The Bulletproof Marriage Pt. 2 Marriage Detox!

God has a purpose for your marriage, and the enemy has a target.  
Are you struggling in your relationship with your spouse, and wondering how to resolve issues hindering you?  In Part 2 of The Bulletproof Marriage, “Marriage Detox,” Pastor Gil & Liz share powerful insights and personal testimonies as they uncover the attitudes and thought patterns that quietly damage relationships and weaken the marriage bond.  If left unchecked, these issues can grow into major obstacles, but they don’t have to. Discover how a “Marriage Detox” may be just what you need to help reset, heal, and strengthen your relationship God’s way.
Whether you’re married or preparing for marriage, this series will equip and empower you to build a relationship that truly is bulletproof.      

📖 Scripture References: Philippians 2:3–5, Ephesians 6:16, 1 Corinthians. 15:46, Matthew 5:3-12, Psalm 91:1-7

📖 This series is based on Dream Marriage Vol. II: The Bulletproof Marriage by Bishop Duane & Sunny Swilley — grab your copy here: https://a.co/d/0gUgck2i

Click here to listen to our last episode."Let's Pray For Our Nation"
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hey, this is Pastor Gill from the Father's House Each Team in Jensen Beach, Florida, and we welcome you to our weekly podcast. Thank you for joining us today for the relevant messages and genuine conversations. We hope dreams and God's promises for you are awakened and restored. Be inspired, be challenged, and be reminded that God is not done with your story, and He has more for you than you can think or imagine. Enjoy the message.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome everyone to the Father's House Jensen Beach. It's awesome to have you with us today. We're so excited for this week's podcast where we're continuing in the series The Bulletproof Marriage. If you're married or thinking about getting married, this series is definitely for you. But first, we'd like to invite you to follow the show and share this episode. And if you would, take a moment to rate and review the podcast. Your feedback helps us reach more people with hope from God's Word, and we really appreciate it. So last week's episode was powerful. And if you haven't heard it, we encourage you to pull it up and listen. You'll discover the foundation for the bulletproof marriage and why, once married, it's important to make covenants with one another, especially in the areas of conflict. Today we're sharing a couple of topics that can affect all of us, especially if we open the door, invite these in and let them stay a while for any time longer than a second. These can make or break your relationships, they can affect your work performance, they determine whether people really even enjoy being around you or not. And that's including your spouse. And we're also going to be sharing God's solution. So, Gil, what is one topic we could possibly be talking about?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Wait for it. Ready? Attitude.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yes, attitude. So, Gil, um, this is a very important topic because attitude affects everything in life. You know, there's a saying, your attitude determines your altitude. It's going to determine how far or how high you go. And so today we want to talk about attitude and attitudes that can affect our marriage relationship. So what's on your heart to share there?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Well, attitude is is something that everybody has in one way, shape, or form, or another. Now your attitude will make or break your marriage. So you say, Well, I don't have an attitude. Well, your actions reveal your attitude. You are found out by the way you act. You found out the way your attitude is, the way you answer questions. The way you give direction, and the way you treat your spouse. I know that we all have attitudes. And the longer you're married, the deeper ingrained your attitudes get. You have a tendency to take advantage of your spouse. And you might be sitting here listening to this newly married, and you say, Well, I would never do that. Well, I hate to break the news to you, but you will. And at one point treat your spouse badly because you have an attitude. You do not respect your spouse. Now, listen, I have never traveled down this road after 37 years. And if you believe that, that's a lie. We've been there, we've talked about it, and we deal with it. Lack of respect for them and the way you serve them also reveals your attitude. Let me just say this. Without a positive, godly attitude based on the word of God, your marriage will not be bulletproof. Your marriage will have a big red target on it. As a matter of fact, without a healthy attitude, you will actually sabotage your own relationship with your spouse. Not even God can help you if you have a bad attitude. And I had, why should he help you if you have a bad attitude? It's like we have told God, I'm gonna do it my way, not your way, my way. And that's just the way it's gonna be. And at that point, I feel that's where God takes his protection away from you. You see, when we do things God's way, we we do what his will is, it automatically puts protection around our family. When we treat our family with respect and we treat our spouses with the dignity that they're deserved, then God has an obligation to protect us because it's his way, it's his word, it's his covenant with us. And then he is obligated to fulfill his end of it. Much like in a marriage, when when we make a covenant with our our wives, when we ask when when the men ask a wife to marry him, we make a covenant with our wife saying that we were going to uphold these covenants, uphold this agreement between us and hold each other accountable. Well, if the other one doesn't hold up that other end of the deal, even though the other person is holding up their end of the deal, then they have broken the covenant and then there is no protection. You might sit here and say, Well, I do none of this. Well, the Bible says that do nothing out of selfishness or conceit. But with humility, consider others as more important than yourselves, looking out not only for your own interest, but also for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which are also in Messiah, Yeshua means one with God. You are one with God when you do that, but if you don't, and you act act out of selfishness and this conceit, then you're not one with God, and you are on your own, in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

