Crossroad Online
Happy Anniversary – August 17th, 2023
Hi, this is Pastor Ken, I want to welcome you to my Thoughts on a Thursday Podcast where I take some regular occurrence or personal story from my life and connect it to a scriptural truth. So here are my thoughts on this Thursday, August 17th 2023…Happy Anniversary
On Saturday, my wife Lynn and I will celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. As our associate pastor says, “That’s not a world record, but these days, it is a pretty good average.” I seem to have an especially good memory for details of days gone by. I am able to remember events with a good deal of clarity far back into my early childhood. The details of our wedding day just 23 years ago are incredibly vivid for me. I won’t bore you with all of them, but I could go on for hours recalling the events of that incredibly special day. There are far too many to convey in this format, but allow me to share just a few.
It was an incredibly beautiful day to have an outdoors wedding. The sky was bluer than it usually is. The leaves on the trees in the park where we were wed were greener than I had ever seen them before or have ever seen them since. The grass was softer than usual, and the sun though as bright as ever, was not too hot as it often is in August. Though it had not rained the air was crisp and had that amazing smell that is usually reserved for just after a summer afternoon shower. Lynn was stunning as she walked down the makeshift isle between the rows of white folding chairs. Her hair was beautiful, her face radiant, and her smile…it was as sweet as usual and seemingly permanent. I had chosen the perfect girl to ask to be my bride and together we had chosen to marry on the best day of the year.
Those are but a small handful of the memories I have from that day. Though I enjoy occasionally perusing the many pictures people took at our wedding, I don’t need them to remind me of a single detail of the day. Those memoirs are forever stored in the archives of my mind, ready to be recalled for a joyful review at a moment’s notice. Why do I have such extraordinary recollection of the events of that day over others? Obviously it is because of its extreme importance in comparison to of any of the other days in my life. That is the day that God joined Lynn and I and made us one. That is the day that the woman of my dreams became my bride. That is the day that has forever changed every day since then for the better.
So what, you might ask is the scriptural connection for this personal story? I could connect it to any number of passages that are about marriage as it pertains to how a husband and wife are to correctly interact with one another. If you want that kind of biblical encouragement, I would urge you to listen to my Monday Marriage Message podcasts. There I cover that subject in great detail. Instead I want to connect this story from my life to a different scripture.
If you are, or have been married, then perhaps like me, you remember many of the details from your wedding day. It is easy to remember the facts surrounding the day you were joined with the person you were so in love with. Even if the relationship has changed somewhat over the years, the connection you felt on your wedding day likely keeps the memories sharp in your mind. Did you know that God can’t keep His eyes off of you and feels the same way about the day you allowed Him to come live in you through His Holy Spirit?
In Psalm 139:1-18 it says this about the fact that God loves us so much that He can’t keep His eyes off of us. O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up [each day], you are still with me!
Not only are you the apple of His eye, God loves you so much that He was willing to do whatever it took to restore a wonderful relationship with you. Romans 5:8 tells us, But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. While praying the night before His crucifixion according to John chapter 17, Jesus prayed that He would have the strength to go through the terrible day ahead. Jesus also prayed that His disciples would be emboldened to continue to share the good news of the gospel after He went back to heaven following His resurrection. Finally, He prayed that you and I would hear the message and accept the truth about Him so that we could be with Him in heaven for eternity. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 12:2 that because of the joy set before Him (the ability to share heaven with us forever) Jesus endured the shame of the cross.
Christ’s love for us shouldn’t ever be in question, He did everything He could do to prove His love for us. In light of all He did, what more could we…or would we ask Him to do? In the Gospel of Luke, it is recorded that Jesus told a well-known parable about a lost sheep. He said that even if a shepherd had 100 sheep, if one got lost, The Good Shepherd would go in search of the lost sheep and bring it back with great joy when he found it. Then it is recorded in Luke 15:4 that as Jesus finished telling that story, He said “In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away”! We are the apple of God’s eye, He can’t keep His eyes off of us. He loves us too much for mere words, and when even one person accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior, they throw an amazing party in heaven.
