With divorce and troubled marriages on every hand, I asked the Lord one day, "OK Lord, just how would you counsel people who are having trouble in their marriage?" As I meditated on the Word in light of this question, this message was born.
    Marriage counselors can be expensive. The world's best Counselor is free. He doesn't cost you a cent. And He is right every time, giving the advice that will bring a sure solution to the problem--IF you will follow His instructions. The Counselor is the Lord Jesus Christ, as given to us through His Word, the Bible, and through the person of the Holy Spirit. So, we want to sit down and visit with Jesus, "The Counselor"(Isa.9.6).
    You will be helped, if you will do what "The Counselor" tells you to do. You are sure to find your solution if you both come to Him agreeing on this one point: "Not my will be done, not your will be done, but God's will be done in our lives." This is the foundation for the real solution in a husband/wife relationship, for a healthy, happy, harmonious, marriage for the rest of your life. The will of God is found in the Word of God, in the Spirit of God, and in your choice and commitment to God.

The First Thing
    The first thing that is the will of God for each of your lives is that you know you are truly born again. Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (Jn.3.3). The kingdom of God is not "meat and drink" or life in the natural realm, but it is an inner spiritual life, consisting of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom.14.17).
    When you are born again, or born of the Spirit, your nature is changed by the power of God. The sin nature is taken away and the nature of God, the nature of love and righteousness is placed within a person. Emptiness and unrest is replaced with peace. Sadness, hopelessness, and depression is replaced with joy as we are filled with and live in the power of the Holy Spirit. In our inner man, hatred and prejudice is replaced with love and acceptance of others. By reading the Word, especially the New Testament epistles, our minds are renewed to this for us to walk in it.
     The Bible tells us that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us (Rom.5.5). God is love (1Jn.4.16). The nature of God is love. When we are spiritually born of God, we have His love nature in us. When we live our life according to the love nature of God in us, we always seek the other person's good and well-being. Love fulfills the ten commandments in our life. Natural love can be very selfish. God's love is not selfish. It always seeks to give good things to the other. With each person having this nature, peace and harmony is a natural result. This love never fails. It will make a successful marriage (Read the love chapter, 1Cor.13, and Eph.5.17-33).
    "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2Cor.5.17). When two people come to Christ together, all sins, mistakes, hurts, ill feelings--old things are taken away by the fact that we were crucified with Jesus; our old man was nailed to the cross in death with Him. By faith, we identify with Him, and account ourselves to be dead indeed to sin and alive to God through our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.6.1-7). We choose to lay each of our lives down to Jesus, and we choose to walk in the light of His Word. This is each person doing the will of God.
    By doing this, we live in the kingdom of God in which there is forgiveness, forgetting the past, love, joy, peace, healing, reconciliation, overcoming faults and failures, and changing of life-styles and thought patterns that are not righteous and good for each other and the family as a whole. God's desire for us is to live in a heaven on earth (Deut.11.21), and this is the first step in that direction--each person being truly born again.
    How are you truly born again? Read these scriptures out loud, and ask yourself what they say. Rom. 3.23;  Rom. 6.23;  Jn.3.3;  Jn. 14.6;  2Cor.5.15;  Rom. 10.9-13;  Rev.3.20.
    Why did Jesus die on the cross? Read Jn. 3.14-16;  Num. 21.9. The people of Israel had sinned and they were being bitten by serpents and dying. God told Moses to make a brass serpent and put it up on a pole. When the people just looked at that brass serpent up on a pole, they were healed of the snake bite. Jesus used this Bible illustration to explain to Nicodemus, a very righteous, law- keeping, religious man, how to be born again. In the light of your sin, you just look to Jesus, who hung on the cross for your sin. The moment you do, you are born again. There are no religious works of any kind required. You just look to Jesus alone for your eternal salvation initially, and for the rest of your life. This is why Jesus died on the cross--so you could have eternal life.
      When you understand your sinful, "snakebitten" condition, and you see Jesus, who became sin for you, and hung on the pole for you, and was raised from the dead, victorious over sin and death, and you call upon His name, and confess Him as your Lord, you are born again at that moment (Rom. 10.9-13).
    You can both choose to be born again, right now. Perhaps some of the Israelites chose not to face their sin by looking up at the serpent on the pole. They died in their sin--snakebit! But some admitted that they needed help, and they were willing to face their guilt. They chose to look at the representative of their sin that hung on the pole. The moment they did, they were healed, set free! You can look to Jesus right now and be born again. Your life can be healed and made whole. He became sin for you (2Cor.5.21).  It is God's will for you to be born again, right now. The choice is yours. (Then identify with Him by baptism in water and join a Bible-believing, Jesus-preaching, Spirit-filled church.)

