Cherish

 Chapter 8

Cherishing words 

Cherishing teaches us to carefully and deliberately use our ears and our words to express our affection. 

Lisa thought she had met a near perfect man sitting next to her on an airplane, until he talked himself into the gutter. She figures he was a doctor, given what he looked at on his computer and the paper he was writing. What really got her excited however, was the food he brought with him on the plane. – he was super healthy - Lisa recounted with enthusiasm. -he drank a green smoothie, had a bottle of seltzer, water, and eat a quinoa and black bean salad, a bag, full of carrots, and a chunk of cheddar cheese for dessert-

If you knew my wife, you would know this is as attractive as it gets. If you are what you eat, Lisa loves someone who eats healthy. 

On that same flight Dash we booked late and couldn’t get two seats together – Lisa‘s husband – that would be me – eight a yoghurt parfait – do you realize how much sugar is in that kind of yogurt? Lisa asked me Dash, a bag of nuts , and some dark chocolate raisins – the dark part matters to Lisa – a marital compromise between the two of us.

How could I compete for a steam with a guy who chooses a green smoothie when his wife isn’t even with him, actually purchases a quinoa and black bean salad, and considers a chunk of cheddar cheese, a dessert?

After we landed, Lisa, heard the doctor take a phone call, and her opinion about him completely changed. In clipped tones, he was truly short with his wife. There was no warm up, no endearing. Hello sweetie, just a hard utilitarianism – yeah, OK, well, I’m still on the plane… Whatever. – After several phrases, like this, his voice suddenly changed– hi Alex, how are yooooouuuu?

Then it changed back again for the worse – OK. That’s fine. 

I already said we can go as soon as I get home. 

Fine. 

Bye. 

The absence of any – it’s good to hear your voice –, I love you, or enthusiasm Dash like he showed for his child – made it a pretty cold car. He cherished his kid with his voice, but not his wife. 

This doctor, given his training and his practice of medicine, understands far more about the human body than I could ever hope to learn. He may treat diseases with the best of them. But did he realize the damage the simple phone call did to his marriage ? Did he realize the climate he was creating for his soon to be marital reunion?

What was the matter with what I said – he might argue. 

But that’s the wrong question if you are seeking to cherish. Cherish is something positive, not the lack of negative. To cherish, you have to ask, – what was right, affirming, loving about that conversation? 

Every conversation Dash everyone! – Takes you closer to or farther away from a cherishing marriage. The Bible declares this truth Dash the tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 1821. – I love the way, Barbara and Dennis Rainey describe this – we can create life in our meets with our positive words, or we can inflict destruction with her negative or neglectful words. 

Donnie freely admits he Dash lives and dies by verbal affirmation. That was a problem when he fell in love with Jaqueline, who grew up in a home, where people almost never even said – I love you. 

After reading the five love, languages together, Jaqueline was a bit concerned when she found out the Donnies, strongest, love language, by far is words of affirmation. – I’m just not good at that she told him.

But Jaqueline wanted Johnny to feel cherished, so she began writing out things she could praise him for, as well as thing she liked about him. That initial list ended up running almost 5 pages. 

Once Jaqueline got started, she couldn’t stop. Nearly a dozen years into their marriage, Donnie feels deeply cherished. – She’s such an encouragement to me – he says. 

What touches Donnie as much as Jaqueline talking to him is when he hears her telling another family member - Jaqueline’s grandmother, for instance Dash about something wonderful, he has just done.

Their’s is an important lesson: if we want our spouses to feel cherished, we may have to work at a few things. We’re not so good at by nature. Words are too powerful a tool not to put into service if we want a cherishing marriage.

Early on in their marriage, Jaqueline Houde, a woman, tell her, – never say a bad word about your husband – 

That was huge to me Dash Jaqueline says. – Where I grew up, men were losers, and women had to wear the pants. Every wife I knew talked badly about her husband. I am so glad a woman told me that marriage didn’t have to be like that, that we didn’t have to talk about each other that way. That kind of negative talk would’ve been so hurtful to Donnie if I had decided to act like the wives I had seen while growing up .

One of the other ways that Jacquelyn and Donnie have learned to use words to serve a cherishing purpose is to keep their sexual desire for each other at a high-level. – We have a ton of inside jokes – she says. – We can turn anything into sexual references –. Of course, we don’t do that in front of anyone else, but it’s always something that makes us laugh.

