By Scott & Dawn Smith
Welcome to the Forever Marriage Podcast! Forever Marriage at Lakewood exists to strengthen families by helping couples discover God’s design for marriage. One of our hopes for the FM Podcast is to
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In Season 5 Episode 8 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we move on to the 'N' in our acrostic - Rekindle R.O.M.A.N.C.E. By way of recap, here's what we've covered so far:
R - Remember What's Good About Your Mate
O - Observe Your Partner
M - Mind the Little Things
A - Advocate for a Healthy Marital Sexuality
N - Notice Your Interactions
C - Commit to a Covenant Relationship - Stay tuned...
E - Embrace the Seasons of Marriage - Stay tuned...
To Rekindle ROMANCE in marriage, you must Notice Your Interactions. If you and your spouse went out to your front yard, turned around and looked at your house, how would you describe what it's like to live in your house with one another? Do you interact with your spouse as you would with someone at work? As a roommate? Or as a business partner?
For discussion with your spouse after you listen:
1. What is it like to live in the house with me?
2. Do you treat your spouse more like an employee, a business partner or a roommate than a lover, companion and ally? If so, what needs to change?
3. Take a look at the list of the One Another's of Scripture together. How might these relational imperatives inform our interactions as husband and wife?
In Season 5 Episode 7 of the FM Podcast, we continue the conversation of how to advocate for healthy marital sexuality. Last episode we addressed the first two biblical purposes of marital sex: Procreation and Partnership. In this episode we touch on the biblical purposes of:
Pleasure - God purposely created sex for pleasure and not just progeny through procreation.
Praise - Sexual intimacy in marriage, when rightly understood, becomes an act of worship - not of one another - but of the gracious goodness of God.
Picture - Sexual intimacy, between one man and one women in marriage, is designed to be a picture of the union of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church.
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One of the ways to rekindle romance in marriage is to advocate for healthy marital sexuality. What is your present view of sex in your marriage? As a result of the way our culture and society portrays sex, we may bring into marriage a lot of false and distorted views of sexuality. In this episode we will lay down a rudimentary biblical purpose for sexuality and how it ties into the romantic side of rekindling romance.
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In Season 5 Episode 5 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we talk about how, if you want to rekindle romance, you must mind the little things.
Proverbs 3:3 says, "Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." Before we know it, kindness and truth get replaced with complacency and exaggeration. So, what simple daily or weekly acts of kindness can you take to show honor to your spouse?
Could you make their coffee in the morning?
Take the kids to school?
Unload the dishwasher?
Take out the trash?
These seemingly "little" and mundane things can add up to help rekindle romance in marriage.
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In Season 5 Episode 4 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we talk about how, if you want to rekindle romance, you must observe your parter.
1 Peter 3:7, Peter says, “You husbands, likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way.” To understand someone you have to know them. To know them, you must spend time with them. Would your spouse say the two of you spend adequate time together? Why is time together an important part of not only observing one another but also understanding one another?
It's important to become a student of your spouse. Study them to learn…
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In Season 5 Episode 3 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we continue our talk about how, if we want to rekindle romance, the first thing we have to do is to "remember what’s good about our mate."
After the newness of marriage has worn off, it's easy to let our differences become barriers to our intimacy in marriage. These differences can be frustrating sources of contention and bitterness. But it's important that we, instead, let our differences serve as bridges. How do we do this?
We must accept one another (Rom. 15:7). Our acceptance of one another must be in the same way that Christ accepted us. How did he accept us? Romans 5:8 says, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
In this episode Scott and Dawn also mention a helpful tool to utilize when faced with a frustrating difference you see in your spouse - a series of questions to ask yourself regarding your spouse's actions.
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In Season 5 Episode 2 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we talk about how if we want to rekindle romance, the first thing we have to do is to "remember what’s good about our mate."
We can’t experience romance with a hard heart and so we must consider how to have a soft heart toward one another. We must work on how we see each other, how we think about each other, and how we speak to each other.
Our way of seeing each other matters. Dawn says, "I have to have a filter for how I see my husband… and that comes from a biblical worldview that I have adopted. We relate to each other through the lens of these three unchanging truths - as an image bearer of a holy God, as a child of God, and as an heir with Jesus. These are identity statements that do no change. We then are privileged to fulfill the roles of husband or wife."
How we view each other and how we understand our own identity empowers us to fulfill those roles as husband or wife in a way that honors the Lord and keeps our marriage growing and thriving.
Thoughts to ponder:
If we want to rekindle romance, the first thing we have to do is remember what’s good about our mate.
Scripture References:
Welcome to Season 5 of the Forever Marriage Podcast!
If you're new with us, welcome to the show! My name is Emily Lavender and I'm joined by Scott & Dawn Smith. We are on staff at Lakewood Baptist Church in Gainesville, GA, and we are excited that you have tuned in! This is a marriage podcast where we hope you'll be encouraged to grow deeper in your understanding of God's design for marriage. You'll be equipped with practical action steps for your marriage, but you're also bound to have some good laughs along with us as we share from our own experiences.
If you've been tracking with us in our previous seasons, we are so glad you're still with us! Of course, you know Scott loves to teach through an acrostic... SO, in this episode, we introduce the one we'll be working through this season - how to Rekindle R.O.M.A.N.C.E. in marriage.
We'll consider questions like - What is romance? How do we "rekindle" the romance in our marriage if it's gone away? What does the Bible say about romance?
In this episode you’ll hear…
Stay tuned for Episode 2, where we talk about the first way to rekindle romance, which is to remember what's good about your mate.
In Season 4 Episode 17 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we conclude this series with the final One Another of Scripture - Forgive One Another. In Ephesians 4:32, Paul says, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you." The measuring stick for how we are to forgive is how God forgave us. SO in this episode we talk about what forgiveness IS NOT and what forgiveness IS.
Consider as you listen to today's episode: Is there are particular person in your life that your heart is calloused or hard hearted toward?
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In Season 4 Episode 16 of the Forever Marriage Podcast, we continue to talk about Scripture's imperative to love one another, and specifically about love's empowerment and love's teacher.
1 Thessalonians 3:12 says, "and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men, just as we also do for you."
Can you recall a time when you knew with certainty that God was empowering your ability to love someone that was unlovely? Love is based on His love for us and not the other person's loveliness. Our ability or inability to love others as God loves them is a testament to our growth and maturity in Christ. It is also a testimony to an unbelieving world of the reality and power of the gospel.
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