No marriage is perfect. We’ve all learned that by now 🙂 Such an intimate relationship requires us to face our fears and (even scarier) our true selves, and the outcome isn’t always pretty.

But there is great power in prayer! I have experienced firsthand prayer’s ability to make miracles happen in any relationship or situation. I think God’s just WAITING for us to ask Him for help when we struggle & believe for the impossible so He can deliver it!

I also don’t think God intended marriage to be drudgery – at ALL. I like to think He intends for us (especially His kids) to have the “newlywed glow” no matter what stage we’re in. I’ve seen it in marriages of all ages!

We don’t have to live in a fantasy world to love our spouse this way – that’s not even the definition of love. We can live in the here & now together and enjoy it. God’s made a way, but are we able to receive it? Are we willing to pray daily for it? Will you & I allow our hearts to believe that our marriages can be MUCH better… not just “hanging in there” but THRIVING?

Okay, then let’s go! But you must throw off the dead weight of doubt. Your whole heart’s required for this – but the risk is 100% worth the reward. If you’ve been too hurt in the past to “get your hopes up” again, ask God to heal your heart & grant you courage to believe He can restore your relationship – the one you both dreamt half your life about & have been cheated from enjoying: Your marriage.

Then go seize it. And enjoy your “better half” the way you used to!
xoxo Summer

My Wedding Gift to My Husband

Click to read (& see how very uncrafty I am).

Several years prior to our wedding (as a single lady), I found an old plaque in my parents’ kitchen drawer {click the above image to read}. My mom gave it to my dad as a wedding gift to honor their new life together. On the plaque, she’d written lyrics from a popular Christian song in the ’70s. I loved it!

Right then & there I decided to give my future husband the same gift for our wedding, too! My head swirled with romantic thoughts and its simple message.

The lyrics may seem a bit old-fashioned, but they resonated with me for reasons I didn’t understand. Little did I know, this plaque held the key to overcoming our biggest future marital struggle: Division. Now I realize this plaque was really God’s gift to US! Look at the first part again:

“He gets up early in the morning
In the sunshine and the rain.
He prays to Jehovah God in Heaven
And he reads from His word again.
Binds the devil off of his house and off of his family…”

Stop right there! Did you catch it? There in my gold handwriting was the answer we needed: He binds the devil off of his house & off of his family.

Several months into our marriage, this suddenly clicked with Brian. He realized he needed to be PROACTIVE in prayer just like this song says to be – not waiting for our spiritual enemy to attack us but binding him before he can make his first move!

Since then, my sweet hubby has been faithfully “binding the enemy” off of our marriage every morning. “Early in the morning” is key because it means striking first before the enemy can advance against our families (we’ve learned he likes to start early!). My hubby often couples prayer with God time (Scripture & worship). What a powerful combination.

I’ve written out his prayer at the bottom of this post. Feel free to skip straight to it, but I highly recommend you keep reading to understand how to properly apply God’s authority over your marriage & take it back from the hands of the enemy! If you’re new to this kind of thing, don’t be afraid or brush it off as crazy. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 

Who has Authority over Your Marriage?

Growing up as Christians, neither of us ever knew we had the God-given authority to bind the enemy off of our homes! We could tie the enemy’s hands, yes ALL demonic activity, in our marriage because Jesus imparted His power to us through His name. Jesus Himself said this [emphases mine]:

“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” ~Matthew 16:18-19

Context makes it clear that “binding & loosing” refer to the “kingdom of heaven” VS “the gates of hell” (demonic forces)!  The Apostle Paul then says this in 2 Corinthians 10:

“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments…”

Believers fight spiritually, not physically! But who are we fighting? Read Ephesians 6:

“We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

This passage makes it clear: Our battle is over WHO HAS SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY in any given situation: God or Satan? Good or evil? Our answer is in Colossians 2:

“For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the Head over every ruler and authority… He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross.”

That is awesome news!! We have the victory through Christ! Please note who possessed true authority in Mark 3:

“Whenever the unclean spirits saw [Jesus], they would fall down before Him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God!’…

[Jesus] appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons…

The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.’ And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!

But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.”

And lastly, Luke 10 says:

“The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!’ And He said to them, ‘… I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”

