Put on the whole armor of God and deal with the situations in your marriage as God had commanded you, so you can become more than a Conqueror:
The Bible says that anybody who places their trust in God, and fully obeys the commands of God and His Christ, is more than a conqueror.
God does not throw words around anyhow. With spoken words, He created the heavens and earth and everything inside them. Anything God says is the absolute truth of the matter!
The word of God in the Bible is not a collection of soundbites, but the algorithm of life which determines the outcome of everyone’s actions.
How can you be more than a conqueror if you refuse to arm yourself with the whole armor of God (as commanded by God) and fight the battles God allows to come your way, as God tests you as in a fire?
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” (Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV)
The secular world will continue to be relevant to the growth and advancement of the church and the people of God; to naturally cushion the spiritual church as the spiritual church forms and solidifies into the formidable force the spiritual church was destined by God to become.
The spiritual church, and the spiritual person, must never become one with the world, as we have all done in our respective societies in the name of patriotism (Galatians 5:16-18 NIV); (James 4:4-5 NIV).
Otherwise, the spiritual church, and the spiritual persons, will lose their spirit and become simply, the world—church buildings, meaningless doctrines, and spiritless congregants!
This is the trap of the devil which King David so vividly described in Psalm 73. Therefore, I say to every woman: do not allow your heart to be compromised by the glittering worldly possessions others are accumulating which you do not have yet. You are a child of God and very dear to God’s heart, because you are a special gift from God. God has not forgotten you, nor will He ever forget you. He is counting on your placing your trust in Him. Here is Psalm 73 from the Bible:
“Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. 8 They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. 9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. 10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. 11 They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”
12 This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. 13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. 15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. 21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.” (Psalm 73:1-28)
And how can you conquer if you have not fought any battles? The trials and challenges you encounter in your marriage, and your life, are your battles. God is saying that these personal trials and challenges you face in your marriage and your life are in no way, form, or shape, inferior to the human wars and political conflicts that are fought by the kingdoms of the world. Rather, that your victory in your personal trials and challenges earns you a place of honor that is greater than that of warriors who had won political conflicts—which is why you are more than a conqueror.
Your marriage and your life are, indeed, your personal battle grounds, because the devil is constantly trying to ruin your joy. You cannot become a conqueror—much less ‘more than a conqueror’—if you resort to disobedience of God and wickedness to others in these personal trials of yours. Your marriage and life’s trails and challenges are no different from all the other human tests.
Anyone who must take a test, familiarizes themselves with the rules of engagement. You do not ignore what you must prepare to better your chances of success in the tests. Rather, you prepare hard, and equip yourself with all the necessary instruments to tackle the test and emerge victorious.
You cannot triumph over your trials and challenges without arming yourself with the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17). In other words, you cannot become more than a conqueror without arming yourself with the full armor of God! The full armor of God is both your defensive weapons and your offensive weapons. You must use them exactly as the Bible outlines for you, or your defense, or offense, may become compromised, and cost you the victory that is guaranteed to be yours.
An army does not wait until a war breaks out before it starts to amass weapons and ammunitions for war. Readiness for war begins the moment a nation decides to become a nation. The nation readily forms an army and begins to gather the weapons it might need during conflicts. To fully protect the nation, the army puts into consideration: who the potential enemies might be; their military capabilities; and their alliances with stronger armies.
It is exactly the same way with the full armor of God. The moment you decide to give your life over to God, is the moment you begin to arm yourself with the full armor of God. Whereas weapons cost the military a bundle, the full armor of God costs you nothing!
The full armor of God is yours free of charge. All you have to do is to consciously and methodically change your life and your attitude to life; and make room for the Spirit of God to equip you with the Grace that you need to fight each and every one of your battles, and emerge victorious (Ephesians 6:13 NIV). It is Grace that fights the battles for you (Matthew 11:27-30 NIV). Your job is to react in each of your trials and challenges as the Bible commands you to.
Anyone who repents of their sins, and gives their life to God, is escaping from the evil world and its countless bondages; the same way the ancient Israelites escaped from their bondage in Egypt. Just as God commanded the Israelites to leave Egypt armed for battles (Exodus 13:17-18 NIV); God commands you to arm yourself for battles as you leave the world and journey to your salvation and your abundant life (Ephesians 6:13 NIV).
