Tuesday, May 27, 2008
MEMORIAL DAY
Did you all have a good Memorial day? My family went over to the Cooper's for a cook out and a good time. We had a blast visiting with friends that we don't see very often. I also found out that there are still people out there that look at my blog and have noticed my lack of postings. This one is for you. You know who you are!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Way behind
Has anyone noticed that I am way behind in my chapter postings. I think I should be typing for chapter 7 right now. OOOOOOPPPPPPPSSSSSSS!
I guess I've been to lazy to do it, and a little to busy with ball and other stuff.
I guess I've been to lazy to do it, and a little to busy with ball and other stuff.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Chapter 3 Learning To Love
Let me start off by sharing the two quotes at the beginning.
Marriage requires a radical commitment to love our spouse as they are, while longing for them to become what they are not yet. Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another's glory or toward degrading each other.
--- Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III
If you treat a man as he is, he will stay as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become the bigger and better man.
---Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Points to ponder:
---We show our love for God in part by loving our spouse well.
---We can never love somebody "too much". Our problem is that typically love God "too little".
--- It is far less of a leap for a man to love a woman or for a woman to love a man than it is for either of us to love God
---The beauty of Christianity is in learning to love, and few life situations test that so radically as does a marriage.
---By learning to love our wives, we get a better grip on how we could love our God.
---Christian love is displayed in loving the most difficult ones to love.
--- If we can't love our wives, how can we love the homeless person at the library? How about the drug addict and alcoholic? Our spouses may be difficult to love at times, but that is what marriage is for—to teach us HOW TO LOVE.
A lot of the time women love quietly; they speak, as it were, in whispers, and we have to listen carefully, attentively, to hear their words of love and to know them. Isn't God the same way? Doesn't he intervene in most of our lives in whispers, which we miss if we fail to consistently strive to hear those whispers of divine love?
The virtues of listening, patience, humility, service, and faithful love, are the very virtues necessary for us to love God and to feel his love returned.
Remember that it is not enough to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we really want to please God, Jesus said, you must love others.
With all the links of scripture to marriage and its relationship to God, could it mean that ............ If my spouse is unhappy, I'm failing God?
Marriage requires a radical commitment to love our spouse as they are, while longing for them to become what they are not yet. Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another's glory or toward degrading each other.
--- Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III
If you treat a man as he is, he will stay as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become the bigger and better man.
---Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Points to ponder:
---We show our love for God in part by loving our spouse well.
---We can never love somebody "too much". Our problem is that typically love God "too little".
--- It is far less of a leap for a man to love a woman or for a woman to love a man than it is for either of us to love God
---The beauty of Christianity is in learning to love, and few life situations test that so radically as does a marriage.
---By learning to love our wives, we get a better grip on how we could love our God.
---Christian love is displayed in loving the most difficult ones to love.
--- If we can't love our wives, how can we love the homeless person at the library? How about the drug addict and alcoholic? Our spouses may be difficult to love at times, but that is what marriage is for—to teach us HOW TO LOVE.
A lot of the time women love quietly; they speak, as it were, in whispers, and we have to listen carefully, attentively, to hear their words of love and to know them. Isn't God the same way? Doesn't he intervene in most of our lives in whispers, which we miss if we fail to consistently strive to hear those whispers of divine love?
The virtues of listening, patience, humility, service, and faithful love, are the very virtues necessary for us to love God and to feel his love returned.
Remember that it is not enough to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we really want to please God, Jesus said, you must love others.
With all the links of scripture to marriage and its relationship to God, could it mean that ............ If my spouse is unhappy, I'm failing God?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Chapter 2 - Finding God in Marriage
Here is a brief look at chapter 2 in the book "Sacred Marriage".
Hosea leads us into the reality that God views His people as a husband views his wife. "In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master'...I will betroth you to me forever" (Hosea 2:16, 19a). God wants us to relate to Him with an obedience fueled by love and intimacy, not by self-motivated fear, and with a loyalty to a divine-human relationship, not a blind adherence to "principles".
How do you view God - as master or a husband?
We are to use our marriage to explore God. Not to be consumed with highlighting where our spouses fall short. If that is what we are doing, we will miss the divine mysteries of marriage and the lessons it has to teach us.
As long as we are married we continue to display, however imperfectly, the ongoing commitment between Christ and His church. Knowing why we are married and should stay married is crucial. The key question is "Will we approach marriage with a God-centered view or a man-centered view"?
Man-centered: Maintain as long as our earthly comforts, desires and expectations are met.
God-centered: Preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator.
Our 1st goal in marriage is to please God. The challenge is that it requires utterly selfless living.
Strong Christian marriages will still be struck by lightening - sexual temptation, communication problems, etc. but if our marriage is heavily watered with an unwavering commitment to please God above everything else, the conditions won't be ripe for a devastating fire to follow the lightening strike.
To sum it up:
Our marriages can be platforms for evangelism. They can draw people into a truth that points beyond this world into the next. Just by sticking it out in our marriages, we can build a monument to the principle and the practice of reconciliation.