You know, in the booklet, The Bulletproof Marriage, Bishop shared a story that I'm basically going to read, but it's a it's a powerful story. And he says that as a 25-year-old young man, and two years into my marriage with Sonny, I almost lost my marriage. I grew up on the stage singing on network television and ministering around the world. I was also a very successful Division I college athlete, but I allowed this to create an arrogance in me that was not good for our relationship. My wife is an incredible woman who is in love with me and would acquiesce to whatever I wanted to do, but I was condescending and took advantage of her kindness toward me. Looking back, I am stunned at how shallow I was. My attitude and behavior led her to feeling very rejected by me, so much so that it began to affect our intimacy and undermined our bond. In my emotional immaturity, I went to my pastor and told him I did not see any option for our relationship other than divorce. He was an incredibly wise man. He said to me, Duane, here are the numbers of two great divorce attorneys. I was stunned because I thought for sure he would try to talk me out of it. And then as I was walking out of the office, he said to me, Duane, let me tell you one thing. Everything you have built financially, you are going to lose. Your home, as well as other resources, will now be lost, paying attorneys, and you will have to give half of everything to your wife. But my arrogance was still strong. I said to him, No problem, I'll just make more money. His reply was, okay. He let me almost get out the door again, and he said, Oh, yes. And another thing, you have this incredible youth ministry, and they're all going to be devastated. My arrogance spoke out once again, and I quipped back. If I have to go to every one of them, I will explain why I had to do this and I will pray for them. He answered again, okay. Then as I started to walk out the office for the third time, he said to me, and one more thing. You're going to divorce Sonny, and in a couple of years, you're going to find another woman just like Sonny, but then realized the whole problem was you. It was then that the Holy Spirit broke the arrogance of my life. I went home and I repented to my wife for my behavior and asked her forgiveness. That was the beginning of our own bulletproof marriage. The truth is, I was married to the ministry, leaving Sonny unprotected from the fiery darts with which Satan intended to destroy our relationship. However, faith is an attitude that will be a shield for your marriage when these bullets come. You see, Ephesians 6:16 says, above all, take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

That's good. That's good. After you find the right person to marry, then it's time for you to continue to be the right person. Quit trying to prove each other's wrong and realize that in a covenant we're joined together. Those sayings come out of years of wisdom. So when we accuse our spouse of being wrong, or we're trying to make sure that we're heard that we're right, we're really not being joined together. We're not really working as a team. We're not even discussing truths at that point. We need to come together as a couple and we need to repent of our negative ways and think about each other and our marriage and allow God to give birth to the bulletproof marriage in our life. I want you to think about that for a second. I want you to think about the negative ways you talk and think about your wife or your marriage or your husband and your marriage. And I want you just to stop right now with your spouse and think about how you interact. A little story is I do a lot of work in other people's homes throughout the year. And there are many times where I will have both a husband and wife together, and we're trying to solve a problem that they are having. And the two are not in agreement. They're always belittling each other. And I will tell you that in my position, that is very, very difficult to be around at times.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

And those are hard jobs to do, too.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And they're very hard jobs to do, they're very hard to um follow through on because there is no unity, there's no continuity within what we're doing. And so when I think about that, God's design is that we work it out, we work it out together as a husband and wife, we work out our plans and then we make covenants. We we've already stated that we make covenants through times that are difficult. You know, if we have conflict in our marriage, we need to make a covenant to deal with these conflicts. My basis for covenants is that what God put together, let no one separate. So if there is a problem in our marriage, there's also a force working to separate us, to divide us, to stop us in our ministry, to stop us in our assignment. And I have to think, you know, well, at times I can be so upset with my spouse that I think that they're flawed, that there is a problem with them, and that they are non-fixable, if you will. They they can't be repaired. And I have to remember that God doesn't make junk. He does not make junk, and that what God has made is perfect and wonderful. And it was and and my spouse was made for me. And I may not like the way my spouse operates, I may not like the way uh Liz says things or does things to me. Okay. So there's my opportunity to sit down with her and find a solution to our problem. I just laid it out and it sounds really simple. It sounds like cakewalk. No, it's not. Why? Your pride will get in the way. You won't want to. You won't want to sit down and talk to them because you are right and they're wrong. And so, therefore, we go back to why are you trying to prove yourself right? Okay, so it's a vicious cycle. And again, I'll ask you to talk about it, think about it, because it is a real factor in marriage. It's just a word of encouragement. It's time to refocus on your relationship, it's time to focus on what you fell in love with. What drew you to your spouse? What is that area that you just couldn't live without? What was it that drove you to say, will you or I do? You see, that's the glue that God intended to hold you together, and that is the most important thing to protect.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

