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Fixer Upper Marriage

Fixer Upper Marriage

Written by: Jason R Parham
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 Because Marriage Without Maintenance Will Break Christianity Ministry & Evangelism Parenting Relationships Self-Help Spirituality Success
Episodes
  • The Love Story of Adam and Eve

    The Love Story of Adam and Eve
    Mar 19 2024
    The Love Story of Adam and Eve Made for Each Other Bible Love Stories Volume One

    This is the first episode in a series (Bible Love Stories).

    Link to my new book, Marriage and the Fruit of the Spirit.

    God put Adam and Eve together, literally making them for each other and inventing the institution of marriage. In making marriage, God laid out the principles for a lifetime together.

    The Love Story of Adama and Eve">Link to a special workbook with more about Adam and Eve’s story and creative activities for you!

    Link to the Bible Love Stories Series page

    Genesis 1:26-29; 2:15-25

    • Creation’s 6th Day- Genesis 1:26-29
    • The Edenic Covenant (God’s 1st Covenant with Man)- Genesis 2:15-25
    • The Creation of Eve- Genesis 2:21-22
    • The 1st Marriage (God’s Model)- Genesis 2:23-25

    Some things you can do together:

    • Date night
    • Household chores
    • Shopping
    • Sitting down to talk
    • Video or phone calls while at work
    • Take a class together
    • Read a book together, such as Marriage and the Fruit of the Spirit!

    Some ideas about pursuing each other:

    • Look nice for your spouse.
    • Do thoughtful things for each other.
    • Be affectionate. (Touching, kissing, and petting)
    • Listen to what your spouse has to say with interest.
    • Ask your spouse questions about them.
    • Compliment each other.

    How can you be all in for your marriage?

    • Do everything you can for love.
    • Pray fervently for and with each other.
    • No matter what, keep your relationship first.
    • Never give up on each other.
    • Do not do anything half-heartedly.

    The below chart is based on the book His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley Jr.:

    His NeedsHer NeedsSexual fulfillmentAffectionRecreational companionshipIntimate conversationPhysical attractivenessHonesty and opennessDomestic supportFinancial supportAdmirationFamily commitment

    The purpose of marriage:

    1. To share the mission
    2. To prepare for eternity
    3. To keep life in perspective

    Daily questions:

    • Do I have any unconfessed sins of actions or neglect?
    • Who in my life can I help lead to Christ?
    • What can I do today that will matter in eternity?
    • How can I help my spouse serve God today?

    List of priorities for life, family, and marriage:

    1. God
    2. Spouse
    3. Children

    Podcast music by Dan Lebowitz

    The post The Love Story of Adam and Eve appeared first on Fixer Upper Marriage.
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    35 mins
  • Spelling Love without the I

    Spelling Love without the I
    Sep 11 2021
    Table Of Contents Why Get Married?The ProblemI Love YouLove Is LeavingLove Is OfferingLove Is VolunteeringLove Is Expecting Why Get Married? Love I want someone to love me. I want to feel loved. I want to experience being loved. I think there is a deep-seated desire to love someone, to know that out of all the people in this world, there is one that I love and that loves me back. My life has meaning because I am in love. Love is the ultimate cure for loneliness. Even when you are not together, you are still connected by this mutual feeling of love. When I was dating my wife, we had a long-distance relationship of about 200 miles. But when we fell in love, it didn’t matter how far we were away from each other because we were in each other’s hearts. You get married because you are in love. Happiness Being in a romantic relationship makes you feel happy. A 2012 study found that during the initial stages of love your body produces elevated levels of the hormone Oxytocin. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling. And being in love does make you feel happy. Who doesn’t want to feel happy? Who doesn’t want to be in love? I am happily married but still get ads when I am on the internet about finding someone to love. Single people are searching for the happiness of love. Even married people are looking to fall in love again or looking for it in someone or something outside of their marriage. I think most people see marriage as a vehicle to get you to the happiness that you want. It starts with just being in love, then it becomes having a family, and finally having someone to share your life with, to grow old together. Needs This is where it gets interesting because everyone has needs that marriage can facilitate. And it’s those needs that drive us into the marketplace of love. At its base marriage is an exchange of goods. One person needs physical intimacy, while another needs providing for. So they enter into a partnership of love and marriage. In exchange for this, I am giving you this. Those needs vary from person to person, but regardless of what those needs are, they are a part of the exchange that takes place in the marketplace of love. When you are single, you are looking for the best person to meet those needs. So you meet and develop this understanding that you are both capable and willing to meet those needs in that exchange. I once read this book entitled “His Needs Her Needs” by Willard Harley. I would recommend it to anyone because it was very insightful and helpful. It outlines the needs of men and women and how individuals sort out those needs and how marriage can by design meet them. Love allows you to partner with someone else to have those needs met. The Problem Things Change Maybe you mutually agree to end the whole thing and you file for divorce. “Let’s go our separate ways because we no longer can keep the exchange going and maybe we can find a better exchange somewhere else.” Maybe you both just live with the “lemon” of a deal you got stuck with. Or maybe marriage is about something entirely different. The Real Problem But what happens when the reasons you got married are no longer valid? What happens when you don’t feel in love anymore, you’re not happy, or your needs are not being met? So we made this agreement that I would give you these things and in exchange, you would give me those things. But now you are not keeping up your end of the deal. The real problem is in the way you look at marriage, to begin with. When people say, “I love you” what they mean is, “I love me”. I love what you do for me. I love the way you make me feel. I love how you take care of me. Love is a big circle and I am in the middle of it. But what if love were more than that? What if love is about the other person? “I love YOU.” It’s a turning point in love. God teaches us about a different view of love. A different way to love. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;Ephesians 5:24-25 I Love You The subject (the person doing the action) is I. The verb(the action) is love. The object is (you). In “I love you” you are doing the loving and the other receives that love. So the focus is on the other. The actions of love (the verb) are what the Bible emphasizes. So to the wife God says, give yourself to your husband. And to the husband He says, die to yourself for your wife. So this is not the same as the market exchange idea that most of us have. You don’t give this for that, instead, you give everything away in love to the other person. Love Is Leaving People Way back at the beginning of human relationships in Genesis 2:24 God makes this earth-shattering statement. Leave the people you know for the love of your life. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother; and shall cleave unto his ...
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    39 mins
  • How Conflict Can Change You and Your Marriage