Hosea leads us into the reality that God views His people as a husband views his wife. "In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master'...I will betroth you to me forever" (Hosea 2:16, 19a). God wants us to relate to Him with an obedience fueled by love and intimacy, not by self-motivated fear, and with a loyalty to a divine-human relationship, not a blind adherence to "principles".
How do you view God - as master or a husband?
We are to use our marriage to explore God. Not to be consumed with highlighting where our spouses fall short. If that is what we are doing, we will miss the divine mysteries of marriage and the lessons it has to teach us.
As long as we are married we continue to display, however imperfectly, the ongoing commitment between Christ and His church. Knowing why we are married and should stay married is crucial. The key question is "Will we approach marriage with a God-centered view or a man-centered view"?
Man-centered: Maintain as long as our earthly comforts, desires and expectations are met.
God-centered: Preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator.
Our 1st goal in marriage is to please God. The challenge is that it requires utterly selfless living.
Strong Christian marriages will still be struck by lightening - sexual temptation, communication problems, etc. but if our marriage is heavily watered with an unwavering commitment to please God above everything else, the conditions won't be ripe for a devastating fire to follow the lightening strike.
To sum it up:
Our marriages can be platforms for evangelism. They can draw people into a truth that points beyond this world into the next. Just by sticking it out in our marriages, we can build a monument to the principle and the practice of reconciliation.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Point Man
If you are reading this, this question is for you. Does your Church have a Point Man group or some kind of ladies bible study group?
We have many small men bible study groups. We also have ladies bible study groups. We share our prayer requests, Praises, our weaknesses, our strengths, we hold each other accountable for studying to be more like Christ, scripture memorization, attendance, ect...
It is hands down the best program I have ever been involved in. We have some in our group from another Church, and some that bring a visitor once in awhile. It is a great time to show others that a group of men can, and will, take time out of their lives to learn and become more like Christ and have a lot of fun and laughs along with the serious times while doing so.
Right now we are studying (we just did chapter 1) the book "Sacred Marriage" by G
ary Thomas.
The last part of the caption at the top of the front cover completely covers the culture of today.
We are to focused on our feelings first and God second it seems. The caption reads "What if God designed marriage to make us Holy more than to make us Happy?" note: I added the italics.
The book looks at how we can use the challenges, joys, struggles, and celebrations of marriage to draw closer to God and to grow in Christian character.
One thing that really stood out to me was where Gary wrote "If I really wanted to see God transform me from the inside out, I'd need to concentrate on changing myself rather than changing my spouse. This plays so much into our carnal nature and attitude of "I want it my way or else". I see it all the time in the work place when I listen to guys or ladies talk about how they can't stand a certain issue about their spouse. The question I have to ask them is, What are you doing to make it easy for them to change? or, What are you doing to just accept them and how they are and move on to a mature love that looks beyond trivial things rather than just the romantic love that runs on our feelings? I think it would benefit us all if when we are upset about something our spouse has done, we would stop and ask ourselves those two questions along with What did I do to possibly spark the situation? or, Could I have been more aware of my spouses feelings and expectations so that I could have defused the event before it happened?
Would anyone like for me to brief the chapter each week. We are doing one chapter a week in the Point Man group.
We have many small men bible study groups. We also have ladies bible study groups. We share our prayer requests, Praises, our weaknesses, our strengths, we hold each other accountable for studying to be more like Christ, scripture memorization, attendance, ect...
It is hands down the best program I have ever been involved in. We have some in our group from another Church, and some that bring a visitor once in awhile. It is a great time to show others that a group of men can, and will, take time out of their lives to learn and become more like Christ and have a lot of fun and laughs along with the serious times while doing so.
Right now we are studying (we just did chapter 1) the book "Sacred Marriage" by G
ary Thomas.The last part of the caption at the top of the front cover completely covers the culture of today.
We are to focused on our feelings first and God second it seems. The caption reads "What if God designed marriage to make us Holy more than to make us Happy?" note: I added the italics.
The book looks at how we can use the challenges, joys, struggles, and celebrations of marriage to draw closer to God and to grow in Christian character.
One thing that really stood out to me was where Gary wrote "If I really wanted to see God transform me from the inside out, I'd need to concentrate on changing myself rather than changing my spouse. This plays so much into our carnal nature and attitude of "I want it my way or else". I see it all the time in the work place when I listen to guys or ladies talk about how they can't stand a certain issue about their spouse. The question I have to ask them is, What are you doing to make it easy for them to change? or, What are you doing to just accept them and how they are and move on to a mature love that looks beyond trivial things rather than just the romantic love that runs on our feelings? I think it would benefit us all if when we are upset about something our spouse has done, we would stop and ask ourselves those two questions along with What did I do to possibly spark the situation? or, Could I have been more aware of my spouses feelings and expectations so that I could have defused the event before it happened?
Would anyone like for me to brief the chapter each week. We are doing one chapter a week in the Point Man group.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Beautiful full winter coat!
This is a picture taken on my game camera at one of my favorite hunting spots. There were several deer in the area but this was the best picture out of the group. It is nice to be able to hunt there since it is only a few miles from home and loaded with wildlife.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