The Second Thing
    The second thing that is the will of God for each of your lives is that you each be baptized in the Holy Spirit just like they were in the Bible.
    The baptism in the Holy Spirit is simply welcoming and receiving the person of the Holy Spirit into your life as your Helper, Guide, Counselor, and Power of God. It is by choice that a person is baptized in and yields to the Holy Spirit.
    When you ask for and yield to the Holy Spirit, it is like turning a water faucet on--there is a release of what is on the inside, so that it is manifested on the outside. When you turn a water faucet on, you get water "on" you. When you choose to welcome, receive, and yield to the Holy Spirit who is "in" you, He will get "on" you in supernatural power.
    By this supernatural power you can choose to speak in "tongues", a language that the Holy Spirit will give. This is for personal "edification" or spiritual strengthening, for prayer purposes, and for use in worshipping God. He will also give "prophecy" which is for spiritual strengthening of the church (1Cor.14).
    There are also other manifestations or "gifts" of the Spirit that is to help you to have deliverance and harmony in your home. They are also for the purpose of the work of the ministry of preaching the gospel to all nations. These "gifts" are named in 1Cor.12.7-11. They operate as the Spirit wills according to your faith (Rom.12.3-8).
    In the marriage relationship, you can receive great help by trusting in and drawing from the Holy Spirit. Here is a key prayer that should be exercised anytime there is conflict in your relationship: "Holy Spirit, let your gifts operate and bring deliverance. Thank you for it in Jesus' name." Then, be open for His wisdom and knowledge to operate to reveal the root cause, the source, of the conflict. When He reveals it, be quick to repent, to admit any guilt, and to trust God to fulfill His Word and His way in your life. He will always bring deliverance, peace, and understanding. If you always choose to cooperate with Him, you will always obtain peace in the face of conflict.
    How are you baptized in the Holy Spirit? Paul made a point to the Galations that you receive the Holy Spirit by simply hearing what the Word says and believing it, and that it is not by any good works that we do. He went on to explain that Christ did the work for us, so that as we hear what is available to us, we can believe the Word and receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal.3.1-6). So, what does the Word say?
    Read these scriptures out loud and ask yourself what they say.
Jn.1.29,33;  Jn.7.37-39;  Lk.24.49;  Acts 1.4,5,8;  2.1-4;  8.12,14-17;  9.17;  10.44-47;  19.1-6;  Lk.11.11-13. Now do what the Word says to do in Lk.11.13. You choose to ask and receive by faith, and by faith you choose to open your mouth to give place to the utterance of the Spirit according to Acts 2.4. It's that simple. In that way, the Holy Spirit gets "on" your life in supernatural power.

The Third Thing
    The third thing that is the will of God for each of your lives is that you each learn that by choice and commitment, you learn to walk in the love and power of the Holy Spirit to contribute to building a strong, godly, marriage, home, and ministry.
    It is God's will that we have a peaceful, loving, and joy-filled life. God has made full provision for "whosoever will", to have a full and abundant life with a "heaven upon the earth" home life. THE ONLY REASON WHY WE DO NOT EXPERIENCE THIS, IS BECAUSE WE CHOOSE TO HAVE OUR WAY ABOVE GOD'S WILL.
    We must learn to take responsibility for our our attitudes and actions. If they don't line up to the Word of God, then we need to quickly repent, to change our way, to conform to God's way. Our "flesh man" wants to blame either another person, or the devil, or God Himself. Our "spirit man" admits guilt and goes to the cross with it to find immediate deliverance in Jesus Christ. We want to learn to live by our "spirit man".
    For there to be harmony between husband and wife, we must each take our personal responsibility to live and walk by our "spirit man" instead of the selfish "flesh man." We each choose to take the responsibility of making sure our personal attitudes and actions are in line with the Word of God (Eph.4.17-32;  5.1-17;  Col.3.1-25). You choose to not allow yourself to continue in anger, strife, bitterness, and unforgiveness, and all such things, when the Word says to put these things out of your life.
    We also each choose to be committed to God and to each other. When you commit to something, you do it no matter what. There are no options. When each one chooses to be committed to God's way, no matter what, then there is a basis of true and lasting harmony in our commitment to one another. We are committed to each other in the context of each being totally committed to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is an eternal commitment in the Lord with each other.
    It is our responsibility to trust in and draw from the Holy Spirit, our Counselor and Helper, to enable us to properly fulfill our commitments. We choose to hide the Word of God in our hearts. We choose to yield our lives to the Holy Spirit and allow His gifts to operate in our daily lives unto deliverance, peace, and power. "Holy Spirit, let your gifts operate and bring deliverance. Thank you for it in Jesus' name." In the face of conflict, choose to pray this prayer together, then pray in the Spirit together and yield to what the Holy Spirit shows you as He brings deliverance. The Holy Spirit is the greatest Counselor, and the Bible is The Greatest Marriage Manual in the world. It is your responsibility to choose to draw from them. Through them, you can get the answer every time.

Summary
    The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth, and it is the truth that sets us free in every way (Jn.15.13;  8.31,32).  The foundation for a healthy, happy, harmonious, marriage, and the answer for a troubled marriage is for both parties to put God's will first in each of their lives. Make sure you are each born again by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not trusting in any good works of your own. Be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and learn how to depend on Him and allow His gifts to enable you to overcome all conflicts and all obstacles.
    Above all, learn to walk in the love of God that was shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit in the new birth and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If you both are walking in the love of God, following the instructions of the Word of God, there is harmony and reconciliation with one another, and there is an ever-increasing presence of God in your lives and in your home, unto it being like heaven on earth.
    Remember, build on this foundation: "Not my will be done, not your will be done, but God's will be done in our lives."
    Receive God's counsel for a healthy, happy, harmonious, marriage.