The Way of the Master: (How to thrive in relationships)

By Tamara V Gozzi

The tragic numbers say that 1 out of 2 marriages will end up in divorce in the United States. The same stats go for countries like Belgium, Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Australia. While countries like Spain and Portugal reach 90% when it comes to marriages ending in divorce. It means that the chances of remaining married for most of those people in that society is almost none.
The horrific truth reveals that the Christian circle is affected by this epidemic just as much as the secular one. So, what are we doing? Or better even, what are we not doing? Why has our society changed so much in the last 2 or 3 decades? Why was “divorce” of rare usage in the 50’s or 60’s while nowadays the opposite is true?
Why is it that we prepare for school, for sport competitions, for a profession, for a driver’s license, etc. Yet, nobody seems to prepare for marriage… Am I correct? People tend to think that ‘love’ is all we need. But is it so? Are we listening to the accurate sources? Where do we get our information from? Shouldn’t we prepare for a task such as marriage, which is the pillar of society? The Way of the Master exposes God’s intention as He created marriage; His purpose for humanity as He stated: ‘marriage is between one man and one woman becoming one flesh for one lifetime’.
These pages are full of essential information if you intend to get married and succeed in your endeavor, dear reader. He who created ‘marriage’ knows how to make it work. Amen? And this is the way of the Master!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Feb 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9781506552477

Tamara V Gozzi

TAMARA V GOZZI, nata e cresciuta in Belgio, è entrata a far parte del Ministero nel 2012. Come evangelista, viaggia per condividere il messaggio del Vangelo. Questo libro è nato durante il suo soggiorno in Germania e in Italia, dove Dio ha iniziato a mostrarle il grande risveglio che si prospetta.

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Copyright © 2024 by Tamara V Gozzi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Rev. date: 12/02/2024

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Content

Introduction

Chapter 1   The Master’s Program

Chapter 2   The Blessing of Singleness

Chapter 3   Understanding what Love is

Chapter 4   The Most Important Relationship

Chapter 5   Godly Husbands and Wives

Chapter 6   Blended Families

Chapter 7   The Power of Vision

Chapter 8   The Reason for our Existence

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The reason I made the decision to write about relationships is due to the alarming statistics we have nowadays on marriage or should I say marriage failure.

Unfortunately, this is no longer a secular issue, as the Christian circle also suffers from this epidemic.

The tragic numbers say that 1 out of 2 marriages will end up in divorce in the United States. The same stats go for countries like Belgium, Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Australia. While countries like Spain and Portugal reach 90% when it comes to marriages ending in divorce. It means that the chances of remaining married for most of those people in that society is almost none.

It also means that for every 5 people that go before the altar, for almost all 5 of them, it will end in tragedy.

This book is intended to help you, dear reader, whether you are single, married, or divorced; if you make it until the end of the last chapter, I promise you, you will gain knowledge that will set you up for success if you apply its principles.

In fact, if you’re single, you will be happy to be single; if you’re married, you will know what to do to stay married and if you’re divorced, you will find out why your marriage ended.

Governments, sociologists or psychologists do not know how to deal with this issue. In fact, most of the time, they’re married three or four times themselves. You certainly do not want to model nor follow these people’s advice when it comes to relationships.

If we want to succeed in marriage, as in any other thing in life, we must go to the source, to whom created marriage in the first place.

This is where the title of this book comes from The Way of the Master; which we could also call the Kingdom’s principles or Christ’s system VS the world’s system.

In this case, we will concentrate on relationships, but truth be told we should search for Kingdom’s principles or Christ’s system in every single area of our life. We take lots of things of this world for granted, either because we were taught that way by our parents, our teachers or merely because the majority does it. Yet, we must remember that Satan is the god of this world, and thereby we enter his system the minute we come out of the womb.

As mentioned earlier, sadly the alarming numbers of marriage failure are on the rise including among Christians. The reason is simple: ignorance.

Being a Christian doesn’t make us wise overnight. It is well known, that salvation is free, but everything else is going to take work and effort, that is what we call the process. If we want to succeed, we must learn how to follow the way of the Master. We must die to self-daily and renew our mind in order to think like Christ and not as the world thinks.

I encourage each and every one of you to read and apply what you will learn in this book; things will change inevitably. How do I know?

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32.

Albert Einstein’s famous line is: insanity is to keep repeating the same patterns expecting a different result. Hence, what do you have to lose, dear reader? 46411.jpg

1

The Master’s Program

Husbands and wives go through stress, parents and children go through stress, friends and colleagues go through stress, bosses and staff go through stress; all because of broken relationships.

In the same way, people who plan to get married, many times, don’t make it to the altar because of broken relationships.

But then, we’ve got those who do get married and end up in divorce. Some of those who go through a divorce, seek to marry again. Yet, those who remarry, often times, go through relationship problems.

