Whoever finds a wife finds something good and obtains favor from the Lord.

I couldn't find one that spoke about someone finding a husband being a good thing, but I'm sure the same thing applies.

But here is a Scripture that kind of covers both husband and wife. Hebrews 13:4 says,

Marriage is precious in all circumstances, and sex is a beautiful thing; but prostitutes and adulterers God condemns.

Who This Course is For

Before I go into more detail, I would like to give you a breakdown of what we are going to cover in this Seminar.

1. It is for single people who want to get married.

2. It is for divorcees and those who have been widowed.

3. It is for married couples who are happy. I'm sure you didn't expect that did you?

4. It is for married couples who are not happy.

5. It is for people who want to do marriage counselling.

6. In short it is for every normal person.

So if you fit into one of those categories, this Seminar is for you.

God designed marriage and He wants everyone to be married. Not only that, but He wants everyone to enjoy being married. God wants your marriage to be a foretaste of heaven. That is why we entitled this the Heavenly Marriage Seminar.

I hope to cover this during the course of the seminar. I hope to convince you that these things are true, and to help prepare you to overcome every obstacle that stands in your way of enjoying this wonderful privilege that God has designed for us.

Why God Created Marriage

Why did God make marriage in the first place? I am going to take you on a little tour of the Garden of Eden and I'm going to tell you a story. Yes I know you can go and read it in Genesis 1, 2 and 3, but it's kind of short and not very clear.

Because of this, I am going to try and tell you a story. I want to show you exactly how marriage came about, why it came about and how God did it.

I would like you to understand what went through the hearts and minds of the man and the woman that God had created. You can then understand exactly why God created marriage and why it is so important.

I hope that as you look at this story afresh, your heart will be stirred to realize,

"I have been missing out on something tremendous that God has for me."

I'm going to teach you how God separated the sexes. I will show you how Adam was originally one person made in the image of God, having neither gender and yet having both genders in one person.

I will share how God brought a separation and made a male and a female; a man and a woman. I will explain how God made it in such a way that the two should come together again in perfect harmony and unity to become the perfect human being.

We will go through all of that and you will understand why God created marriage.

Keys to Success

We are going to look at the two basic keys to marital success. The first key to this success is a loving husband. We are going to look at the roles that a husband has to provide.

I am not going to go into a lot of complex detail. I will however look at what is essentially the role of the husband in the marriage relationship, and what causes failure to take place in this area. The failure is usually that he fails to be a loving husband.

Next we are going to look at the loving wife. But more than looking at that, we are going to look at the submissive wife. This is because God gave two commandments. He said,

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church

Then He said,

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto Christ.

So we are going to see the roles of a wife in the marriage relationship. We are going to see where failure takes place in this as well.

We will look at all of this from God's Word. We are not going to look at the standard that the world is setting today or the trends of the world. These are designed to actually pull us apart and to destroy the joy of marriage.

Fixing Problems

Once we have looked at where the problems are, we are going to look at how to fix them. We are going to show how developing a relationship with Jesus is the first step towards fixing a marriage.

We are going to show you how to change the inner images of your heart, that were created in you through various different influences of life.

We are going to show you how to get healing from those past experiences that left a scar; those experiences that have stopped you from entering into this wonderful joy and becoming the kind of partner you are supposed to be.

Finding the Perfect Match

The best place to start looking at marriage is to start from the beginning when you are still single. So we are going to spend a bit of time addressing the problems that singles have.

You might say, "I am already married. I'm not single anymore, so that is just going to be a boring part of the Seminar for me."

No, I don't think so. I think if you are already married, you are going to go back and rethink how you met your spouse and how marriage came about.

You are going to see some of the mistakes you have made. You will also see some of the things you should have done, and perhaps you will fall in love all over again.

You will go back and re-walk that path. So even though you may be married, I would like you to re-walk this path as we look at what it is like to find God's perfect match for you. Because you see God has the perfect person for you; someone who is perfectly matched.

Someone said imagine taking an orange, cutting it down the middle and tearing it apart. The best way to get it back together again is to take the right two pieces and put them together. All the cuts will match exactly and you will have a complete orange.

There is a perfect match. There is somebody who has the same shape as you. And when you come together, you will come in perfect harmony, and together you will make up one perfect person. That is what the Bible means when it says,

The two shall become one flesh

They will become one person.

What Attracts People

We are going to look at God's perfect match, and we are going to start by looking at the laws of attraction. Oh dear, you might think that sounds a bit like New Age and The Secret.

But we are not talking about those kinds of attraction. We are going to talk about the laws of attraction between a male and a female that cause the attraction. We will look at how it happens, how God designed it and created it.

Perhaps you will begin to understand why you were attracted to your spouse. You will see why you are attracted to certain members of the opposite sex, and why you are not attracted to others. What makes the difference?

How to Fall in Love

I'm going to deal in some detail with falling in love. You might say to me,

"I have fallen in love."

What does falling in love mean? Do you understand it? Or do you just get all those ooey gooey feelings, where you can't eat or sleep? What actually happens when a person falls in love ? And what happens when they fall out of love?

You need to understand the mechanism of what we call falling in love. Because if you don't feel that love for your spouse anymore, you are going to have to learn to fall in love again.

If you don't do that, your marriage is not going to be built on a rock. It will not be a perfect marriage, neither will it be a heavenly marriage.

So I want you to understand what falling in love really is. I will not show you the way the world teaches it, but the Scriptural way.

Preparing for Marriage

As a single person you need to learn how to prepare for marriage. This means you need to become the perfect marriage prospect.

Go to all the singles' sites, and everybody out there is telling you what kind of partner they want. None of them say,

"This is what I have to offer."

They always say,

"This is the kind of husband (or wife) that I want."

Well do they want you? Are you the kind of person that a member of the opposite sex would want and desire?

