Follow-Up Study Guide To:

Stop Putting God At The Center Of Your Life

Part 1 of 6 in the series “How To Get A Divorce”

March 30, 2008 Pastor Scott Oldenburgh

Over the next 6 weeks, The Next Step is going to be geared toward marriage issues. The Next Step will be written with the goal of couples working through them together. However, if your spouse is unwilling or you are not married, you should find the questions and scriptures still challenging enough to help you develop into ‘The Best Marriage Material I Can Be.’

Ê How long have you been married? Think back over the course of your marriage and rate the following questions:

ü How essential has God been in your marriage?

ü How often do you discuss spiritual issues, what God is doing in your life, or specific prayer concerns?

ü How involved is God when making big decisions? Ethical decisions? Plans and dreams? Times of crisis? Times of success?

ü How important is God’s Word in your daily lives?

ü How active has God been in your spiritual development over the past year? What new things have you learned? What challenges have you faced? What’s an area of God’s Word that you have found challenging?

LOOK BACK AT THE MARRIAGE PRINCIPLE

When 2 people are growing closer to God, they cannot simultaneously grow farther apart from one another

Ê Do you agree with this principle? Why or why not? Have you ever witnessed two people genuinely growing in their relationship to God, simultaneously, that willingly walked away from one another?

Ê Why do you think that spiritual growth is so vital to marital success?

LOOK BACK AT THE GENESIS ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST MARRIAGE

GENESIS 2:20-25

Ê What was God’s intention for man and woman to experience?

Ê What was Adam in need of? What did God create to meet this need?

Ê What was Adam’s response?

Ê What did God say the man and woman would become?

Ê When the man and woman are in a right relationship with one another, what is the result found in vs. 25?

Ê How do shame and guilt become a destructive force in a marriage heading toward divorce? What are some of the by-products of shame and guilt in a marriage? What kinds of games are played using shame and guilt? What do shame and guilt do to ‘one flesh’?

READ EPHESIANS 5:21-33

This passage is the most critical passage of scripture for modern day marriage.

Ê What words present challenges to you when you read this passage?

Ê How has ‘man’ used this passage to gain what he wants out of marriage? How has ‘woman’ used this passage to resist or challenge any role she was designed to play in the marriage?

The grammar of this passage suggests a mutual submission’ of husband and wife to one another

Ê How is this different from what is found in many troubled marriages?

Ê How did Christ love the church?

Ê How did the church love and respond to Christ?

Ê How is this mutual relationship different from what is normally seen in marriage?

Ê What would ‘mutual submission’ look like in your marriage today?

Ê Can you give examples to one another of where your spouse could truly meet your greatest needs?

Ê In return, could you commit to meeting the needs that are being shared?

Ê What happens if the other doesn’t do it right? Or what happens when you start keeping score?

Ê What does what Christ did for us teach us about how we have to love one another?

Take time to write out your most important needs for your spouse to meet and share them over this next week with one another. (They can’t be responsible for what they don’t know!)