Spending Time with God and my Husband:

The last few weeks I have talked about fighting temptations and putting on the full armor of God.  It is important to be focused on putting on the full armor of God for ourselves and to pray for other believers to have the full armor of God and to be fighting against temptations and trials.  One other important piece is spending time in the word, both for yourself personally and with other believers.   This is why I am finding it is so important to spend time in the word with my spiritual partner and husband, Cole.  

Cole and I got into a really good habit as we were dating about going to church regularly together.  In fact, I was incredibly excited when he asked the first time to go to church with me.  We have definitely kept this up in our marriage.  Then we started praying together over our meals which has also been a really good habit to get into.  Now, we are taking the next step with this daily devotional.  I have really enjoyed this time with God and Cole.  Currently, we are reading the devotional book about the different characteristics and names of Jesus.  One of those being this first section on God being the bread of life. I hope it can go even farther and maybe someday we will spend the mornings together, reading about the Lord to start our day.  It can be a lot to get schedules to align in the morning, but one day, I can only imagine how good of a start to the day one on one time with God and Cole could be. 

I think this is a reminder for many of the people who are in the state of marriage to spend this time with your partner.  It is really important to spend this time worshipping God together.  Marriage can be hard, there is no other way to put it.  You have to learn to trust and love another person with your whole heart.  You have to learn to sacrifice what you always want to do for the betterment of the other person.  

In some versions of the Bible, fellowship the word is mentioned at least 17 times.  However, even though that isn’t the highest amount of time as other words, there are still instances when we see fellowship shown, even when it isn’t stated.  Jesus was with his disciples a significant amount.  One of the verses mentioning fellowship is pretty popular and this is Proverbs 27:17 which says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”  This is a good verse about how helpful believers can be to other believers.  We can use each other for comfort and encouragement, but we can also be there for one another to grow deeper and deeper into our faith and love of Jesus Christ. 

There are also many instances of couples working together in their love and care of Jesus.  For a few examples, there is Mary and Joseph (Jesus’s parents), Elizabeth and Zechariah (the parents of John the Baptist), Aquila and Priscilla (who partnered in ministry), and Boaz and Ruth.  Even the Bible’s first couple, Adam and Eve, while they did show moments later in their life of being dedicated to God, originally were examples of what can happen when you do not put God at the center of your marriage.  There are a lot of opportunities for the evil one to come in and attack, tempting you and your spouse, so spouses need to be on high alert with one another.  

The Lord talks often about the importance of marriage as well. Honoring God in marriage is found throughout the Old and New Testament.  In Ephesians 5, there is a big description of how men and women should treat and love each other, which I believe is only created through their love of Christ and what He has done for them.  I will include a few of the lines, which span from the test of Ephesians 5:22-33.  

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.”

The challenge of this week is to spend time with God and with someone else. Yes, if you are married and are both believers, this can be through spending time with your spouse. Spending time with the Lord one on one is incredibly important, and I will always believe that.  However, I do think spending time with another believing, intimate time, with God and fellowship is also highly important.  God finds it important and brings it up on a regular basis, so He must find this an important piece for our overall spiritual health.