We also have married couples who seem to be doing well, but who are going through hell behind the scenes. In fact, we hear many testimonies years later, of marriages who did pretend for a long while going through silent hell. Isn’t it better to be single and frustrated than married and frustrated in that case?

The sad truth is that married couples who come for consultation at the ministry, are the loneliest people in the world, far lonelier than single people. They feel trapped in a marriage that’s not working.

In fact, if we are single nothing stops us from going out for an ice-cream with a friend if the opportunity arises. Now, when you’re married and trapped, there is no possibility to just go out the door for a couple of hours. It’s hell on earth!

The secret to a successful marriage is not love. Marrying someone because we think we love them, will not make it work. Love doesn’t make a marriage successful.

When we look at our grandparents, they didn’t last together because of love; they stayed together because of respectful dependency. Our grandmothers depended on our grandfathers because they didn’t work outside the home. Our grandfathers depended on their wives to take care of the house and the children. Hence, they had no choice but put up with the issues of life and stay together. The unity was based on mutual respect and dependency, not love.

Now, I am not saying that husbands and wives were necessarily happy together, I am just saying that the team remained united for a higher purpose.

Things have changed dramatically nowadays, hasn’t it?!

Today, women are out working the same hours as men; hence both husbands and wives get home tired, and while our grandfathers used to find a good meal ready on the table, it’s no longer the case unless people stop on their way to get some Pollo Tropical.

Finding a warm bath, cleaned clothes and the newspaper on the chair is no longer real for most men. And what’s even more challenging is that relationships no longer depend on dependency. In fact, nowadays men can leave and have a baby-sitter take care of the kids, or simply find another woman. The same goes for women or wives, they can leave and keep a standard of living because they make money, sometimes even more than men.

Things have changed, we live in a different world. Therefore, we must pursue knowledge and pay attention to the developments our society has been going through in the last decades.

As we still observe people out there, seeking for the real love and think they will feel in love until death does them part, just like our grandparents did, is simply naiveté and ignorance at the same time.

We have this concept that love kept our grandparents together and we dream of a forever perfect marriage or relationship, just like they had… That’s simply living in LaLa Land.

In only one chapter in the book of Matthew, Jesus dealt with singleness, marriage and divorce. A chapter that is loaded with the Master’s wisdom on relationships.

When men and women get together, there is a very high probability for conflict, because men and women are complicated if we don’t understand how they function. It’s very popular to hear that women are far more complicated than men, but the truth is that they are equally complicated. They’re different and the key is to learn and understand why God created them the way He created them, and for what purpose.

Now, complication is an opinion, because it gets its definition from ignorance. In fact, something is only complicated if we’re ignorant about it. Correct?

If we know how to cook Maccaroni and Cheese, it’s not complicated, it’s easy. But if we don’t know how to cook Scrambled Eggs, then it’s complicated.

In the same way, males are not complicated and females are not complicated; the problem is: ignorance.

Ignorance makes us experiment without ceasing. We try this, we try that, we test here, we test there. That’s called: experimentation. Because we don’t know what the results will be.

So, Jesus is approached by the religious leaders who are professors of the law, referring to the law of Moses, and which governed the people in His time; including social relationships. Now, what Moses laid down was not a religious law, it was a law for national development. Yes, it was for a nation, not a religion!

God gave Moses tremendous wisdom as to how people ought to live together within the context of a social development, a society. How people ought to live, marry and remain married. But in Matthew 19, the ones who supposedly were experts of the law, came to Jesus with doubts and questions:

Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?. Matthew 19:3.

They addressed Him with the problem of divorce. Now, this event took place 400 years after Malachi’s death.

Malachi, as we all know, is the last book of the Old Testament. He was the last prophet that God spoke to regarding the coming of the Messiah; he also introduced John the Baptist in his last chapter.

As Malachi was still alive, the number one epidemic in society was divorce. The reason being, men could divorce their wives for the silliest reasons; for example, if she had burned the food, if she had her menstruation without telling him, etc. It was so dumb!

But let’s take a look at Scriptures:

Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. You cry out, Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship? I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. Malachi 2:13-14 (NLT).

Dear reader, God is at our wedding! He clearly states that He sees and hears the words we speak as we make the commitment of marriage. He hears him say he’ll be faithful until death and He hears her say she’ll submit to her husband until death.

God is always present and taking notes. And, at this point, our prayers depend on our vows.

Do you realize how serious this is?!

As single individuals, God hears our prayers if we don’t live in sin. But when we’re married and angry at our spouse, God says that He will not hear us.

Indeed, marriage is not a joke!

Let’s never forget this: when we marry someone, we marry a potential prayer hinderer. Why?

Because if