Key to successful relationships & marriage Part1

This post is based on Dr Myles Munroe's sermon. This is what I've learned, and I'm learning to apply it in my daily life. 


1 out of 2 marriage in America will end up in divorce. According to world's statistic, highest divorce rate is Belgium which is 59.8 divorces per 100 marriage. Followed by Sweden ( 2nd ) and 3rd Czech Republic. An the list goes on. ( http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_div_per_100_mar-people-divorces-per-100-marriages ) Many wondered why & how people get divorce. The answer is because people are lack of knowledge. We've been taught to have a successful relationship since Genesis. But we keep ignoring it. So let's go back and rediscover how things originally work.

Keys to successful relationships & marriage. I'm not talking about marriage only, I'm talking about all the relationships. Because the only different between marriage relationship and all the other relationship is that one of them is binding by a contract. So in relationship have the same principles, whether you marry or not? The only thing that marriage may have in it that's unique is.....the fact is that you can express your feelings and your love to someone in the sexual act of intercourse. But that is a small part of marriage. Relationships are the same when it comes to principles. Let me give you an example to make sure you get this point :

If you drive a car but is not your car, you have relationship with that car. ( as long you are driving it, but it's not your car, doesn't belong to you. ) So your attitude towards that car maybe a little bit different than if it was your car. In another words, if you're paying for a car, you own it and you're paying it every month. I think the attitude towards that car is different. You have covenant with that car, that's your money. So you treat it differently, you clean it, you care the way you drive, you don't wanna to get mess up. But if it's not your car, it's not really as important to you as if it was your car. Isn't that true? Yeah that's human nature. That's even true about relationships, that's even true between marriage relationships and other relationships. You're still relate to other people, the difference is one of them is you gotto care about because, you got a contract with it. There's a difference. I wanna talk a bout rediscovering the original principles for human relationships. That's why I use the term Kingdom. And in our Kingdom series, we are learning God's original plans for everything. We'll be focusing on the keys to male and female relationships ( next coming post ). We're gonna be dealing with foundation and principles for male and female relationships. By the way if you're not married, this is a good place for you to be, to prepare yourself, but also if you desire to be married. It's important to show God that you are desired to be married. And you do that by, preparation. You use your Faith. So if you desire to be married, you act in that direction and visit every post. God watches it because, He sees that you desires something and you have so much faith for it, you begin to prepare for it. If somebody is presently kinda interested in you, then I would suggest that you make sure they sit in this series also. Because nothing is worse than one person knowing something and the other person not knowing the same thing. Because it doesn't work if only one person knows. Is that clear? 

Foundation of life

Foundation, principles for male and female relationships, I wanna begin with a scripture, Proverbs chapter 24: 3-4.  This scripture has become a foundation of understanding relationships. The scripture is about building a strong marriage, a strong home and a strong family. It is the wisdom of God spoken through Solomon regarding how to build a strong marriage, a strong home and a strong family. So here is what it says: 

3 By wisdom a house is built,
and through understanding it is established; 

4 through knowledge its rooms are filled 
with rare and beautiful treasures.

Strong Marriage

The bible here in the words of Solomon are teaching us how to build a relationship, a strong marriage, a successful home and a strong family. And it's not difficult to understand it. Except we keep ignoring it. Now here is God telling us, here is what cha need to build a strong home, a strong family and a strong marriage. And He doesn't mention LOVE, He doesn't mention SEX, He doesn't mention holding hands, cuddling and kissing. He doesn't mention Emotions. And yet God gives us the formula for a successful family, home and marriage. We keep ignoring it. This verse also tells us, what qualifies you to marry someone. The only way you should really feel comfortable and confident in marrying someone is if they are qualified with this verse. Boy that right away makes you wait. By wisdom ! a house is build! Through understanding you established it! That means it is firmly rooted and then through knowledge it's rooms are filled with precious treasure.

Sleeping back to back

 Let me explain the last part. You've be in the house where the people won't speak to each other? Come on... you know sometimes it happens. It's kinda quiet, you can feel ice in the house. Now that's not bad and tell you when you're married, it gets real bad there. Especially sleeping back to back. I mean it happens because people don't understand that the key to keeping ice out of your house is knowledge. Read it again. It says every room suppose to be like beautiful treasure in this place. Precious things, it is a nice place to come home to. You wanna be in every room together. Every room seem to be like a special place of treasure. It's a beautiful as atmosphere. I mean the word of God says every room suppose to be precious. Man... some relationships is tough to even go to the old house.  You don't even want to go to the house period. But yet God says no if you do it right, every room is a joy.


 I want you to remember this, LOVE does not build, nor guarantee a successful marriage. That's a frightening statement. This verse tells me that love, as you know it, is not enough.

Pastor Munroe's experience, he shared: 


I have sat in my office right here in the center, with the couples sitting in front of me with their divorce paper in their bag. And I hear them say to me: 

Woman:  I can't live with him

Add caption

Man: She's crazy, I can't live with her either

Dr Munroe asking the famous question : Do you still love him? 
Woman:  ( crying ) yes~
Dr Munroe:  But why you're getting divorce? 
She answered: I can't stand him.
Dr Munroe:  But you love him? 
Woman: ( crying ) yes~ ( Some confuse now as a pastor ok... ) 

Dr Munroe asked him:  Do you still love her? 

Man ( acting cool now ): yeah~ 

Dr. Munroe: Then why marrying her? 

Man: She's crazy man... 

Dr. Munroe: But you love her? Yeah... Then why you're getting divorce?  

