Loading summary
Transcript4 lines
- [00:02]
Ego Brand Representative
Spring Fest and Ego Days are here at Lowes right now. Get a free select EGO 56 volt battery with purchase of a select trimmer, blower or mower kit. Plus shop today for new and exclusive items you need for your lawn. So get ready for spring with the latest in innovation From Ego, the 1 rated brand in cordless outdoor power only at Lowes. We have you say offer valid through 4:2. Selection varies by location while supplies last.
- [00:31]
Jimmy Evans
Hi, this is Jimmy Evans with Marriage Today. This podcast is dedicated to equipping families with the teaching and tools they need to succeed. We hope you enjoy this episode and subscribe for more marriage building content. Matthew 6 Jesus said, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So Jesus is saying to his disciples, don't lay up all your money on earth. You know, lay up treasures in heaven. In other words, you know, give to the Lord and have a mind toward eternity and things like that. And then Jesus says this line here, this is where it's a very, very powerful sentence. Wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Okay, well, the word treasure is the word thesaurus, if y'all know what a thesaurus is. And the word treasure means treasure, but it means a repository of treasures. It's a treasure chest. It's a place that you put your treasures. Jesus said, wherever your treasure chest is, there will your kardea. That's the Greek word for heart. There will your kardia be also. The word kardea means the seed of your passions. Here's what Jesus is saying. Wherever you're putting the best of your life, your passion will always be there. You can't separate your passion from your treasure. In fact, your passion tells on you. You say, well, are you passionate about your marriage? No, not really. You know? You passionate about God? No, not really. You passionate about nascar? Oh, I love nascar. You passionate about football? Oh, I just can't. I. I'm a fantasy footballer. See, your passion is telling you where you're putting your treasures. And so Jesus said this. If you lay up your treasures on earth, your passion is going to be on the earth somewhere. But if you lay up your treasures toward God in heaven, that's where your passion is going to be. Now listen to me, givers don't backslide a person who gives to the Lord they don't backslide because their heart's with God. When you give the best of your time, talents and treasures to God, your passion's there. It tells on you. Okay? When you don't give the best of your time, talents and treasures to God, you'll always struggle with God. You'll always struggle with the desire. And I'm saying I've been there, done that. That's how I lived the first years of our marriage is I was not a good husband. I was not a godly man, I was not a giver. I didn't serve the Lord. And I always struggled with the world. I always struggled with temptation and all of those things until my treasure came back to God. And so the way we fall in love is we give each other our best. It is. You fell in love because you got interested in each other. You started going out and you knocked yourself out the first times you went out. I mean, you invested the best of your time in talents and treasure. You said no to other things so you could say yes to each other. And guess what? You fell in love. But that's also how you fall out of love. There was a woman who did a study, Jane Albus, and it was a sociological study that she did, very large study, and she was finding out how marriages operate and the most happy time in marriage. And what she found was that, and this doesn't surprise anyone, the best years of marriage are the early years of marriage. Typically they're the first three or four years, especially the years before children. So a couple gets married, they're in love, and they have great years until the kids come around. But when the kids come around, the marriage satisfaction typically drops. Okay? And the marriage satisfaction gets the absolute worst when kids are in junior high and high school, in secondary school. And if you survive that and one day they leave when they're 17, 18, 37, 38, somewhere in there. If someday they leave and you survive it, your marriage gets better. This is what she found. Marriage is best at the very beginning. It dips when the kids come. It goes worse when they're in secondary school. Then when they leave, the marriage gets a little bit better. Not as good as it was at first. Let me say something to you. God makes marriage to get better every year. What a crazy thing that some rookie is better than someone who's been married 30 years. Well, also, what a crazy thing that you got two or three good years and then goodbye, the honeymoon's over. What a horrible concept of marriage that is. And so here's the problem. When you're not sowing into your marriage, here's the problem that it creates. You're giving what belongs to your spouse to somebody else, and it creates jealousy in your spouse. See, we know Genesis 2:24 says, for this cause a man will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife. We know we belong to each other first. We know that. We instinctively know that when we get married. I know that Karen belongs to me before she belongs to the kids. I know that she belongs to me before she belongs to her family, her parents, that Karen. I belong to Karen before I belong to marriage today or anybody else. We belong to each other first. And when my spouse takes what belongs to me and gives it to her friends or gives it to the kids, or my husband takes it and gives it to work or whatever, I get jealous. It's a legitimate jealousy. And by the way, Exodus 34 God says, My name is Jealous. Capital J. One of God's names is Capital J. Jealous. God created us for him first, and he is jealous of anything that takes us away from Him. Let me tell you something. The reason that God is a jealous God is because he's madly in love with us and he's not willing for us to go lightly when we begin to drift away from Him. He fights for us. And we need to be thankful that we have a God that fights for our hearts. He loves us so much. But we're the same way with each other. If we begin, we get married, we're investing in each other. We say no to other things. Our treasure is each other. We're putting the best of our life in each other. And guess what? We fall in love and we get married. And so why does the marriage satisfaction drop when the kids are born? It shouldn't. It should not drop whatsoever. Why does it drop? Because when kids come around, typically men turn their hearts to their work and women turn their hearts to the kids.
