From Fizzle to Sizzle

How a relationship deteriorates

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How a relationship is restored

Rev. 2:4-5 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.

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Key Truth: What you did to fall in love, you must to do to stay in love.

1. Focus your

Philip. 2:4-5 NCV Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others. In your lives you must think and act like Christ Jesus.

The # 1 enemy of romance is a .

2. Verbalize your .

1 Thes. 5:11 NJB So give encouragement to each other, and keep strengthening one another, as you do already.

Use your words to each other.

Romans 12:10 LB Love each other with brotherly affection and take delight in honoring each other.

3. Lavish on each other.

Ephes. 5:25 & 28 Msg Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. 28And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.

Women want affection.

Appearance .

Feelings follow , you can act your way to a feeling quicker than you can your way to an action.

4. Revitalize your .

Eccles. 9:9a NIV …Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love,.

1 Tim. 6:17 NIV Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Are you to live with?

5. Reaffirm your . Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In God’s eyes, Marriage is a , not a contract.