You know, we definitely have to recognize our real enemy. Um, every day we're married, the enemy tries to infuse our mind with toxic ideas, fears, lies that can be very harmful to our relationships. You know, perhaps your mate said something, kind of going along with what you were just saying, said something that hit you the wrong way and you got offended. Or maybe you got upset because something was discussed together, but your spouse didn't carry out what was agreed upon. Possibly this has happened more than once. And one partner begins to feel helpless. Damaging thoughts can begin very subtly, but if allowed to remain and take root, they become major areas in our relationship. So if you're married, you probably need a marriage detox, both in the natural and in the spiritual. This is the second portion of our sharing today about the marriage detox. But the Bible says first the natural, then the spiritual. And in 1 Corinthians 15, 46, Paul explains one of the most consistent divine patterns in scripture. The spiritual is not first, but the natural and afterward the spiritual. So this approach is something for us to look at, and this will accelerate the marriage detox. So in the natural, we know what detoxification is, or detox for short, but what it is technically is it's the physiological or medicinal removal of toxic substances from our bodies, from a living organism, mainly carried out through the liver. Okay. So when you go through a detox program for your body, there are reactions as you flush out those unwanted toxins that are breaking down. Your body's just reacting. If these toxins are not eliminated, it often opens the door to more illness and disease. So while the detox process retrains your body to that which is healthy, how do we often feel? Has anybody done a detox? I mean, if you've done a detox, it's hard. I mean, you you you have no energy, you can feel horrible. Why? Because you're no longer feeding the unhealthy things that it craves. Your body's like in revolt, it's it's having a revolution with you, you know. But it's like, hey, I need that caffeine, hey, I need that sugar, I need all that. And you start cutting that out, and you're gonna be depleted of energy, you might have headaches. All of these things begin to go on when you're actually on a path to healthiness. So uh sometimes people can even get nauseous or even delirium can come in as your body adjusts to what? To being healthy again. I remember we used to do a chicken soup detox up in Tennessee. It was a winter detox uh that I picked up from Dr. Jordan Rubin, and it was very good. But the wonder detox was a soup. And so, I mean, you used organic chickens, you put all the organic vegetables and the broths and all of this together, all these things that were meant to help detoxify and also build up your body. And so the thing is with that detox, you ate it for breakfast, you ate it for lunch, and that was your dinner. For like, I forget how many days it was, but I'm telling you, it was it was too long for Gil, it was much too long. Um, I think we might have been allowed to have maybe like a salad or something at night or something, I don't know, but it was it was a pretty strict detox, and it that was for a period of days. And the thing is, though, is it worked, it worked, it did cleanse your body. You know, you're not giving it something, but you're giving it something that it really needs, and so it is with a marriage detox. The Holy Spirit is like the liver in the human body. The Holy Spirit filters out toxins that the enemy has planted in your marriage, but you must allow him to be your filter as you give him permission to search your heart and your thoughts, he will reveal harmful habits, wrong thinking, bad attitudes, toxic reactions that may have gained a place between you and your spouse. Amen. So changing attitudes from bad to good is critical.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yes, it is. And I'm just saying, you know, when you are hurt by someone, your attitude is paramount to your healing. I know that sometimes it's very difficult to change your attitude, it's very difficult to come out of being hurt and changing it to a place of restoration. Now, I'm not gonna tell you it's easy, I'm not gonna tell you that you're doing it all wrong. I'm just saying that there's a time where you have to really work at changing your attitude of the situation. It doesn't matter if it's in your family or your surroundings, church life, work life doesn't matter. Even if you're going down the road and you get pulled over by a police officer, your attitude is everything. Okay, you have to recognize that you might be the problem. You might have to change your attitude.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