- [06:55]
NARS Brand Representative
Some things work better together, like NARS Soft Matte Complete Concealer and Radiant Creamy Concealer. Soft Matte Complete Concealer erases and blurs imperfections with full coverage. Then Radiant Creamy Concealer evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers, one flawless look, perfect for a no foundation base. NARS Better together Visit Alta to shop now. This episode is brought to you by the Nissan Armada Pro 4X. With a twin turbo V6 engine, ready to propel your adventures up to 8,500 pounds of towing capacity to haul all your favorite toys in space for eight passengers, Nissan's most powerful car yet will chew up and spit out anything you throw at it. Learn more about the all new 2025 Nissan Armada at nissanusa.com Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Own Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo and now we're not.
- [07:53]
Jimmy Evans
First Anymore A man has his career, the woman has her kids and they have big fights of why are you at work all the time? Well, when I come home, you don't pay any attention to me. You're a worn out after taking care of the kids. Kids take all your time and attention and then secondary school. Why is that so stressful? Because they're more expensive than ever and you're a chauffeur that has to take them all over the earth. They're busy, they're stressed out, they're stressing you out. They're active, they're trying to break every law in the books. You know, they're and you're the warden, you're the financier, you're everything you know and it puts the stress on your relationship. And then when they leave someday and you have an empty nest, typically the satisfaction is a little better. But damage has been done. It can be undone, but damage has been done. Here's another problem of investing in someone other than your spouse. There's going to be a harvest. See, what I would do is I would go golfing and I was a good golfer and I was a three or four handicap and I thought, you know, if I can trim a few strokes off my score, I can start competing seriously and all of that. And so I go out and play golf with my friends. Well, well, I was towing on the golf course. Guess where my passion was. My passion was on the golf course. My greatest moments in life were on the golf course. And I would come home and Karen would just be looking at me with that sour kind of a where have you been looking? The night that we almost divorced, I came in from playing golf and she complained. I said, get out of the house, get out of here. Go back to your parents. I don't care where you go, I'm sick of your attitude. And she went in the bedroom crying. And so you're investing in your work more than your marriage. Guess where your passion is. You're investing in the kids more than the marriage. Guess where your passion is. And here's the next thing that happens and it's awful. And that is your spouse begins to complain and ask you to come back to them and you feel conflicted because you don't want to, because there's no passion there. And this is what happens. Karen began to complain to me. I was out of love with Karen. She was out of love with me. I didn't like her. We had hurt each other a lot. And I just thought that she was unfair. I thought that she was a bad wife. I thought I made a mistake. And I look back on those days, and it was wrong, but it was so real. And my passion was with my friends. My passion was in golf. All my passions were there. And Karen was fighting for our marriage. She was being a good wife. She was fighting for my heart. But I remember when she would be standing there saying, why don't you come home? Why don't you come home from work? Why don't you take off more? Why don't you say no to your friends and come home and be with me and the kids? And I would just be looking at her like, I don't want to be with you. I don't want to be with you. We were out of love. Well, how do you get it back? You know? And I'm saying not just from 100% to zero, but like, if you're at 30% of the passion that you once had or 50% of the passion that you once had, how do you get it back? It's so easy to get it back. Jesus tells us how. This is Revelation, chapter 2, and Jesus is coming. These are the letters to the seven churches that Jesus writes. And this is the first one. This is the church at Ephesus. And Jesus just says all kinds of good stuff about the church at Ephesus, all these really dutiful things that they're doing. But here's what he says to them. This is interesting. I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its base. Now, here's what Jesus says. I'm not good with anything less than first love, passionate love. I'm not good with that. Why? Because somebody has your first love. See, when you fell in love with each other, when you lose that, it doesn't just go away, it moves. Somebody else has your first love. Jesus said, I'm not going to take second place. You think I'm going to take second place? I have something against you. You have left your first love, and if you don't change, I'm going to remove your Lampstand. And the lampstand means representing him, his anointing and blessing as a church. See, lukewarm Christians are a bad advertisement for a great God. And he won't have it. He's just too great of a God to have a bunch of lukewarm people representing him. He wants a passionate group of people. We are walking billboards for our God. We're also walking billboards for our spouse. And one of the most unpleasant things in the world is to