try to change the unchangeable a woman's number one need is the need of security her number two need is open and honest communication her number three need is soft non-sexual affection her number four need is for leadership for her husband to be the loving initiator man's number one need is respect his number two needed six his number three needs to be friends with his wife and his number four need his domestic support hackie more different than that we're different we're two halves of a home and so many times in marriage you know reject the differences mean you're weird you need to be like me because if you were like me you wouldn't be weird anymore but your dissuade I would say to Karen Karen from when we first got married she would say something I say that is so weird wasn't weird she was just being normal she's just being a woman but I rejected it the second thing is tolerated differences it's yeah okay yeah get it you know women you can't live with them you can't live without them I'll tolerate you you know you're pretty so you can hang around celebrate a differences you're I'm so glad you're on my team I just think you're awesome you know we fit together just like this don't we all of my weaknesses you fill them in is it just awesome how could I put this together you never are friends with someone who puts you down you're never friends with someone who doesn't believe in you number four be real and transparent and allow your spouse the same right be real this is John 15:15 no longer did I call you servants for a servant does not know what you're his master's doing but I have called you friends for all the things that I heard from My Father I made known to you and so friendship means being honest okay this is the next one here be a safe place of refuge for your spouse if there's gonna be honesty in the relationship it just means I'm gonna be a listen okay here's here's how you know who your best friend is it's the first person you call when something great or bad happens why do you make that call because they're safe I know that if if something bad happened that they're gonna be merciful if something good happened I know they're gonna celebrate with me I know that they're not going to be disinterested I know that they're not gonna be unkind or judgmental and so that's what I want to be Karen Evans safe place if anything good or bad happens in her life I want her to come to me first and for that to happen I've got to be non-judgmental I've got to be a good listener I've got to value what she says and I have to be there in those times she does it so I'm gonna be her safe place here's another thing and this is critically important be fun and creative and have a positive attitude proverbs 18:24 a man who has friends must himself be friendly now I do a seminar called sex love and communication and in there I do a teaching and it's called the fun the fun factor now this is an interesting thing having fun in marriage dramatically improves your marriage and one of the danger signs in marriage is when you're not having fun did we talk to women just men come into his world don't get lost in the identity of a mother and one of the things that happens it can damage the friendship of a marriage is you get married and you begin to have kids and you have three or four kids or whatever and all of a sudden your kids own you you know you're doing everything you can to please them and you lose your identity of a friend to your wife and being a mother to the kids and sometimes you can start treating your husband like kid because sometimes I can act like kids and so everybody's a kid and all of a sudden you're lost in the identity of a mother rather than being your husband's best friend and one of the most important things is to have fun with your husband and to go into his world to find things that you enjoy doing together but I told the story recently about a couple that their their marriage was healed because she went deer hunting with him and she didn't deer hunt but their marriage was in trouble and she said to her husband he was going deer hunt can I come with you and he's turned to looked at her like sure he didn't come with me we love that we love that you know it doesn't have two women a lot of times they consider a date something that you really worked hard on but but a man it's a date if we jump into pickup and go down to the 7-eleven I mean it's just just being with you as a date just being in your presence having fun and hanging out that's a date so you work hard at having fun the last thing is bearing each other's burdens this is proverbs 17:17 a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity Galatians 6 says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ that's what friends do so when Kari and I wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed and this is the truth we serve each other it's all we do I do this stuff I'm good at Karen does this so she got it and we serve each other all day long we bear each other's burdens and so physically you know I've got an office at home and Karen will call me and say I'm coming down the street I've got groceries you know what that means that means meet me in the garage there's some fashion in town you're about to do okay I did that I love it see here's another way to say that my friend is not someone who stands back watching me do something it doesn't help right friends help you're moving and I say use me up something's going on so you smell that's my friend my friend is not going to sit there and watch me do something that's burden and not help me so my job is to do what I'm best at so Karen will say to me today can you go get them out can you do this I fold clothes I vacuum I make beds I do I don't cook for health and safety reasons I there's there's limits to what I can do but Karen serves me all day long when I was getting ready to come here tonight Karen said what do you need and I said would you mind doing this and is this no she goes and does it so we serve each other we bury each other's burdens but I'm not gonna stand back and watch her working and suffering and doing something that I can do without helping her because why could we're friends and so if you didn't develop the right skills of being friends maybe when you're dating and maybe you're your friendship is taking a hit from some issues you've had your marriage again these things anybody can do this when you're working on your marriage you say we're gonna be freezing well I hope you enjoyed that teaching this is from a seminar that I do called our secret paradise it's a six-part seminar series with a lot of really great information to bless you in the area of your marriage and we want to put these resources into your hands right now for your gift of any amount to support us here at marriage today now we're a ministry and a mission and we hope that you've been blessed by marriage today but we go all over the world helping people to succeed in marriage helping problem helping people to heal from bad marriage is also helping families to stay together and little kids staying together with their parents so when you give here to marriage today I hope it blesses you the resources that you get but understand your blessing a lot of people right now for your gift of any amount we're 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more you'll receive the CD series and book