THE MARRIAGE BUILDER - Body Oneness

God is the Master Architect. His blueprint for relationships is ONENESS (see John 17): Spirit Oneness, Soul Oneness, and Body Oneness. Body Oneness is physical pleasure with personal meaning. Personal meaning in God's world depends on participation in God's purposes. Physical pleasure alone will never satisfy our deepest need for personal intimacy when it is absent of personal meaning.

We must choose between the good and the best:

1. The Good - To achieve a level of compatibility that leads to mutual enjoyment.
2. The Best - To achieve ALL that God provides in the marriage relationship.

"There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12

Whether you are single, engaged, or married, God's best starts with Spirit Oneness: Dependence upon God for your needs of security (to be loved) and significance (to be valued). Soul Oneness cannot grow without Spirit Oneness.

As the Spirit acts upon the Soul, the Soul, in turn, expresses itself through the Body. The potential to realize God's complete purpose of intimacy in our marriage relationships is when both levels of Oneness (Spirit & Soul) are present. Body Oneness is then possible.

The slides from today's lesson are below. Next week will continue with The Marriage Builder-Part 2 (Building the Foundation).

THE MARRIAGE BUILDER - Soul Oneness (Communication)

Last week we learned that unless there is the purpose of communicating love based on an awareness of needs (security and significance), we qualify as manipulators, not ministers. Today we saw that communication problems can usually be traced to a failure in the commitment to minister, or more simply, to wrong goals. When our desires become our goals, we seek to self-serve our needs instead of trusting God that He will meet our needs.

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and cover, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives." James 4:1-3

Therefore, the foundation of SOUL Oneness is a mutual commitment to minister to one another's personal needs (security and significance.)

As we finished the section on SOUL Oneness, we acknowledged the valid and legitimate pain we feel when our desires are not met and how to deal with these emotions from a Biblical perspective.

Emotional acknowledgement of our feelings is always proper; emotional expression is legitimate only when it does not conflict with our fulfilling God's purposes.

Although the focus of this series is on building a strong marriage relationship, successful communication within all Christian relationships (family, friends, coworkers, etc.) depends on one key element: SPIRIT Oneness with God. It is only when we are in a right vertical relationship--our spirit with God's Holy Spirit--that we can fulfill God's blueprint for successful human relationships.

The slides and short video (Teaching Pastor, Dave Willis) from today's lesson are below. Next week, I will briefly address the third component of Oneness: BODY Oneness. Then I will move into Part II of the Marriage Builder Series: BUILDING THE FOUNDATION.

THE MARRIAGE BUILDER - Soul Oneness (Ministry or Manipulation)

The foundation of Soul Oneness is a mutual commitment to minister to one another's personal needs (security and significance).

The key to achieving Soul Oneness is to maintain the fundamental goal of ministry to our partner's deepest needs and to keep that goal inviolate. (Dr. Larry Crabb)

However, our instinct is to manipulate rather than minister. We manipulate because we believe that is the way we will satisfy our great needs of security (to be loved) and significance (to be valued). From a human perspective, three elements are required to shift from manipulation to ministry:

1. A decisive and continuous willingness to adopt the commitment to minister;
2. A substantial awareness of your partner's needs;
3. A conviction that you are God's chosen instrument to touch those needs. 

Everything we do has a goal. Goals are based on our desires, beliefs, and values. With every goal their is a purpose which is realized through our behavior. When we determine our goals, we can identify and challenge the wrong beliefs behind the goals. Once we identify our wrong beliefs, we can  correct wrong behaviors.

• Whenever the goal of our behavior is essentially to change the other person--whether the change is good or bad--we are wrong.
• Unless there is the purpose of communicating love based on an awareness of needs, we qualify as manipulators, not ministers.

In every relationship (family, friends, and marriage), we are called to minister--put the needs of others before our own needs. God promises that He will meet our deep needs of security and significance. This is one of the greatest challenges in any relationship, especially in marriage. See what Dr. Crabb has to say:

What Are The Greatest Challenges Facing Marriages Today?

The slides from today's lesson are below. Next week we will continue with the MB Series with the lesson: Soul Oneness (Communication).

THE MARRIAGE BUILDER - Spirit Oneness

God's blueprint for Christian relationships starts with SPIRIT ONENESS. The Holy Spirit comes and dwells in every believer's life at the instant they are born again in Christ.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3.16). 

Why is it so important to understand that the Holy Spirit dwells in man’s innermost depth, deeper within than his organs of thought, feeling and decision? Because unless the child of God perceives this, invariably he shall seek His guidance in his SOUL. With understanding, he shall be delivered from the deception and error of looking to what is outward. (Watchman Nee)

Without understanding the importance of SPIRIT ONENESS, we look outward (guided by our SOUL) to meet our personal needs of SECURITY (to be loved) and SIGNIFICANCE (to be valued). Our greatest mistake in relationships is when we look to others to meet our personal needs of SECURITY and SIGNIFICANCE.

Our deepest need to be loved and feel worthy can only be met in Christ. The most caring parent, the best friend, or the most spiritual marriage partner are all incapable of meeting those deep needs. We must embrace the fact that God has met, and will always meet, our deepest needs through Jesus Christ--even when we don't feel it.

God's original (and perfect) design for the marriage relationship was two-fold:

1. Man and woman should live in fellowship (SPIRIT ONENESS) with God; 
2. Man and woman should live in a selfless relationship of mutual giving to each other (SOUL ONENESS). Because of sin, we must constantly surrender our selfish desires to God's perfect design if we are to realize God's Design in our broken world.

The fountains from which love flows are in God (His Holy Spirit), not in us. We can only love others when we allow God to love them through us. Thus, we must seek SPIRIT ONENESS with God's Holy Spirit so that we might be in a position to fulfill our purpose to live in selfless relationships of mutual giving to others.

The video below was shown at the close of class today. Be sure to listen carefully to how Dr. Larry Crabb answers the question: "What Is Real Love?"

Below are the slides from today's lesson. Next week, we will continue with SOUL ONENESS.