It’s true that God loves us that much! He created us and knows every detail about our lives…we are that special to Him. Is He that special to us? Do we think about Him all the time? Do we remember everything about the day we realized just how much we needed and wanted Him to be right beside us for the rest of our lives? Is the day we came to Jesus emblazoned on our memories as deeply as the other not-so-important events we remember so well?
If you aren’t as excited about it as you once were, this isn’t designed to bring you shame, allow it to help change you and stir your heart to once again experience the awe of loving Jesus and reveling in His unforgettable love for you. The book of Revelation has the answer to finding that your memories of the day you accepted Jesus’ love for you have dimmed with time. Return to your first love. In other words, fall head-over-heels in love with Jesus again, and have the happiest of anniversaries! His love for you is the greatest you will ever know.
So now, falling completely in love with Jesus all over again, because He first loved you…Go be awesome!
So now, …Go be Awesome!
3rd Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful Marriage – Holiness
Hi, this is Pastor Ken thanks for joining me once again for the Monday Marriage Message where we search God’s instructions to discover how to experience a highly successful marriage. This is the third edition in our series 7 Biblical Principles of a Highly Successful Marriage.
In the first episode we discovered that compatibility is key to success in marriage. If we aren’t of like mind spiritually, marriage becomes exceedingly problematic. Ultimately the difficulty is the result of not having the same goals for the marriage. By God’s design, the primary purpose of marriage is to reflect who He is. When we choose to ask Him to unequally yoke us with an unbeliever that purpose becomes incredibly challenging to fulfill, and the lack of unified effort to that end will be the cause of much frustration.
In the second episode I shared the importance of understanding that your marriage is more about your relationship with God than it is about your relationship with your spouse. We looked at Ephesians 5:21-33 where the Apostle Paul wrote about the intricately intertwined connection between the relationship we have with our spouse and the relationship Christ desires to have with us. There, as in no other scripture I am aware of, the Bible illustrates that correct interaction in marriage is congruent with a right relationship with God. Finally, I mentioned that all of the commands concerning the best way to interact with our spouse come from God’s written word to us. It is not our spouse who gives the commands, they come directly from God. As such our obedience should be directed toward God. We interact with our spouse, but we do so in response to our God.
Today I want to focus on the 3rd Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful Marriage. When we consider the Great Analogy I just spoke of, it is important to understand that our marriages are the tangible, physical representation of the relationship between mankind and God. God is Holy and tells us in scripture that our response to His holiness is supposed to be our holiness. In Leviticus 20:26 God told the Hebrew People, “Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine”. In this scripture, God is saying that He has chosen these particular people as His own, just as a groom chooses a bride to be especially his for an uninterrupted lifetime together. Just a few chapters before, it is recorded that God reminded these same people that He had brought them out of a foreign land where they had been in servitude to another (the Egyptian Pharaoh) and had taken them to Himself, and was now taking them to the promised land. Leviticus 11:45 says, “For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.” This language is incredibly analogous of a contemporary wedding for the time. In the Hebrew custom, just as Isaac, and Jacob had done, a groom would go, sometimes a great distance, find a bride, make her a promise of a home and then bring her back to his father’s house to be his wife. Here God has said that He went to the land of Egypt, claimed the people as His own and was now leading them to their new home that He had promised to them.
Additionally, God gave the people instruction. He told them that in order for them to be in a right relationship with Him as their Redeemer, they would have to live and act as He lives and acts. So, He told them about Himself and said “I am Holy, so you must also be Holy”. This may sound as if it were simply a command for spiritual perfection, but that would be an incorrect understanding. The word holy means many things. It means set apart, or set aside for a specific purpose. It also means to be kept undefiled. Certainly these meanings are congruent with a successful marriage. There are also some important noteworthy characteristics of holiness that are critical in highly successful marriages. God’s unchangeable nature, the fact that He is immutable is a result of His Holiness. Holiness is true. Holiness is faithful. Holiness is unwavering. God is all of these things, and if we are to be in right relationship, with Him, He says we must be these things as well. As God is true to us, we must also be true to Him. As He is faithful to us, we must be faithful to Him. Just as God is unwavering in His devotion to us we also must be unwavering in our devotion to Him. If the marital oneness between a man and a woman is completed by a Holy God, and is the Great Analogy of the relationship that Holy God desires to have with them, then the 3rd Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful marriage is Holiness.