You know, that just reminded me of a story I heard Joyce Meyer tell years ago, and she was uh she was laying on the floor and she was praying, Lord, you've got to change Dave, her husband. You've got to change him. And so she's just pouring out her prayers for Dave. And the Holy Spirit said back to her, he said, but he's not the problem. And she goes, Well, then who the heck is? She couldn't see that the Holy Spirit was trying to tell her, You're the problem. But she was just so um ingrained that he was a problem, she couldn't see that she was a problem. But she realized it after he told her that a couple times. Who's the problem? Then who's the problem? And he goes, You are.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

So that's that's funny. Because we all come into that place at some point in time. We're the problem. And we just refuse to see it. But God's not true. But God gives us a way to see things that we don't see now. Um, you'll find in the fifth chapter of Matthew that Jesus is trying to help people detox the way they think and how they perceive or process life issues.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Jesus was giving us the tools to change. You see, when the word of God renews your mind and behavior, marriage detox allows you to create an atmosphere where your relationship can thrive and not be destroyed.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Amen. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

It can be so simple, and so many times we have uh our preconceived ideas and how to fix things.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

You know, if we can back in that scripture of Philippians 2 that you shared in the very beginning, we have to get this inside of our hearts. Do nothing out of selfishness or conceit, but with humility, consider the other more important than yourself. If we could just live right there, just live right there. Do nothing out of selfishness or conceit. That would mean we're always thinking about that other person. That would mean we want to say something the wrong way, you know. Um, but Paul's really exhorting us here. Don't look out only for your own interest. I know with you and me, strife comes in if I start to get selfish, or if you start to get selfish and we can only see things one way. It's just no, this is the way I see it. And so we're not open to hearing what the other person says. But this was the attitude that was in Jesus. And you were going to start talking on the Sermon on the Mount a little bit, but that was the attitude that Christ Jesus had, and he's asking us to pick up that same attitude, and he's telling us how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Wow, that's true, that's good. You know, when we read the uh scripture in Matthew in the fifth chapter, third verse through the twelfth verse, he begins to show us the flip side of everything that we're going through. Like blessed in the poor, blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It shows us there's a different way of looking at things. You know, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Okay. So Christ is always there to comfort us, even if we're in sorrow, he's there for us. We're never left alone, never to be forsaken. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. I think that that speaks of someone who is quietly in control. And uh, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied. You know, I especially in the day we live in, you're always looking for righteousness, the will of God. And God says, You'll be satisfied, you'll find it. It's coming. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. I see more examples of people being merciful to others, more so in the days that we're in today than before, even though there is much evil out there. I watched a man yesterday help another elderly gentleman load up the back of his truck with some heavy articles, you know, supplies. And I know that going through those motions and helping someone else brings joy and peace into your life. And that form of mercy will be shown back to them at some point. Remember the movement called Paying It Forward. Well, it's kind of like that. It's you know, God will pay it forward, mercy will be there. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Well, if your attitude is not right, he's gonna be hidden from you. And blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But I've experienced that particular part of the scripture. You know, I I've seen it happen. I've seen the hand of God move in in those type of situations. Blessed are we, because we're going to see the hand of God move in our life. So our bad habits open areas where we're vulnerable for attacks from the enemy, and you become an easy target because of these bad habits, these bad attitudes and things. You open yourselves up. It's kind of like you're in a firefight instead of hiding behind or ducking down in a safe place, you're standing up in the line of fire. It's a bad thing to do. You know, if you stand up in the middle of a firefight and say, I'm I'm invincible without being protected, you're gonna get hit. Going through this marriage detox process is critical to experiencing a bulletproof marriage. I think the operative word is process. We have a saying in our company, we need to trust the process.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And so when we are going through detox, we need to trust the process. And most importantly, don't give up on it. Don't give up on the process. Okay, because the attacks will come to our marriages, and God is our protector.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Yes, he is.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

