How To Make Your Marriage Last

It has been my experience that Satan will do anything he can do to destroy the sanctity of marriage, which was created by God. Satan is there to seek and destroy what is meant to be beautiful. (1 Peter 5:8, John 10:10) Marriage can feel like an inescapable trap for some… that is where I was about 4 years into my marriage… hopeless, helpless and miserable. I didn’t see any way out. I began to contemplate the ‘D’ word. It was at that time that I began to realize that marriage was not meant to be this way. Marriage, according to God, is meant to be a wonderful, comforting, loving thing. For those who have discovered the secret it is just that. Right now you are probably wondering what this big secret is. I’ll tell you, I promise… But you must promise to listen very carefully.

It is altogether simple and devastatingly difficult… Here it is:

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5 Ways Self Control Builds Maturity

Attaining and maintaining a high level of maturity may be one of the hardest things we ever experience in our lives. Two years ago, I had no idea what real maturity in life and in Christ meant, but with a name given to me from God like Manturity, I knew the truth would soon be revealed to me.

I've recently been re-reading through most of the New Testament. This time I'm heading through it, well, backwards; so much for self control. Don't ask me why I chose to do it this way, but regardless; I have been able to pull out some powerful information. As many of us know, Paul, Peter and the author of Hebrews lead the way with the teachings on the topic of maturity. There inspiration, of course, is the life and example of Jesus. They don't really use the actual word "mature" to often, but if you have a heart to hear the many teachings, then all of that seems to come out it is the idea of maturity in our Christian life. So without rambling too much, here are "5 Ways Self Control Builds Maturity" in a man. 

1) Our Enemy is ready, are you?

1 Peter 5:8, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." I have used this verse in the past and will continue to use it because it is TRUE and it is POWERFUL. Peter is giving the elders and the young men instructions on how to live our lives. Peter quickly goes over the elders training and jumps right into the training of young men. The teaching of self control in this verse is relevant today, because it is very obvious that there is an enemy lurking and waiting to attack. The enemy loves to attack when you are most vulnerable; tired, angry, sick, emotional, frustrated, etc. The enemy knows where you are weak and will attack at the first signs of weakness. Stand Firm!

2) Learn how to tame your tongue!

Titus 2:6, "Similarly, Encourage the young men to be self controlled." Paul is giving Titus specific instructions on how to teach the various groups. When Paul speaks about the young men, the first thing he talks about is self control. His more direct teaching after this verse deals with speaking with integrity, showing seriousness and soundness in speech. Paul's reasoning for this good speech was so that anyone who heard Titus would leave him and not condemn him, they would have nothing bad to say about him. We must also pursue this type of sound speech as we learn and grow in our walk with Christ. This must be when we are at work, with friends, with our family and to our wives! Speak Firmly!

3) Wake up! It's time to fight!

1 Thessalonians 5:8, "Let us be self controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet." Do you know why the breastplate was so important? The breastplate was worn to protect a soldier's vital organs and without it he was as good as dead! The same can be said for us, unless we are wearing our breastplate of righteousness, we leave ourselves open for attack and fatal injury. Guard your heart! The helmet also plays a major role in keeping a soldier safe and does the same for us by keeping the enemy out of our head. A well built helmet of salvation must be worn to keep out the evil thoughts and the false feelings of this world! Wear your armor daily!

4) Learn to live with maturity!

2 Peter 1:5-7, "Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self control; and to self control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love." Paul gives a wonderful example of godly living in these verses. Self control falls right in the middle of all of these qualities. I can agree that there is a learning curve that comes before understanding self control and there are apparently many things to come after self control. Paul goes on to teach us that if we can live according to these things, we will be effective and produce great works for Christ. Make every effort and be eager gentlemen!

5) Be self controlled, no matter what!

Philippians 1:27, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ." This was the only verse I chose without the actual words "self controlled", but I thought it brought the entire post home. Paul is writing to the people of Philippi while still in chains. His hope was that whether he was able to see them again or not, they would stand firm in their walk with Christ. This verse does not leave any room for excuses. In all things and in all situations gentlemen, we are to present an attitude and manner worthy of Christ. I think we all need to pray for strength on this one. It starts with prayer and consistency!

We must learn to be men, who not only talk with maturity,

but learn to walk with maturity.