The trials in your marriage and your life are the equivalence of the trials and challenges the Israelites faced in the wilderness as they journeyed to the Promised Land. We know what disobedience and the mistrust of God did to the Israelites in the wilderness: all of them who did things their own way, instead of following the directions of the Lord, perished in the wilderness.
Your only recipe for success in your marriage and your life is the full armor of God. Applying it in all your circumstances will not make you popular among relatives, friends, or neighbors, but it guarantees your victory, and makes you more than a conqueror. Your success in your marriage, fully equips you, to succeed in the other battles in your life.
That God gave to ancient Egypt, to retain for ancient Israel, did not make it right for any ancient Israelite to become as greedy and as ungodly as the ancient Egyptians they were fleeing from. The spiritual people today must not join the world in its ungodly and unjust financial practices, and pretend as if calling on the name of God justifies their sinful indulgences.
All Israel—the natural children of Abraham and the spiritual children of Abraham—must wait for the Lord to give to them what is rightly theirs. Anybody who trusts in the Lord must patiently wait for the Lord, because God never goes back on His words. Although it may come later than one expects, when it comes, one will be fully satisfied with the amount of the gift, as well as the timing of it, because God knows best.
Woman: if you think of yourself as a prudent wife, and you look at your husband as being the problem in your marriage, you need to quickly re-evaluate. God never gives His favor to a man who is disobedient to God, and irreverent of God.
The God, who is in you, is the same God who is in your husband, as well as in every other human being on the planet earth. God knows the heart of every human being. Therefore, He knows the heart of the man you married, and has determined that the man is the right husband for you.
Turn instead to God, and cry out to Him, for He will hear your cry, and save you from all your difficult situations. Do what King David did in the following Psalm:
“I pray to you, Lord, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. 14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. 15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. 17 Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. 18 Come near and rescue me; deliver me because of my foes.
19 You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. 20 Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. 21 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.
22 May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. 23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. 24 Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. 25 May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt. 27 Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. 28 May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.
29 But as for me, afflicted and in pain—may your salvation, God, protect me. 30 I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves. 32 The poor will see and be glad—you who seek God, may your hearts live! 33 The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.
34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, 35 for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; 36 the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.” (Psalm 69:13-36 NIV)
If you are a deserving woman, be assured that God will not lead you into a marriage that will mess your life up and take your joy away. You must continue to remind yourself that there is a good reason why God allowed you to get into the marriage you are in.
It is your job to make the marriage work for you. A good marriage cannot ruin itself. It takes the people in a marriage to ruin the marriage. And you, the woman, is the marriage, because God created you so that there will be marriage—a helper suitable for him (Genesis 2:18).
Temptations will come, but unless you choose to listen to, and obey the devil, no temptation has power over your marriage; because your marriage is built on love and protected by love. A wife who subscribes to the Grace of God in all she does is virtuous; and her marriage blossoms and puts a lot of joy in her heart. The indomitable power of Grace protects the virtuous woman’s interests at all time.
The wife determines the success or failure of every marriage! That power resides with her. The woman was created for marriage, and not marriage for the woman. Therefore, every woman who makes her marriage work has accomplished the objective for which she was created by God!
A wife has no greater responsibility in this world than ensuring the success of her marriage. That is her calling in life. And there is no honor higher than that anywhere. A successful marriage automatically translates into a successful family. Marriage, simply, is the foundation of mankind! Therefore, the key to the success of mankind was given by God to the woman:
Every human body is the temple of God. In addition, every woman’s womb is the continuation of the Garden of Eden, exclusively reserved by God for Himself, for His continued crafting of human beings, in holiness, and with eternal attachment to God.
Love and marriage are inseparable. Marriage is love consummated between two mutual souls that have been brought together by God to become one. That they have been brought together to become one, is the very reason why God brings them together to start a new life—a child. Their oneness continues for as long as they both live.
That love and marriage are inseparable is why every woman in love with a man thinks marriage with the man! And this is the reason why the Bible tells the women to not arouse love before love chooses to manifest itself. Here is that passage from the Bible. “Daughters of Jerusalem” is actually a designation for “daughters of men”, which is all women who are to listen: “Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (Songs of Songs 2:7) & (Sons of Songs 3:5) & (Songs of Songs 8:4).