for your gift of $90 or more you'll receive the DVD series and book in this series Jimmy will show you the foundations for establishing peace and intimacy keys to becoming your spouse's best friend and how to defeat the real enemy of your marriage so that you can have a secure satisfying and passionate marriage the way God intended we're building something great we've got to count the cost because it's gonna take us every single thing we have and this is gonna be challenging the other side of that thing is we're gonna succeed and it's gonna be the most awesome thing we've ever done in our lives for your online gift of any amount right now we'll send you the teaching the secret of building a lasting marriage available as an mp3 audio download or CD single you can have a marriage that lasts happily ever after create your own secret paradise today [Music] well this program today is on being best friends than marriage which is huge it's the really the bedrock Karen the foundation of your relationship and really when you're dating the the purpose of dating is to establish a friendship what's what we did yeah I mean we became really best friends immediately I mean we talked about everything yeah you know when we dated for so long we dated for four years so we got to know each other huge it was like the best thing that could happen to our relationship well sometimes people there their friendship they had a friendship but in the midst of marriage it kind of eroded in fact we have a couple of questions from yours here okay my wife treats me more like her child rather than her friend it's very emasculating what can I say to get through to her well I think praying first of all just praying that God would break through her heart and secondly women need to understand that men need their wives to be their friends and sometimes well sometimes you get mad you know she could be mad at even she's just kind of taking it out on him or she's kind of become more of a mother than a wife yeah is that and so he's kind of annoying her and rather than focusing on him in their friendship she's focusing on the kids and he's not you know doing what brings the man into her world as far as like if you know she's treating him as a child it's probably because she hasn't stopped and thought okay he's my partner he's not my you know child and you know just find ways for him to be involved in the same things you're involved in yeah you know where you see each other as co-equals instead of the mothering you know I do this well so I want you to like me right and respect isn't a man's number one name but another important need to men is for their wives to be their friends and so that it really said it's a twice it's kind of a double sword here double-edged sword she's disrespecting him and not being a strength and so I think that talked to her but it's something that I think women need to understand that they need to you know respect their husbands and put it first you Karen let me read you this question Karen how do you get your husband to open up I want him to talk more and share with me well you and I went through this because you know you can home time for work it's like I need to talk yeah you have little kids what's her nose and it wasn't and so I am Connecticut but anyway it's just that time available talk I mean a woman needs that you know it's why we have girlfriends but her best friend I mean you're my best friend so you're the one who really want to talk to and so is a man you know it's just so important to in tune to what your wife wants in that area because it really is a secret to your heart you know the open and honest communication is one of a woman's most important to be able to communicate with each other and share each other's feelings and even as a guy you may be bored and there's times I said you're checking out I'm talking you still need to stay engaged well the it's not one of my major needs but I enjoy it I mean I didn't back then but when we began to talk it really was enjoyable to me okay but the other thing is it doesn't matter if I want it or not it matters that you need it the secret of meeting the secret of being friends is meeting a need in your spouse that you don't have because most of our needs are different and sometimes we think well if I had a good marriage if I married my soul mate they would need everything that I do that's not true at all and so when you need to talk to this woman saying how do I get my husband to open up and talk the number one way to do that is to well first of all meet his needs you know come into his world meet his needs but telling honey I need to talk I need to you know and honestly we have resources that that help marriage on the rock is an example of this you know our secret paradise the resource we're offering right now talks about you know how to open up to each other and how to develop intimacy in your relationship and so we're almost out of time here but again this program is on being best friends Karen our best friends and our friendship is the foundation of our relationship but we work at it is something that we have to work on to keep it the way that should be when you watch this program I hope that you're blessed I hope your help our passion and our mission is to take this message of hope and encouragement for marriage and take it around the world right now we're broadcast into millions of homes in North America and over 200 countries worldwide every day multiple times a day you know when you stand with us financially as a partner of marriage today you're helping us hopefully you're getting blessed by it as well but you're helping us to go across America and around the world giving millions of people hope and help for their marriage in keeping little children together with their parents there are thousands of children together with their parents because someone like you supported us the information is there on your screen of how you can write us you can go on our secure website or you can call us and give your most generous gift thank you for all of you who stand with us financially we pray God's blessing on your marriage your family your life again I hope that this program has been a blessing to you thank you for joining us come back next time going through divorce is a lot to ask of children and often results in years of emotional pain it's a violent ripping a part of their parents in a sense of abandonment what sometimes we see as a quick way out can mean complete loss for a child you have a 100% chance of success in marriage you were made for marriage marriage today exists to protect children from the pain of divorce antis your couples away from marital failure by telling them a truth when you stand with marriage today your individual effort multiplies with other like-minded partners and together we can rebuild a legacy of strong families around the world choose your level of partnership 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Channel: XO Marriage

Views: 116,005

Rating: 4.9223685 out of 5

Keywords: marriage, marriage counseling, marriage help, marriage advice, relationships, relationship help, counseling, Christian counseling, divorce, husband, wife, issues, fixing your marriage, love, marriagetoday, Jimmy Evans, wedding, wedding planning

Id: cwUWkVUUDmU

Length: 26min 14sec (1574 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 03 2018