Share how God has taught or shown you maturity in your life in the comments below.

5 Reasons to Write Your Wife a Love Letter

Men, I have been writing my wife a weekly love letter for more than a year. That’s not a sentence I would have ever expected to write about myself. I am not a man of outward sentimentality, and I very rarely make my emotions known. Most people would call me calm and hard to read.

But, men, what I learned is this: as good as it can be for me to remain solid and calm in the storms of life, my wife needs something more. My wife needs to be loved, and she wants to be romanced. I learned after a year of marriage that it wasn’t enough to just show up, and I couldn’t stop with just providing a paycheck. I needed to do more to show my wife how much I love her.

And I don’t think I am alone. I bet that your wives also want to be loved and hear from your heart. They want to know just how deeply you love them.

I am not going to push you all to start writing a weekly blog to your wife. Instead, I want to encourage you to start small. All I want you to do is this: I want you to write a short, handwritten letter to your wife today, right now. Think of one thing about her or one thing she does that makes you thankful to have married her. Write it down and give her that note. Let her know you love and appreciate her.

In case you aren’t already convinced about writing that love note, let me offer you
Five Reasons why you should be writing love notes to your wife.

1) You will fan the flames of love in your marriage.

Gary Chapman famously explained the concept of LoveLanguages, and the first language he describes in book is Words of Affirmation. For many women, they feel most loved when they are spoken to kindly, when they are praised, and when they are otherwise wooed with your words. Your wife will know she is loved when she reads that short note from you.

Go ahead and write a short love note now. Just put down two sentences about one thing you like about your wife. Now leave the note on your wife’s bedside table. Just trust me on this one.

2) The smartest man in the world gave his wife love notes.

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Strength in a Husband's Love

Love is a sign of weakness and also a sign of vulnerability. According to whom you might ask? My answer would be culture and the world's views. How can you show your strength in your marriage by simply loving? How can you effectively lead your wife if you are perceived as weak and powerless? I get it men because I was there and I lived in my marriage according to this mindset and all it did was fail. In fact, I almost failed it twice.

Do you recall when you first felt love for your wife? The moment may have come after your first kiss or maybe after realizing you couldn't live without her for another day. The words came out of your mouth, I Love You, and something like a fire was born inside of you. A desire and passion was now alive in your heart and all you wanted was more of this love. But as time passed, the passion may have faded or the feeling of being weak in this love arose inside of you. Why? I finally realized that my personal problem was my sources and, quite frankly, you could also have the same source problem.

Since the culture and this world couldn't give me that answers I needed, I decided that I must look for answers in other places. My new source became a source I had known for my entire life, but I had never given him an honest chance. The name of this source is Jesus.

Men, please don't click off this page or doubt my words, you must remember at this point that all other options have been exhausted as they were for me, that maybe you are not happy in your marriage or you just want to make your marriage stronger.


Where is your Bible? Find it and start with the Book of Ephesians. Ephesians 5:25 states, "husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it". Ephesians 5:28 states, "so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife, loves himself". Jesus Christ showed us the ultimate example of love when he sacrificed his own body for us. He was willing to put aside his pride, to set aside his doubt and fear, and allow God to do as needed with him. Are you willing to do this in your marriage?

How often do we put our pride in the way of our marriage or our love for our wives? How much are we willing to sacrifice in order to show her the love she needs? How many times have we embarrassed our wives in order to make us or our friends look good? How can we continue to do this men? We must rely on the proper source.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 4-7)

Men, I pray that whatever stage your marriage is in or is headed that you keep the emotion of Love alive! Love almost always requires us to do things that are out of our "normal" nature, but in the end we will come away stronger and a better man and husband. You may not believe me now, but if you're man enough to give Christ a chance, I know you will not regret it. Do not wait another day to love your wife differently, to engage her faithfully and to seek God daily for guidance and direction. You can do it.


As I am a young man on the topic of love, please feel free to share your thoughts or actual events that have confirmed the strength of love in your marriage!

10 Things I Have Learned from Fatherhood

As a new father of only 5 months, I have already come to learn the value and necessity of having a son in my life. Before he was born I thought that I had life all figured out. I was told by some of my close friends that life would change, but not having gone though it yet, I thought they were just trying to scare me. I was wrong.

