Married couples,
Do you want to know victory?
Fight your battles back to back, not facing each other. Even better, take this stance and renew your invitation of the LORD God Almighty into your married life — as a strong, binding reminder of your covenant and His power.
Let’s look at today’s scripture and then dig in together:
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NLT
How many of us are foolishly standing alone, facing others with our unreasonable expectations of their meeting “our standards”? How many of us use this very thing as the basis for justifying our own falling short of how we know we should be serving and loving one another?
You see, many of us are confused about who the enemy really is. Many of us would rather battle against the person we see in front of us — who can take all of our pouring out of the stress, anxiety, bitterness, unforgiveness, etc that we have let pile up inside of us — instead of standing together, back to back, against the one pouring all of that filth into us in the first place.
But we have to open our eyes to what really needs to be seen. We must see with discerning eyes what is really taking place in the heart and where the real battle is being waged. We must see that the enemy is not our spouse, but the enemy is the one who would tear down, steal and destroy if we would allow it.
And this destruction isn’t possible where there is the triple-braided cord. Defeat doesn’t come easy when a victorious couple is back to back against the real enemy. But divided and alone — opposing one another — confused about who the real enemy is — proudly standing upon our expectations of “what I deserve” and “what they should be doing” — that’s exactly where the real enemy wants us standing.
I pray that we don’t hear this warning from Ecclesiastes as a heartfelt reminder of our wedding ceremony nearly as much as we hear it as a wake up call for the battle that lies ahead. Not as a frightening and foreboding expectation of defeat, but as a promise of victory when we recognize the true enemy and prepare ourselves — as a call to arms for those who will be bound together as one in Christ in Spirit and in Truth.
So do not deny Truth. Do not walk according to the lies of the enemy. See the Truth in the Word of God, and choose today who you will resist, who you will follow, who is your friend and who is your enemy. Amen.
Harold J. Ballinger 