Donnie and Jaqueline have learned to excel at using words as tools to help each other feel cherished 

CURIOSITY SAVED THE MARRIAGE

Pam Farrell writes in several of her books that her wife often feels most loved when her husband is simply more curious about her. If a husband says – I want to know more – for some women, that straight out verbal foreplay. It gets them really excited emotionally. 

My husband is interested in me. He wants to hear more. Not only am I not boring him, he can’t get enough of me. – 

And I’m sure this is equally true, for beaten down husbands, who are rarely respected at home or work. 

But notice how this is based on initiating. It’s not enough to simply listen. We have to take the next step, engage, and go even further, to say, – I want more. Tell me more. – We have to maintain our curiosity. 

Isn’t this partly what made dating so intoxicating? To hear someone say – tell me all about you –. What do you think? What do you do? What have you been through? I want to hear more. – Suddenly, we were no longer invisible. A woman, or a man seemed fascinated by our past, and eager to get to know us in the present. For many of us, such a Conversations made us come alive. After years of being dismissed by parents and older siblings, countless peer groups, and the general apathy of a self absorbed world, someone made us feel like we mattered, and had something worthwhile or at least interesting to say. – This is also how many stories of infidelity begin . When you feel neglected by your spouse, and someone else becomes curious, it can hit your numbed soul like a drug.-

Well, Jaqueline learned to use words to affirm Donnie, Donnie had to learn how to use his ears, and even his eyes to affirm his curiosity. – A teacher wants told me you listen with your eyes as much as your ears. If you want someone to feel like you care, you have to look at them – 

Johnny applies this with Jaqueline. – I want to make sure I start looking at her as soon as she starts talking. That helps me to focus. Even if I’m not particularly interested in what she saying, I’m still interested in the person who is talking, so I am looking at her –

One time, while Donnie was trying to wrap up a potential $200,000 project due the next morning, Jaqueline found herself talking about something she had read on Facebook about an old friend. In truth, Doti couldn’t have cared less about that person at that moment. He was totally focussed on a time urgent work task.

But because Donnie Charice is Jaqueline, he looked up at her and listened. – I didn’t care about that friend as much as I cared about the $200,000 project, but I care about Jaqueline more than I care about the $200,000 project, so I stopped what I was doing, and listened –

Husbands, cherishing often isn’t about what your wife is saying: it’s about who is saying it. Donnie’s attitude could serve as a lesson for us all. 

PURSUE ME 

Let me speak a bit more about how curiosity creates and maintains a cherishing marriage. My wife and I were at a women’s book group that I just read SACRED INFLUENCE together and wanted to discuss it with us. One woman asked a very fair question: why do wives read half a dozen marriage books for every one book our husbands read?

MIN, if you want to cherish your wife, as Christ church is the church, cherishing with curiosity means you have to, at least occasionally be the initiator, as Christ was the initiator in his relationship with the church. We were estranged from God, so Jesus came to us to bring us back. He didn’t wait for the church to approach him. He didn’t expect that the bride, as the relational one, would be more invested in the relationship and plead with him to come back. 

If you cherish your wife, with curiosity, there will be times when you are the one who says those famous words, – we need to talk -. You will be the one who researches the best marital Counsellor if one is needed. You may even ask your wife to go to a marriage conference with you instead of waiting for her to invite you. If your wife feels like she’s the only one trying to improve your marriage, then you’re not curious, and you are not cherishing her.

No, a quick word to women: if curiosity, in the right way, and with the right tone, makes your man feel cherished, you’ll also initiate some conversations. Some women may be wary to ask their husbands what they think, believing they already know all they need to know, or are sure they’ll disagreed. Perhaps they assume that seeking their husbands opinion is a kin to seeking his permission – and anything that smacks of submission is to be sneered at as an egregious relic from the barbaric past.  Just know this, wives: if your husbands never hear you seeking their opinion, the main conclusion they will draw is that their opinion doesn’t matter to you. And in that climate, your husband will never feel cherished.

Men and women, if you have an important business, client, you make it your business to know what they are doing, and who might be quoting them – you maintain your curiosity or risk losing that relationship. Innocence, marriage is similar. Apathy in marriage is one of the worst wounds, a spouse can inflict .