Man: I can't live with her. 
Dr. Munroe: But you love her? 
Man: Yes. 

Do you know that 99% of the people who get divorce still love one another? 99% !! They still love one another! During all the divorce process, procedure they still love one another. But you see they confuse with love and wisdom, knowledge and understanding. I'm gonna give you alot of dumb examples in this session. But I want you to remember the examples, cause the examples are good, fitted to understand the principles.



 For example: Do you love your car? No? Not really? But I think you love your car because what it does for you right? ok... Let's say you love your car, does love keep your car running? Come on.... If you kiss your car, and tell it how lovely it works and how wonderful it is. Does it still run? No, your car doesn't run on love. What do you need? Gasoline. How do you know that's what the car needs? Because you know that's what the car needs. Because you what? Know. No matter how wonderful you say this car is and you love the color, it's beautiful, cute car, lovely car, nice car. But if you don't put Gasoline in that car, it quits on you. Even while you kiss it. Human beings are no different from that car. You see... according to the word of God, the key to relationships, is not love.

Ok, I'm gonna put this in order alright. In order to understand this list you got to understand from the bottom. So I want you write it in your notes. 


3rd: Wisdom
2nd: Understanding
1st: You need to get knowledge. ( That's the 1st principles to build successful relationship. )


O... Do you need wisdom? Deliver people. That's what I'm gonna teach you in this series. You're gonna get knowledge ( alot of it ), Then you're gonna get hopefully understanding, you're gonna understand the knowledge. My job is to break it down and so you can understand what it's saying. Because you could not apply what cha don't understand. And then we're going to learn how to be wise. Let me define the 3 words very quickly.


 The word knowledge put next to it, information. You need information, no relationship works without information. And these are usually the last thing you and I go after. We go after hugging and kissing and holding hands, but we don't go after to get information. And that's the 1st thing you should go after. The other problem is... if we do go after a little bit  information, we go for the wrong information. Like we get our information from Oprah Winfrey. Or we our information from magazine from the shelf. Or people who have been married 5 times. It's bad source of information. I can't think really of too many people who are successful Hollywood stars or any celebrity, who would ever be a model for you in marriage. And yet we read all those magazines, and we spend our money on those magazine and books from some place. And we tried to emulate these failures. Wrong source of knowledge. The other problem is... if we do go for knowledge, we go get knowledge from our friends who have been divorce before. Or friends don't even had relationships before. Some friends gets information from the TV like desperate house wife or gossip girls. And they share all these bad source of information. Talking to your sister, whose marriage ain't working.  And she gave you advice on your boyfriend. Bad source of information. Or even your mother who have been divorce 5 times, or your father who have been divorce 5 times. Getting advice from him is not a good source of information. Where do you get your information from? But you gonna get knowledge from somewhere 1st.

The 2nd word is what? Understanding. Write next to that word, write the word comprehension. It's a big word. To comprehend means, to be able to mentally, cognitively relate to the information, to the point where you can  assimilated  it. To understand means, you can take information and the concepts can be assimilated , you understand them. The bible says you must get that.


For example I could tell you, "you should love one another". Ok that's information.The problem is do you comprehend that? No cause you might know what I mean by love. You don't know what love is. 


As the matter of fact there are actually 4 words that are translated "love" in the bible. 3 of them are very common. Normally think of three of them. So when I say love you, or you say you love your wife... We not sure what you mean. So you got to be able to comprehend when the word of God says to love your wife, what does it mean? Can you comprehend it? If you don't comprehend it,  you can't apply it. That's why you need teaching, teaching is to help you to comprehend information.

Dr Myles Munroe says:  I know how to love my wife Ruth, I know how to do it and I took me thousands of hours of reading to learn how to love my wife. Buying  my wife a dress is not love. 


You'll be amazed what a woman calls love, you'll be amazed. And by the way, the bible never tells a woman to love a man, and yet man need love. But it's not love the way of woman thinks love is. If you buy a man flowers, he thinks you are stupid. You see the love to a man is different. That is for woman. So you gotta comprehend when you say, " how do I love my husband? " You gotta learn what love means to a man. The woman spells love not L.O.V.E. a woman spells love differently. She spells love A.F.F.E.C.T.I.O.N.  Now brothers, you gotta try to figure out what affection means to a woman. And that's a whole new ball game again. And yet she calls that love for what is affection? You can take 2 weeks just to study that one. Cause they're complicated man... If your wife is mad, and you buy her a diamond ring. She's still mad. It ain't the ring she wants, something else you missed. You know in the Bahamas they have this saying, " patch it up with chicken in the bag " couple of years ago. That bag don't work no more brother, you bring all the chicken you want home. She still ain't gonna deal with you, cause it's different. For example, one way that a man spells love. Is... R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Not flowers, not ties. So the concepts gotta be understood.

The last word is what? Wisdom, write next to the word: application. Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge effectively. Wisdom is what? The ability to apply knowledge effectively. Let me tell you something. Even though you may learn allot about how to live with a husband, you gotta also learn how to apply what you learned properly. Cause you can take information that's good and make it a bad experience. That's why wisdom is called the supreme. Wisdom is the supreme, wisdom is the ultimate, if you can apply it effectively, you get it. Wisdom is the important thing in life. That's why they never say:
Jesus Christ is made unto us, understanding. No.
It never says Christ is made unto us, knowledge. No. 
He is made unto us what? The Wisdom of GOD.  He is God applied, He not just information. He is the application of divinity. He shows you how to apply GOD. That's the ultimate of Jesus. And so it is in relationships.