At first it appeared life had changed for the worse; walking up in the middle of the night over and over again, a crying baby that I had no idea how to help and a sometimes frustrated wife that didn't want my help. I thought to myself, "What did I get myself into?". As time passed, my wife and I continued to work together and we were soon lean, mean, baby problem solving machines. Well, maybe not quite that...

In the aftermath of my wonderful first Father's Day, I came up with my top 10 things I have learned from Fatherhood, or top 10 things I have improved on in my life. Word it however you like.

1) Love My parents taught me about love, my wife showed me how to love, but my son has taught me about the strong bond of love. When it took months for me to realize I loved my wife, it took "first sight" to love my son. My love continues to grow for him each day and I pray daily that God would help me maintain that love for him and my wife. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

2) Value of Time  I can't count the times people have asked if the baby was sleeping well or if we've slept at all in the last week. I also wonder what my wife and I did with our time before we had our little guy. From late nights, to early mornings, to staying at home a lot more, I have learned that my time is passing and I want to spend it loving my wife and son to the best of my ability. It's a daily prayer to make sure I am not overly distracted.

3) Necessity of Patience  I really like to think that I was a patient man before our little guy, but after about a month of frustrating occurrences and small battles with my wife, I had to dig real deep and pray for more patience. God is always good and has helped me to become a more patient man. And don't think this is just at home, this patience shines in all that I do now. (Galatians 5:22-23)

4) Great Communication with my Wife  My wife and I were fortunate to be blessed with over 5 years of marriage before our son arrived. Through many ups and downs we were able to establish a strong sense of communication with each other. We discussed many times before our son was born that we were going to have to take this to the next level and we have. My wife is a wonderful mother to our son and we pray daily that God would help us be the very best parents we can be for our son.
(Ephesians 5:22-25)

5) Strong Protector  Being the protector of my family already fell into my role when I became married to my beautiful wife, but with a son, it has become an even stronger trait that I try to possess. From making sure he stays safe and comfortable at home, to making sure he is properly fed and spending quality time with him when I am home. I want my wife and him to know that they are in safe hands and that I will do everything to protect them. I pray daily, especially when I leave them alone, that God would protect our family. (Philippians 4:13)

6) Selflessness  Everyone one of us can admit that we were selfish and self indulged before a child came into our life. The weekends revolved around the wife and I, the dogs were no trouble when thrown in the kennel and we did what we pleased with our time. These days our schedule revolves around our little guy, and because of our deep love for him, this is not a problem and we are glad to it. This might be one that I need to pray about more. (James 4:6)

7) I am Blessed  Knowing that I have a great wife and a happy son, I am fully aware that I am blessed. As I seek prayer in each of the areas listed in this top 10, I make sure that I let God know how thankful I am for what he has blessed me with in my life. I have to stay aware that all of this could change at any moment and that I must continue to seek and rely on my God.

8) Teamwork (wife, family, friends)  As the time approached to have our baby, we knew we were going to need the support of friends and family. God has blessed us with some amazing people from our Church in our life and they were more than willing to help us out. I suppose through this, I learned to put a bigger value on their friendship and do a better job at making myself available and honor the relationship more consistently.

9) Fatherly Maturity  The story of Manturity continues to progress as I add the role of fatherhood to my life resume. The last few years have taught me the value and strength of having God in my life and maintaining a strong and healthy marriage, but fatherhood makes me want to know more about maturity. I firmly believe every man must mature and the path is very similar for all men. I pray that I can be the mature father my son needs me to be. (Proverbs 22:6)

10) God's Love  Our Church recently ran a series about God's love and I think it came at the perfect time in my life. As I could feel that I loved my wife and son more, I still wanted to know more about God's love and what it meant in my life. The verse at the end says that God is love and we must love as well if we are to know God. I can't say everything about this verse now, but knowing that God commands us to love makes me want to be a better man, greater husband and stronger father! (1 John 4:8)

Gents, I have only been at this for 5 months!

I would love to hear what fatherhood has taught you over your years. Share in the comments below!

Why Men Need Accountability

I have come to learn that accountability among men is a two way street. On the one side, we need to have accountability as individuals or for ourselves and on the other side we need to be an accountability partner to other men. Although these roles are very different, they are both very much needed in our lives.