Dietrich, Bon Hoffer cause listening one of the greatest services we can offer each other: 

The first service one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love, for the brethren is listening and learning to listen to them…. So it is his work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Listening can be of a greater service, then speaking.

This means if you want to cherish your spouse, you have to live by James 119 and be quick to listen and slow to speak. Cherishing requires an eager ear and a strategic tongue. It means maintaining our curiosity. 

THIS WAY, HON 

Now that we are empty-nesters, Lisa travels with me on most of my trips. I had to figure out all over again what it means to cherish Lisa verbally when we travel. That’s what marriage is – continually evolving as a couple as your lives change. Otherwise you’ll grow apart instead of together. 

In this new season of joint travel, Lisa had an uncanny ability to always turn right out of the elevator when she should’ve turned left. We got into a parking lot, and she invariably turned north when the car was south. Lisa has a tenuous relationship with time, the clock has its opinion, and Lisa has hers, so we usually found ourselves rushing a bit to leave; no doubt she was distracted. And when we returned from somewhere, Lisa was so focussed on recounting a conversation or talking to me that she just didn’t bother to even try to remember where our room or car was. She knew I knew the way, so she just kept talking. 

 The first couple of times, Lisa turned the wrong way, I thought it was a simple mistake. Finally, after several times – we had been there a couple days –, I said seriously again?

That didn’t work so well, you can imagine, so the next time, I simply turned in the right direction and waited for Lisa to notice.

That didn’t work so well either. 

So what am I supposed to do? – I asked her– If I say nothing, you get upset. But if I mentioned it to the wrong way, you say it makes you feel stupid. I’m at a loss here –

It’s so easy Lisa said. Just a simple this way hon in exactly that tone.

So the next time, that’s what I did.

This way hon. 

Lisa turned and smiled a gorgeous smile. Perfect she said.

Now we laugh whenever that happens. It drives us closer together rather than slowly. Pulling us apart. It’s become part of our marital story.

Words really matter to spouses, and tone is a big part of it. You’re supposed won’t feel cherished if you don’t learn to control your tone.

But notice, sometimes you have to ask your spouse how to cherish them in moments when they don’t feel cherished. I had been married to Lisa for 30 years but I still had to ask her gosh OK you tell me how do I redirect you without hurting you? - a wife may have to ask her husband, – how can I disagree with you or offer a contrary opinion without making you feel like I don’t respect you?

Verbal slates are often unintentional, but can drain the life out of your marriage. Perhaps you could ask your spouse, particularly if you’re reading this with him or her right now, where is there a similar situation in your relationship where you need to learn to say, this way, hon?

For instance, it took me a couple of decades to learn how to wake up Lisa. Early on, I was confused as a husband. When I woke her up at the appointed time, she seemed angry at me for disturbing her sleep. When I let her sleep in, she was angry that I didn’t wake her up. I felt like I couldn’t win.

But when I learned how to gently and slowly wake her up, how essentially to cherish her awake, that all changed. I had set it up, so that she was the problem: whether I woke her up, or let her sleep in, I was in trouble. But the issue was actually the way I was doing it. Now, if I’m going to be home in the morning, Lisa never wants to set her clock because, she says you’re so much more pleasant than an alarm clock.

BE SPECIFIC AND DELIBERATE

Deliberately, choosing the way we speak is essential to a lifetime of cherishing our mates. The early church, father, John Chrysostom, urged husbands, speaking about their wives, never call her by her name alone, but with terms of endearment, also, with honor, with much love. If you honour her, she won’t require honour from others, she won’t desired that preys that others give if she enjoys the praise that comes from you. Prefer her before all others, in every way, both for her beauty, and for her sensitivity, and praise her.

Cherishing calls us to be specific. As a young husband, I failed to understand how much adoration of Lisa was missed by her, and how much of my disappointment was caught. I think to myself, wow, Lisa looks fantastic, but I didn’t see it, and Lisa would think, he isn’t saying anything, it must be a bad hair day.

Silence is often unintentionally, malicious, so try to verbalize every positive thing you can think of. And that means being specific. It means so much more to Lisa when I say, your eyes are all lit up and gorgeous tonight, then a general, you look great.

Why are you so enamoured with your spouse? What do you admire about your spouse? What makes you smile when you think about your spouse?

