Silk Keep Your Love On

365 Daily Devotions for Couples
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4245-6395-1
Verlag: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten

You can keep your love on for a lifetime. Quality love relationships do not happen by accident; they are built through persistent hard work. In this devotional for couples, author Danny Silk reinforces the three basic principles of the Keep Your Love On book-connecting, communicating, and setting boundaries. Each devotion includes quick daily readings, Scriptures, and thought-provoking questions that will help you build, strengthen, maintain, and heal your relational connections. Keeping your love on is both a mindset and a heart condition. No one can make you do it, and no one can keep you from doing it. Learn to live out the very best of who you are, and the all-elusive intimacy experience you crave will be well within your grasp.  

Danny Silk serves on the Senior Leadership Team of both Bethel Church in Redding, CA and Jesus Culture in Sacramento, CA. He is the President and Co-Founder of Loving on Purpose, a ministry to families and communities worldwide. Danny is also the author of six books covering subjects of building successful relationships, a culture of honor, and strong families. Danny and Sheri got married in 1984 and currently live in Shingle Springs, CA. They have three children and three grandchildren.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Silk, Danny

Leseproben

JANUARY 1

I CHOOSE YOU

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit.”

JOHN 15:16 NIV

When you said your vows at your wedding ceremony, you may not have understood the significance of what you were saying. You probably had no idea what you were signing up for. At the time, the choice may have seemed easy or even fun, but when your journey carries you into difficult situations, choosing your spouse can become the test of a lifetime.

You have chosen to be committed to someone for life. You will be challenged and invited to hold to that choice again and again. Today, as you focus on your relationship with your spouse, speak these words of devotion to each other: “I choose you.”

JANUARY 2

VERBAL REMINDER

I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.

2 PETER 1:12 NKJV

It is good to remind yourself of the choice you made on your wedding day. When you confirm your desire to stick with that choice, you help ease anxiety and establish instead the comfort, affection, and security necessary to remain connected. You show your spouse that you are continuing to choose them even when things are rough.

It is normal to wrestle with the commitment to that choice. You won’t always get it right, but a constant verbal reminder will help you hold fast to each other and keep you accountable before one another and before God. It ultimately teaches you how to keep your love on.

JANUARY 3

HIS CHOICE

God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

ROMANS 5:8 NLT

The foundation of true, lasting relationships is the commitment to choose love. This is how God has drawn you into relationship with Himself. He chose you in the most difficult of circumstances—while you were still in sin, when you were His enemy.

God’s side of the relationship does not depend upon your choice, but entirely upon His. You have to learn how to build your relationship with Him and others upon the foundation of your choice. You can’t just love each other when it is easy. You choose to love through the challenges.

JANUARY 4

BACKWARDS

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

ROMANS 12:10 NIV

You are headed for trouble if you try to build your relationship on a “you chose me” basis. It is natural instinct to like people who like you and to choose people who choose you. But if all your relationships are based solely on your natural impulse to return liking for liking, you will have problems. What happens when you no longer like someone?

Liking is conditional, and it changes. If the condition for your relationship is “You chose me” instead of “I choose you,” the relationship is doomed to change and will probably collapse as soon as the liking goes away. Make it your mission to continue to choose each other, so that when liking is lacking, your relationship remains intact.

JANUARY 5

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:7 NIV

A healthy, lasting relationship is built between two people who choose each other and take full responsibility for that choice. At the altar, you took responsibility for your part in the relationship. You committed to loving your spouse for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health, to love and to cherish, as long as you live. You didn’t stand and proclaim what your spouse would do for you.

Your choice for each other is based on who you are, what you want, and what you are committed to doing. Take responsibility today to love, to serve, to protect, and to be faithful to each other no matter what.

JANUARY 6

BECOMING POWERFUL

We are each responsible for our own conduct.

GALATIANS 6:5 NLT

In order to be able to make and keep commitments to enduring, intimate relationships, you need to be powerful. Powerful people take responsibility for their lives. Were you taught how to be responsible for your choices? A lot of people weren’t. They don’t know that they can be powerful, or even that they should be.

To build healthy relationships with your spouse and others, you have to become powerful. You need to choose who you want to be with, what you are going to pursue in life, and how you are going to go after it. And you need to take responsibility for each of those decisions when they are made.

JANUARY 7

LANGUAGE SHIFT

I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

PHILIPPIANS 4:13 NLT

When you use these phrases, it reveals a powerless mindset. It is as if you are saying the decision is being made by someone other than you, and you have no choice in the matter. You are reluctant to take responsibility for the decision, so it feels better to say that someone or something else is making you act.

If you are powerless, you might also catch yourself saying, “I’ll try…” just in case you don’t come through on a commitment or promise. Change your language that is rooted in powerlessness and believe that you have the power to manage yourself.

JANUARY 8

STAND AGAINST FEAR

I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

PSALM 34:4 NLT

When you are powerless, you believe that most things and people in the world are more powerful than you are, and that is scary. Anxiety becomes your defining, driving force, and you feel as if life is out of your control. Powerless people have a deep need to suppress their abiding fear—fear of loss, pain, death, abandonment, and more.

If you think you don’t have the power to deal with your fear, then your only hope is to persuade other people to do it for you. You rely on them sharing their power with you because you feel like you don’t have any of your own. When you take a stand against fear, you stop trying to manipulate and control others, and you take responsibility for making yourself feel safe and happy.

JANUARY 9

NOT A CONSUMER

“Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it all.”

MATTHEW 21:22 NASB

Have you ever wanted to be with someone just because you want some of their happiness to rub off on you? It’s not uncommon to want this; however, you have to be careful that you don’t become consumers, sucking the happiness out of people until they are left dry.

The same can be said for resources of love, joy, and comfort. If you don’t...