God will protect us. Here's a key for you the covenant shared in this book will not only give you the ability to defeat the enemy when he attacks your marriage, but he will also set precedent where your marriage is off limits. Your marriage will be off limits. I want you to hear that. Off limits to the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Your enemy will not be able to touch you. It's like he can't reach you, he can't get to you. The marriage detox never stops. I think after 37 years, I'm realizing that the older we get, the more we need to really pay attention to detoxing our marriage. Because we can be so familiar with one another. We can be so we're doing life together, and just to do life together, we'll put aside things in our relationship that irritate us and not deal with it because we're doing life. We're moving at such a fast pace, even today, that little things will just kind of ride over. But God says, No, I want you to get rid of those little tiny things. Liz said just recently, it's the little foxes that destroy the vines. And it's the little things that destroy the marriage, it's the little things that build up. And I never forget my father used to say, Listen, when you get married, don't get all bent out of shape on which side of the toothpaste your wife squeezes from. Don't be upset that she might squeeze it from the front and you squeeze it from the back, and it might irritate you to no end, but it says it's not worth it. And it's kind of funny. I think about it now. I have my tube of toothpaste, and Liz has her tube of toothpaste.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah, we solved that one.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

We solved that problem. And it wasn't really a problem, but we we moved to the point where we're not gonna we're not gonna allow this to be a point of irritation in us, where yeah, she has her tube and I have my tube, and it works out wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

We should implement that in other areas.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Well, we did. I got my own books. Yeah, you have your books, I have my books. Whether they might be the same book, but I would you have yours and I have mine. And so work those things out. That it the detox never stops, it never ends. Always detox, always get rid of those things. As soon as you remove a harmful toxin, the enemy tries to slip in and bring in others.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

He's always trying to slip us up, he's always trying to create division in our lives. So it's not about going through marriage detox one time. Once you've gone through detox, you must maintain a healthy marriage. Nothing promotes this more than allowing the word of God to be living and active in your marriage every day. On the Mount of Temptation, Jesus was viciously attacked by Satan. But Satan tried to manipulate the word to try to defeat Jesus and his mission. He tried to twist the word of God to destroy Jesus. But three powerful responses where Jesus spoke the accurate meaning of the words which Satan had twisted that proved he was bulletproof.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

So I'll have to go right back to the statement where we need to hear and read and study the word of God so that we can stand against the wiles of the enemy. We have to renew our mind and our thinking by the word of God so that we can stand and defeat the works of the enemy. Satan left in defeat. This same response should be every marriage's strategy to the enemy's attack when they come.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Amen. That's so good. So that's the marriage detox. It's just getting before the Lord, getting in some quiet time, and asking him to reveal any wrong ideas, any wrong attitudes that we may have and repent of them. Right now, we would just love to close in a very short word of prayer and with all who are listening. So let's join our hearts together. Father, we just thank you for this time together sharing your word. Father, we thank you for your word because your word is victory. Jesus, you said if we know the truth, it will set us free. So, Father, today, maybe you've uh spoken something to someone's heart. And I know, Lord, you've you've spoken things into my heart. Father, we repent. We want to repent from wrong attitudes. Lord, we want to repent from wrong ideas. Father, forgive us for allowing them to come in, but also to stay. And Father, we just pray that every wrong attitude, every wrong idea or every lie and every fear that the enemy has put up in our minds, we take authority over it right now in Jesus' name and we command it to go. And Father, we just ask that the power of your Holy Spirit, the power of your Holy Spirit would continue to bring truth and revelation into each heart and mind and spirit, into each spouse, into each marriage, listening, Father, that there would be victory. And Lord, we ask you for forgiveness for all these things that we could have allowed in. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the idea that, yes, Lord, we can detox our marriage. Father, we want to repent of the negative ways we might have been thinking about each other. And Lord, to repent, that means, Father, we're willing to take responsibility for what our part could have been in it. Lord, we're not just shifting blame to somebody else. No, Lord, we're saying, hey, I had a part to play in this. And Father, I repent of that before you today. Lord, we just break together the spirit of division and lies over relationships. We pray for a washing of the blood of Jesus over every marriage that is represented and listening, and Father, that you would touch them with the cleansing blood of Jesus. And that where there's been strife, Father, there can be peace. And where there has been anger, there can be love. We speak it forth and we pray a oneness and a power within them in Jesus' mighty name. And we said together, Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for listening. We're so blessed to have you share this time with us. We're looking forward to next week as we continue going deeper and diving into more topics that are very real and relevant. We're looking forward to next week as we keep going deeper, diving into topics that are real and relevant that will impact and touch your relationship every day. So we appreciate you. And again, we'd love to hear from you if anything we said God used to speak to you in some way. Send us an email, let us know what He's spoken to your life. The email link is in the show notes. So follow us, share the show with a family or friend who really needs to hear it. You know, you never know what could turn a situation around. Until next time, God bless.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, be sure to subscribe. Click the share button, and take a screenshot and share it on your social media pages. Tag us at thefather's house T T and visit us at tfhd.org for more information. A blessing.