sit and listen to someone complain about their spouse. Not just complain, but be ugly about it. I am a walking advertisement for Karen Evans, and I'm telling you, she's fabulous. She's fabulous. And we were out of love. I told Karen I came home from playing golf. And all my passion was in golf. And my heart was not turned toward my children. I was a poor father. And I came home and Karen complained to me about golf. And I yelled at her and told her to get out of the house. And that morning, I had read the Bible. I read the Bible every morning. You know, I was an idiot, but I was a very sanctified idiot. And I had read the Bible that morning in John 16. And it says, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will lead you into all truth. And it hit me when I read that. It just hit me. And when Karen went into the bedroom crying, I sat down in the living room and I thought, I'm losing my marriage. I just can't believe this is happening to me. I don't know what to do. And when I sat down, I remembered that scripture. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will lead you into all truth. I was a very arrogant person. I never admitted I ever did anything wrong. I blamed everything on Karen. And I said, holy Spirit, teach me how to be a husband. Well, when I prayed that prayer, something. It was like something fell off of my eyes. I really don't know how to explain it. Something fell off of my eyes. The moment before that. The moment before that, I thought, I'm Mr. Wonderful, and I accidentally married the devil's ex wife. You know, I mean, boy, isn't this a terrible thing? The instant after I prayed that prayer, I thought, I'm the biggest idiot in the world and I've got a wonderful woman in there. And I crushed her with my mouth, my attitude. And I went into the bedroom and I said to Karen, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I've treated you. I'm sorry for the way I've talked to you. And I'm going to hang up my golf clubs. Now when I told her that I was hanging up my golf club, she knew that Jesus had touched my heart. And we didn't fall back in love that night. Not at all. So I woke up the next day and I went to work and I came home and I was nicer to Karen. I wasn't mean to her and I was careful in how I said things and I helped with the kids and I helped around the house and nothing changed that day. I did it the next day and I did it the next day and I did it the next day. And I think it was 10 or 10 days or two weeks or something that somebody laughed. And when somebody laughed, I thought, you know, it's been a long time since anybody laughed in this house. But it began to get light hearted again. And several weeks later we were friends. And several months later we were deeply in love. And we never lost it because we will not change our thesaurus. The best of my life goes to Jesus Christ. He deserves the best. The second best of my life goes to Karen Evans. And I will not change that. Wherever your treasure is, wherever your repository is, there will your passion be also? And so if your passion has decreased, it's just telling you you're not putting in there what you used to put in there. Somebody else is getting what belongs to your spouse. And the conflicted emotions are normal, but you can get it back. You can get back the love that you have for each other simply by changing your thesaurus. Let me talk for just a minute about how to create lasting passion in your marriage. And I'll close. Focus on yourself. And this is the most important thing. And the question is, are you giving your best into marriage? For example, what a lot of people do in marriage is they defend themselves based on their spouse's behavior. And they say, well, no, I'm not, but my spouse is doing this. That's not the question. The question is, are you doing your best? And I'll talk about redemptive love in another session, but it's very important. The second is deal with the root issues that cause you to turn away in the first place. For example, laziness and taking your spouse for granted. That was me. I was lazy. I was relationally lazy. And once we got married, I thought we just ought to have a great marriage because we were married. I didn't know it took work. I didn't know that I had to be nice to her or anything like that. I had completely unrealistic expectations. I was lazy. I was a lazy husband. Another thing is disappointment, frustrations. Most people get married with unrealistic expectations. Marriage and the number one reason for divorce isn't money or children or anything like that is disappointment. We get married, our spouse doesn't meet our expectations, we get disappointed and we turn our heart away, Turn our heart to the kids, turn our heart to work, turn our heart to something else. So in other words, what I'm saying is if you've fallen out of love and you don't have the passion that you once had, you may have 70%, you may have 50%, but you don't have that passion that you used to have. You have to examine the root issue and say, yeah, I got disappointed, you broke my heart. But a lot of times the problem isn't just in our spouse, it's in our own expectations. We hope you've enjoyed today's podcast and we want to let you know about another marriage podcast with Dave and Ashley Willis called Naked Marriage, where they talk about real and raw marriage topics like sex, communication, openness and more in a fun, lighthearted atmosphere. Search for Naked Marriage with Dave and Ashley Willis in itunes and start listening today.