11 Takeaways from these Scriptures: 

1. We are at war – not physically with people but spiritually with Satan & his cohorts (& against our sinful nature, which Satan tries to exploit). To fight a spiritual enemy, we must use God’s spiritual weapons because His weapons have authority, not ours.
2. The battle is fought in two arenas: People’s minds & mouths. Paul says we are “to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning” (mind battles) & “to destroy false arguments” (mouth battles). Spiritual forces target our THOUGHTS & WORDS because both form our actions.
3. Jesus has total spiritual authority over the demonic realm (i.e. He wins!). This is the believer’s advantage: We live in Christ, so His authority is now ours [Unbelievers don’t have this advantage so they shouldn’t go toe-to-toe with spiritual forces – that’s a losing battle!]. The Bible says Christians are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (spiritually-speaking), so we are above everything that comes against us from the evil one. One author put it this way: Satan knows he doesn’t have real authority, but he wants to see if you know it. He will test us to see if we push back against him & use our authority in Jesus! This is where the power of prayer comes in.
4. If Satan’s kingdom is divided, it can’t stand. The demonic must be overcome by something more powerful. Jesus is the only one qualified to do so because He never sinned, thus the enemy had no hold on Him. Jesus maintained complete power & authority, surrendering nothing to our enemy. This is to our GREAT benefit!
5. A house divided against itself can’t stand, as my husband & I quickly learned. Satan knows this and seeks to divide marriages whenever he gets a chance. Our job is to NOT give him any! During our 1st year of marriage especially, we allowed a spirit of division to RULE our home because we didn’t operate in unity.
6. Jesus said the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” were to bind & loose spiritual forces on earth – spiritual warfare. Our earthly actions can accomplish great things in the heavenly world!
7. Jesus empowered His disciples to win spiritual battles by giving us the authority of His name.
8. People thought Jesus was crazy for dealing with demons and casting them out of places they didn’t belong (sound familiar?).
9. Satan is NOT weak! Jesus didn’t call him a pretty strong guy – He called him THE strong man. We should never try to “out-muscle” him without God’s help. Thankfully our God is infinitely more powerful than our enemy, but we must use HIS authority not our own.
10. Satan is a thief who steals what belongs to us! To reclaim what’s ours, we must “enter his house” and “plunder his property”… but we must first BIND him! Again, this isn’t a physical straitjacket because Satan’s a spiritual being, so we must bind him VERBALLY in the name of Jesus. Jesus’s name is His authority! When we spiritually bind Satan, we can freely reclaim what he stole from us, including a better & more loving marriage. This is how we plunder him!
11. The enemy can’t hurt us when we’re under God’s protection. Jesus gave us ALL authority over the enemy. We just need to apply it!

In Jesus, we have complete authority over the prince of the power of the air. If we bind the enemy in our lives, our marriages, our children’s lives & our homes, we’re using the keys of the kingdom Jesus told Peter about! We are unleashing God’s power into our families and our communities. It’s as simple (and profound) as that.

Christ living within us gives us authority over every evil force! I believe MUCH of the havoc raging in marriages today is the enemy working to divide spouses & split homes. A strong family, after all, is a lethal blow to the kingdom of darkness.

I would like to say this: Even after praying the “Defensive Prayer” (as my hubby calls it), we can still give the enemy power to create marital division through either of our poor decisions. Wrong & hurtful choices still impact our relationship, but this way we pinpoint that we’re the source of such issues, not our enemy. This has stopped many arguments before they even began! That’s why I like to call it the “Offensive Prayer” – because we’re taking ground from our opponent before he strikes, not waiting to do Damage Control after he’s had a field day.

I can’t describe the impact this prayer has had on our marriage! Warfare has ceased to rule our daily life. Now when we fight, we recognize we’ve given our enemy entrance to confuse the situation, pit us against each other, & bombard us with negative thoughts about one another. Our strategy at this point is to repent & stop him from exploiting our mess-ups further.

Thank You Lord for giving Brian this revelation when we needed it so much. Thank You for planning this out decades in advance, when You gave my mom the desire to give my dad his wedding gift! Who but You knew how important it would be? We are so grateful for Your wisdom! Please reveal it to those reading this today & may they put it into practice. May we continue to take authority over every demonic force in our spheres of influence: our families, marriages, workplaces, churches, relationships & the world around us. For Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Below I’ve laid out my husband’s daily prayer over our marriage [wives can do it, too!]. Feel free to use your own words, just don’t wait til the enemy gains ground on your family to react to his attacks. God’s calling us to INITIATE the victory, not put out the devil’s fires! Start being proactive right now. Pray this over your family with me:

The Defensive Prayer

Lord, I thank You for this day and for my spouse (Name) ! I am so grateful for the blessing You’ve given me, a person I can spend every day with and the one You’ve chosen for me to do Your will with in this world.

In Jesus’s name I bind Satan and all of his minions off of me, my husband/wife               , and off of our whole house. I bind them from speaking to us, attacking us, influencing us, or working through us in any way in Jesus’s name.

I bind hate, anger, fear, greed, lust, deceit, envy, jealousy, pride, perversion, rage, malice, (whatever you or your family are struggling with)….. off of me and my spouse _____.

And I loose the Holy Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control over me and my spouse _____ in Jesus’ name. [Also loose any other positive traits over your family].

I also bind my flesh and command it to be subject to the Holy Spirit that lives within me, in Jesus’s name. I serve God & God alone, and I choose to be used by Him alone.

Thank You Father for hearing our prayer! We ask all these things in Your son Jesus’s name, amen.

I also highly recommend praying John 17:21-23 over your marriage & family. This was one of Jesus’s last recorded prayers on earth before He died for us – and for my husband and I personally, it was our wedding prayer!

“I pray that they will all be one, just as You and I are one—as You are in Me, Father, and I am in You. And may they be in Us so that the world will believe You sent Me. I have given them the glory You gave Me, so they may be one as We are one. I am in them and You are in Me.

May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.” ~Jesus

Do we realize why Jesus was praying for unity among believers, including Christian marriages? So that the world will know God sent Jesus & that He loves them!!!

Our unity is a reflection of God’s love. That is why our enemy attacks marriages & groups of believers so ferociously. When we begin taking authority over every chaotic & spiritually oppressive area in our world, we make room for the love & peace of God to shine into people’s lives.

I pray you, your family, & your sphere of influence are blessed by this message!
~Summer