What makes you a good prospect for marriage? I am going to teach you what makes you a good prospect. I'm going to show you how to become a better prospect than you have been until now.

We are going to deal with past hurts and bad experiences that are standing in your way. We are going to show you how to go forward with a positive expectation.

Developing a Relationship

Next you need to learn how to develop a relationship. You know in the online dating sites, there is a place for people to say whether they are married or single.

They usually also have an option that says 'I'm in a relationship'. What does that mean? Sometimes it means,

"I am sleeping with somebody."

What is a relationship? When I was younger they had a term that related to dating someone. You asked a person out, and if you answered yes, you were considered going out. I don't know what term they use these days. I guess that is why people say,

"I am in a relationship."

Do you even understand what a relationship is. And do you know how a relationship should be developed God's way?

Most people don't. That is why they end up with marriages that are not according to God's standards and which go on the rocks pretty quickly. So I am going to show you how to develop a relationship God's way.

I'm going to show you how two creatures who have a spirit, a soul and a body, can learn to interact together in all three of those areas. I will show how to create a bond and relationship that will make them more capable of coming together and staying together in marriage.

Ministry and Marriage

We are going to look at ministry and marriage. This is a tough one. How do you find a ministry match? You might say to me,

"I am not called to the ministry."

Are you sure? Everybody has some kind of ministry. God has a ministry and a purpose for your life, and if you are to find a partner, that partner must somehow fit in with God's purpose for your life. You must also fit in with God's purpose for their life.

We have a little term that we use which is based on experience. This is more prominent amongst the prophets.

We see somebody who is being used by the Lord, but they enter into a marriage relationship that has nothing to do with their ministry or calling. It sometimes cuts right against it, and they end up marrying someone who stands in the way of God's purpose for their life.

We call that a typical prophetic marriage. The reason prophets are more subject to this, is because they have had a life of rejection, hurt and pain. The preparation of a prophet is a tough one.

Prophets are usually loners. They have been rejected for so many years, that when they finally find somebody who shows an interest in them they say,

"Wow, at last! Here is someone who is not rejecting me. Let me marry them quickly."

But they find out very soon down the line, that that marriage now gets in the way of God's purpose. It is a matter of time before that prophetic marriage ends very quickly.

Most prophets have experienced divorce because they have married with the wrong motives. You need to take your ministry into account before you find a marriage partner. You need to know how to identify and find somebody who matches your ministry.

You might say, "She's beautiful! She's awesome and is everything I ever wanted in a woman. It's a pity she's not a Christian."

Well that one is out already. Or perhaps you say,

"It's a pity she isn't Spirit-filled. She's a Baptist and she doesn't like the speaking in tongues thing, but we will convince her."

No you won't convince her. You might also say,

"He seems a nice guy but he's not really interested in going to church and doing ministry. He's a Christian and he kind of serves the Lord. He's born again and knows the Lord. He's just not interested in ministry like I am.

Well that's fine. I'll just marry him and carry on and do my ministry."

No you won't, because you have to be subject to him as your husband. You are going to have to put him first in your life.

That is why Pauls says if ministry is your passion, sometimes it may be necessary to not get married at all. But that is not normal, and you have to be someone like Paul who was capable of doing that.

Most of us are not capable of that. So if you want to find a marriage partner, make sure that you find one who interfaces with your ministry.

A Common Mistake

One of the biggest mistakes people make in this is they expect their future partner to have the exact same ministry calling as them.

In the apostolic course, we have been learning that very often our temperament shapes our ministry. We know that in marriage opposite temperaments also attract and we will be looking at that as well.

If you are attracted to someone of the opposite temperament, the chances are they have an opposite ministry as well. Prophets expect their husband to be excited about Prophetic Ministry and they are not. At times they are the very opposite and they think,

"I married the wrong man."

Not necessarily, as long as you allow him to have the liberty to do the ministry that God has given him. As long as the husband allows his wife to do the ministry that God has called her to do.

The two of you can complement each other and can balance each other. As you swing temperaments you can also swing ministries, and together you can become an apostolic team.

Each one of you can do a different aspect of the Fivefold Ministry. You can combine them together to make all of them flow as one. We will be teaching you in some detail all the things that are involved and how to make this happen.

Making the Marriage Decision

And then finally we will consider how you decide to get married. You might say,

"He asked me to marry him. That is it! It is decided. I was waiting for this."

Or he says, "She said yes. Let's do it."

No, that is not the reason for making a marriage decision. Is it based on love? You might say,

"The feelings will develop later. I don't really feel the love but everything else is perfect. I won't worry about that for now. I will learn to love her."

Or, "I will learn to love him."

That is why you need to learn what being in love is before you get that attitude.

Does it line up with the Word? If a person is not a believer it is not even in the hat. You might say,

"Well he says he is a Christian."

Is he born again and is he Spirit-filled like you are?

You might say, "We can get to that later."

Maybe you can. Maybe God will be gracious, but don't count on it.

When you come to making a marriage decision, don't listen to the advice of everybody else out there who suddenly wants to become a counselor. They want to tell you who is good for you and who's bad for you which is based on their preferences.

When you find the right partner that God has chosen for you, it is amazing to see how some people will feel called to come and tell you that you are marrying the wrong person.

Don't ever make your decision based on the advice of others. If you go to someone like a spiritual parent, who is a counselor and can advise you by the Word, that is a different matter.

This can be someone who knows the Lord and can get revelation. They can pray with you and say,

"I think you are making a mistake here. I think you should wait and look to the Lord."

Everybody else out there doesn't have a clue. And in the end what does God say?

You need to hear Him telling you loudly and clearly that you should marry the person. If you cannot hear Him saying that, then don't marry them because He knows the end from the beginning. It is that simple.

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