Tell her.

Tell him.

When we criticize ourselves or others, criticize us, we and they tend to be extremely specific: it drives me crazy when you crack your knuckles. 

You’re a slob semicolon look at this mess.

You’re lazy and you never get off the couch.

Using specific words of authentic praise, counteracts this. As Barbara and Dennis Rainey, put it, your praise can be excessive. Only if your words are in sincere. Genuine, heartfelt praise cannot be over done.

If you don’t speak, encouraging words to your spouse, who will? I love the way the Raineys put this obligation on the plate of every married partner: you have the main responsibility for sewing words of belief and admiration in your spouse.

No farmer expects a neighbor, distant relative, or church member to sold the seed in his field; it’s his farm, and therefore his responsibility. As soon as you get married, it’s no longer your in-laws job to be your spouse is mean encourager, something is wrong if that’s the case, it is not your children’s job; it is not your church groups job, or your spouses employers job. It is not even your spouse’s best friend’s job. It is your job to be your spouse is chief advocate, encourager, and cherisher.

Are you doing your job?

One weekend, 30 years into our marriage, I had one of those brutal travel days. I spoke at a graduation ceremony for the Sacramento branch of Western seminary on a Saturday morning and plan to immediately fly back to Houston to preach at the 11 o’clock service on Sunday morning for Second Baptist.  

That’s an appointment with roughly 5000 people.

As soon as the ceremony was over, I got a text from United airlines; my flight was delayed, which meant I miss my connection into Houston. I called the airline in near desperation: you’ve got to get me back to Houston before tomorrow morning.

The customer service rep said, we can reroute you through San Francisco. You can catch an 11:15 PM flight into Houston, arriving at 5:15 in the morning.

I’ll take it.

I spent about nine hours total at two different airports, tried to grab a few moments of sleep once I got on the 11:15 PM flight, and after landing and picking up my bags, made it back to my house for four hours before the church service began. I lay down for an unproductive, two hours of wishful slumber, and then showered and shaved, and made it to the church on time.

It was a surreal feeling to stand on the stage in front of 5000 people in Houston when I’ve been sitting in a San Francisco airport 10 hours earlier in the dead of night.

Later that day, my wife posted on Facebook:

In all of my husband today… He arrived home at 7 AM after nine hours of flight delays, got out of bed cheerfully at 9 AM – thankful for his two hours of sleep Dash, and preached a great sermon at 11 AM. And he even looks good, without the benefit of make up or coffee. :)

Frankly, she had me at awe. 

When a wife says something like that publicly, I don’t even need to hear what follows. I felt cherished. I felt 10 feet tall. I expected to look in the mirror and see a full head of hair.

That’s the power of affirming words. 

Keep in mind that whenever you affirm something, that trait or quality is usually reinforced: I appreciate your integrity; I love your joy; your kindness is so amazing.

It tends to increase the good. When his spouse thinks, I guess I am kind, he is likely to want to keep acting in a kind manner, because that’s how he sees himself. That becomes part of his identity. If you want to see change in your spouse, find a kernel of something good and reinforce it specifically and verbally. Remember the husband whose wife gave him the journal of all his most excellent acts wrote the year? Do you remember how we responded? Reading that journal makes me aspire to be the man she thinks I am.

In one sense, affirming, your spouse is spiritual, as well as a miracle duty. Author, Sam Crabtree opens his book, practising affirmation, with a strong statement: if God is sovereign, and every good gift is from above, then not praising the good in others is kind of a sacrilegious and soul sickness.

One of the ways we worship, God is the pause, long enough to examine his work, not just in painting, a sunset, but in giving a formally anger ridden man, a little more patience and kindness, or acknowledging that at once impatient woman, now proclaimed the perseverance of Job. Acknowledge the growth. Proclaim it. Praise it.

BE SOFT

At this point, it should be understood that abusive speech has no place, none, in a marriage based on cherishing each other. To explode verbally against your spouse, to berate your spouse, to ridicule your spouse, to wound your spouse with words, all of this is the opposite of what marriage is supposed to be. Colossians 319 gives a fuller picture of what cherishing means when it provides a concise and succinct recipe to MIN, as to how to cherish their wives. Paul tells husband’s too, love your wives, and never treat them harshly.

Can you find a clear command in all of scripture?

Always choose to love. 