    How Conflict Can Change You and Your Marriage
    Jan 1 2021
    FixerUpperMarriage.org/Conflict Jason@FixerUpperMarriage.org Like us on Facebook Summary Marriage conflict is a terrible thing. Or is it? Maybe the conflict is really about something entirely different than what you think it is! Find out what marriage conflict is all about and how it can change your marriage for the better. How Does Conflict Change You? Table Of Contents Through Your DifferencesThrough DisagreementsThrough Your ReconcilingThrough Disappointments Love sets off a series of events that alter the course of your life. Hopefully, it’s not a series of unfortunate events! Loving is about interpersonal exchanges with someone who knows you more intimately than anyone else in this world. And it’s those exchanges that can make or break your love. “I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.” — Nicholas Sparks, Dear John I hate conflict. I just don’t want to deal with it at all. But as long as you can be calm, confronting that conflict head-on could be the best thing you can do in your marriage. One thing I love about the stories of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is the way he just unabashedly faced conflict with people. Whether it was with one of His disciples, the pharisees, lawyers, or government officials, He didn’t flinch. I think you can learn from that, how it’s better to deal with conflict than to not. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it, at least things are made clear and put on the path to become better. Some married people avoid conflict at all costs. And sometimes I think marriage resources lead us to think that any conflict is bad. That is just not true. Resolving that conflict quickly is the best way to keep your love and relationship on track. People go for years without talking about things that bother them in their marriage, then when they finally reach the breaking point, everything starts spewing out and they ruin their love. I am saying that most of the time it’s better to talk about things than to let them go on. Although there are some things you can let go of. Don’t let those things feaster and build up to something you can correct together. But learning to resolve that conflict can produce a change in you and your relationship. So conflict is an important part of your love. Learning how to love is loving through the conflict. The Bible defines love in I Corinthians. The word Charity is a translation of the Greek word Agape which means love. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7 Through Your Differences Gender Differences God made two genders with different physical and emotional needs. The big thing in American culture is to say that there are infinite genders and that gender is fluid. Meaning, however you feel or think is your real gender, not necessarily biology. There are even some areas in the country where kids in public schools are being taught this and even given counseling about it without their parent’s consent. Some are even being fastracked to cross-sex hormones to attempt to change their biological sex. The sad thing is, these treatments have lifelong reproductive consequences. But happiness doesn’t come through gender identity contrary to what is being pushed on people today. Is Gender Programed by Culture? When I was in school there was this idea that you are born a biological male or female and gender roles are programmed by culture and experience. But God made male and female distinct in anatomical and emotional ways that are meant to match with each other. So it’s not just cultural influence that makes the genders different. And in reality, the whole transgender movement inadvertently reinforces those gender differences. If gender differences don’t really exist, then why would you need to take hormones or have an operation to change genders? Gender differences will cause some conflict in marriage. Your spouse is different from you. Those differences are probably what made you fall in love to start with. Once you have been married for a while you discover that those differences can cause you to have conflicts. You have to realize and accept those differences to reconcile the conflict. Having said that, we also assign roles and expectations to gender that are not Biblical. For example, the idea that women are supposed to wash the dishes and fold the laundry while men are supposed to mow the lawn outside. So, it doesn’...
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    41 mins
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