When we break it down, accountability is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. When carefully read, we can see that accountability is something that you are willing to do or you feel obligated to do. After a couple years of having accountability partners in my life, I can honestly say it is much easier to be willing to do this then to feel obligated. Obligation will always make you hold back some of your stronger feelings and your time will be wasted in the end. Men must become willing to be held accountable and accept full responsibility for their actions. 


Why is it important to be held accountable?

From my own experience, I have found accountability in my life to be a blessing rather then a curse. When you are able to open up and be honest with another man of God, you will learn that he understands you or has gone through similar problems in his life. God teaches us an effective lesson in the book of 1 Peter that says, "Resist Him (the enemy), standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." -1 Peter 5:9 

This verse always gives me hope, but also makes me want to work harder in my walk with Christ. It allows me to remove signs of selfishness and, again, be more open to sharing my heart, fears and struggles with other men.

Why is it important to hold other men accountable?

Shortly after I found a man to hold me accountable, God showed me a struggling young man in my life that also needed accountability through me. At the time I didn't understand why God was doing this, but I have now learned and come to understand the value it had and still has in my life. It is clear in our culture that men are dying, spiritually, and a lot of it has to do with the pressures of this world. Most men are not willing to talk or share their feelings and that is why we must have a heart to pursue these men. We must learn to love them the way Christ showed love to his disciples. When reading through Hebrews we get a good idea of what holding other men accountable should look like; "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - all the more as you can see the Day approaching." -Hebrews 10:24-25

Be strong. Be responsible. Be accountable.

So do you think men need accountability in their lives? 

Why or why not?

5 Daily Challenges for Men

I know what you're thinking, but it's not what you think. Most of us already feel like we have enough on our daily plate so why would we want to be challenged even more? The answer is simple, among all of the chaos of work and family during each day, we must find a way to be challenged in our walk with Christ. Although Sunday service is a great experience and necessary in our Christian walk, we must pursue our walk with Christ the rest of the days of the week.

I have come to believe that this process of being challenged in Christ has to become a desire. It has to become something you almost crave each day, and if you miss any challenges, you feel like you have suffered a loss and not done your proper duties. If it is made a desire in your life, you WILL find the time.

Here are five of my personal challenges that I make myself face each day. Do I have to do these? No, but I do them because I want to be respected among my peers, disciplined in my walk with Christ and because I do not want to allow work and chaos to control my life.


1) Discussion With God. This process can also be called prayer but I like to refer to it as discussion. This could be turning off the radio show on the way to work and talking to him, it could be after a frustrating talk with a co-worker or anytime you have a moment. This time does not have to be fancy, but it must be pursued and must be intentional.

2) Personal Quote. This has become one of my favorite things to do throughout the day. For any of you who follow the Manturity Facebook or Twitter, you will see many of my personal quotes. These are simply born out of situations throughout the day, after discussions with God on subjects or whatever is on my heart. Keep a journal of your thoughts and quotes or post them on your social media as well. This simple, but effective process will make you think on a deeper level and test your knowledge.

3) Attitude of Love and Respect. The first two challenges can happen at any time, but this one really requires a man to take things to the next level. Don't allow yourself to get caught up in hurtful conversations, don't encourage wrong doings and don't allow the negative influences around you bring you down. Your center, your core should be built on Christ and your daily attitude should reflect it whether you are at work or home.

4) Uplift Someone. An unselfish man of God should be able to recognize when someone is in need. Take those opportunities to show the love of Christ and give them some words of encouragement. Maybe you work with someone who does a great job day in and day out? Make it a point to thank them for there diligence and service. You might be surprised what will happen after you take that initiative.

5) Take A Quiet Break. It's not hard to believe that in this busy world one of the hardest things for a man to do is to just take a break. The best ways I have found to do this is to take a walk by myself at lunch, find a bench at lunch and relax or find some alone time when you get home. Even if it's a half an hour or fifteen minutes, this time can be very fruitful to a busy man. Think about Jesus and all the times he would disappear from the disciples or the crowds and just pray. This was no mistake and we should follow his example. Forget about work and the daily struggles and just relax.


This is by no means a complete list. Share some ways or some things that you like to challenge yourself with everyday!