Never treat them harshly.

To treat your wife harshly means engaging in any action that makes life feel bitter to her. Harsh is the exact opposite of cherish. This passage is essentially telling men, since you are called to cherish your wives, never do the opposite of cherish, which is being harsh.

If you are harsh with your wife, certainly physically, but also verbally, emotionally, or even intellectually, in the way you think about her, you haven’t even stepped onto the secret path of cherishing. You have to decide that, just as a true patriot would never take up arms against his own country, he would sooner die first, so you won’t attack your spouse in anyway. It must be unthinkable, in the realm of the impossible.

Your fist will never puncture, though they might form to protect her. Your tongue will speak hard truth at times, but only to heal, encourage, and release the light – never to demean, to ridicule, to harm.

Your arms and your affection are the steadiest, warmest, most comfortable part of a human, earthbound existence. Surrounded by you, she knows you will take the first blow.

MIN, it’s a really bad sign – telling you that something has gone seriously wrong Dash if your wife ever to find her marital experience as bitter. That’s the opposite of cherish.

Women can also be verbally violent, of course. Now that our friends are parents of kids who are getting married, we see marriage from a different angle, how are children are treated by their spouses. One of our friends has several sons, and it hurts her when she sees one of her daughters in-laws speak harshly to her son.

The reality is, my son just doesn’t see the trash. She wants him to pick up. He’s not intentionally trying to be messy; he’s just blowing to it. But when he forgets to pick it up, and then maybe leave the garage door open at night, his wife tells him, you can’t do anything right. I can’t trust you with anything.

That kind of language just kills him. And I’m so afraid it’s just going to make him give up.

I asked our friend, so what should your son’s wife do differently? How can she speak more softly?

There’s tremendous power. In the word babe. It softens everything that follows. Hey babe, you left the garage door open again. Please be a little more careful.

That one word sets an entirely different tone: you’re not my enemy; you’re still my babe. But it has to be more than just addressing the negative and a positive way. Speak life into your husband; speak words of encouragement; respect him with your words; noticed a little things and thank him.

Her husband broke into the conversation: noticing is huge.

The wife smiled and added, never forget that you’re 20 or 30 or even 40 something husband is still a little boy inside who used to say to his mom, watch me! Watch me!. They never completely get over that.

Speaking softly, he’s avoiding any speech that would make life better for your spouse. It’s buffering hard truth with endearments like, babe.

It’s laying the foundation of positive talk to support the occasional corrective talk.

You cannot build an intimate marriage with harsh words and verbal assaults. That’s like trying to plant seeds on concrete. When you think cherished, think soft.

Think, how can I be a healing presence in my spouses life?

AFFIRM THE GOSPEL

One of the best ways to cherish your spouse with words is by affirming the gospel – the essential message of Christianity – and regularly planting. It’s truth in your lovers, heart and mind.

Sometimes we have to remind our spouses of the gospel, total and complete acceptance before God, because of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, because some of them brush the teeth of their own worst enemy every day. They are so hard on themselves that they’ve essentially become an enemy to their own happiness. With Ernest hearts, the standard, they’ve set for themselves, and the refusal to embrace. Grace are such that no one criticizes them more than they do.

We need to be a dissenting, steady, and persistent voice, counterbalancing all the negative, guilt ridden stuff with God’s forgiveness, pardon, affirmation, acceptance, and lavishly undeserved love.

If you grew up, thinking of God as a harsh taskmaster; if you’re not familiar with what speaking the gospel to your spouse means, consider the following biblical examples.

Consider, for instance, how God viewed Rahab. She was a prostitute and a liar, and her own countrymen could’ve called her a traitor. Why, for instance, do you think she was so quickly able to hide Israel spies from her own people? A prostitute back, then had to be very adept at hiding men when their wives or male relatives came looking for them. It’s not a coincidence that she immediately knew where to men could quickly and effectively hide. She had experience in the worst sort of way, yet god use that experience in the best kind of way – accomplishing his plan for the Israelites.

And so God commands Rahab as a woman of faith, who gave a hospitable welcome to Israel spies. Hebrews 1131. She is commended for hiding to men, not condemn for sleeping with hundreds.

Also, consider Noah. He wants drank so much he passed out and then cursed one of his sons out of his own embarrassment. Yet God declared him to be an air of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. Hebrews 11 seven.

And what about Sarah? Sarah left, she laughed, at the angel of God, who told her she would conceive a child in her old age. Did god remember her laugh? On the contrary, and by faith, even Sarah, who was passed, childbearing age, was an able to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made a promise. Hebrews 1111. Sarah considered him faithful? Funny, I don’t remember reading that. It went down like that.

But God does.

We could also remember, Job, who, let’s be honest, just read his own words, murmured against God, cursed the day he was born, certainly complained, and seemed very impatient in the face of his maladies , yet how old is God’s word describe him? You have heard of Job’s perseverance. James 511.

Perseverance of Job. That’s how God remembers him.

If you’re in Christ, and if your spouses in Christ, God doesn’t see your worst, or even pettiest sins. He sees Christ in you. Consequently, he sees the faith of exercise. He sees the good works you’ve done. He sees the glory he put in you by his Holy Spirit.

I want you, and you’re supposed to walk in the joy of forgiveness and grace, your rightful excitement, that, as a child of God, forgiven by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, everything bad you’ve done is forgotten – gone! – And everything good is celebrated and remembered. 

Satan doesn’t just temp your spouse; he tries to discourage your spouse, and the gospel is the best remedy to build up your spouse in the face of his, or her daily battle with sin. Speak words of God‘s acceptance and affirmation to each other. On a date night, read Romans three verses, 21 to 26 together, talking about how this truth impacts your marriage and parenting:

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood, to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forebearance he had left since committed beforehand unpunished, he did it to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, so as to be Just, and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

On another note, read all of Romans five, too long to copy here, a great thing to do on a date. And always be ready to speak Romans eight versus one to four whenever you hear your spouse launch into self despising talk.

“ therefore, there is now no condemnation, for those who are in Christ, Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was, we can buy the flash, God, did by sending his own son, in the likeness of simple flash to be a sin offering. And so he can dancing in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of a law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.”

On vacation, take out your Bible and discuss Ephesians 1:3-8, 13-14:

Praise be, to God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms, with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to Sunship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure, and Will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which is freely given us in the one he loves. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us…

And you also were included in Christ, when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your own salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is the deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are gods possession, to the praise of his glory.

These truths never get old. We need to be reminded of them every day. The best gift we can give her spouses, and children is the assurance of the gospel.

Please don’t pass over that last sentence: more precious than a pure gold necklace, more lovely, then diamond rings her earrings, more beautiful than two dozen roses, and more refreshing to amend an ice, cold tea or beer, whatever his preference, on a hot summer day, is the per claim the truth, Gloria, and pardon of God’s gospel message to your spouse. 

Here’s a side benefit: a joyful person walking in Grayson. Hope can cherish much more than the one who is tangled up in the guilt that Christ died to remove. Our guilt serves no one. In Christ, our self condemnation, offends, God; it doesn’t please him. To walk in condemnation is the call got a liar and Christ work insufficient. One of the worst things you can commit as a Christian is the define yourself by your sin. In the same way, one of the worst things you can commit against your spouse, is there always to find them by their sin. Biblical marriage is about defining, each other as Christ to find us, Sayed, sons, and daughters, who are growing more magnificent every day, as they are eventually made perfect by Christ himself at the end.

When our guilt has been duly dealt with, definitively and powerfully, and when are acceptance has been declared by an authority, that far exceeds our own, then, finally, we can embrace something far is superior to “you’re special.”

We can embrace Dash you’re forgiven, adopted, and secure. You’re cherished by the God of the universe Dash the king of kings and lord of lords.

Remind your spouse of this precious truth. In the dark days and the cold nights, don’t let them forget the spiritual riches they enjoy. These are the most precious words you could ever utter. 

CHERISHING, CHERISH

Do you have a cherishing marriage, we need to be intentional about the way we speak to each other, not just a continent, but the tone as well. 

To cherish our spouses with words, requires maintaining our curiosity. We should ask them for more information, not ignore what they’re saying or try to cut them off.

When we correct her spouses, we need to find a way to steal, cherish them. In the midst of the correction. We may have to ask them how to best do this.

Cherishing words are specific, deliberate, and soft.

One of the best ways to verbally, cherish, our spouses is the speak the gospel to them, regularly, reminding them of God’s acceptance, an affirmation.

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