Marriages that operate at a high level of success understand that the only way to do so is to operate with an uncommon high level of trust. I know full well that I am not the first to say that trust is key to a great marriage. That insight has likely been expressed as long as there have been those offering advice about what makes a marriage tick. Some might even look at my collection of 7 Biblical Principles of a Highly Successful Marriage and think that trust should have been listed as #1.
Correctly placed trust is much more than a high level of confidence. True trust is just that…true. This is because real trust is a two sided coin. On the one side, trust is something we place in someone else. On the other side of the coin, trust is that which has been placed in us. Genuine trust is the relationship between a trustor and a trustee. That being the case, absolute trust is only possible if it cannot fail. It is only obtainable when dealing with someone who is Holy. We know that we can trusty God 100%. God is 100% Holy. He is infallible. He is unchangeable and therefore His word is completely and totally trustworthy. There is nothing that He says that we cannot lean on completely. There is no promise He makes that we cannot trust wholly.
The problem we experience in our marriages is that we are not married to someone who is immutable. Human beings have the capacity, and often, seemingly a propensity for failure. Though we are created in God’s image, we are not perfect in all of our ways as He is. The fact of the matter is that as fallible human beings; we can only really know that someone is keeping their word to us if we can watch them do so with our eyes. If that is the case, and our imperfect nature dictates that it is, and if the 3rd Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful marriage is all about trust, then what are we to do? How can we operate within our marriages with a high level of success if we can’t really trust our spouse unless we are actually watching them? That sounds like a discouraging question but it comes with a truly encouraging answer.
When God told the Israelite people that they were to be holy as He is Holy, God knew that would only possible for them as a result of the relationship He wanted to have with them. Jesus told us, “There is no good in us”. God is good, but we are evil in and of ourselves. It is only when we invite God to dwell inside us…that we become righteous. God knows that we can only be holy if He indwells us, and so, by saying “I Am Holy, so you must be holy” He was imploring His people to allow Him to come and live with them. Peter wrote of the connection between the Hebrews during their exodus from Egypt and Christians being brought out of slavery to sin.
1 Peter 1:13-16 say this, Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy. Peter was essentially saying that holiness is possible for us because of the redeeming blood of Christ that purchases our freedom from sin. If we have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, and have invited Him to live in us, we have invited His Holiness to live in and through us. So, Peter says, now we have to live lives on the outside which are congruent with the Holy one who lives on the inside.
You might be asking what that has to do with a successful marriage. Everything. As a Christ follower, Christ lives in me. As a Christ follower, Christ indwells my wife also. I am still a fallible human being as is my wife. We both still have the capacity for sin. Our own ability to fail, leaves our 100% value as a trustee in reasonable question. In other words, as I stated before if she cannot see me with her own two eyes, my wife cannot put her absolute trust in me that I will always keep my word. Those who say that they can do this are either; simply fooling themselves, or they already understand that the 3rd Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful Marriage is holiness. If trust is critical for a marriage to operate successfully, and it is, and if absolute trust is not something rightly placed in a fallible human being, and it isn’t, then what can we do? Highly successful marriages place their trust in the holiness of their spouse. Where does that holiness originate? With our indwelling God. Highly successful marriages understand that they do not trust their spouse to never fail them, they trust their God who also dwells inside their spouse to never fail them.
For this reason, spiritual intimacy within a marriage is crucial. There must be a common understanding that each spouse is giving God the correct place of highest importance in their life. Real trust becomes possible when each spouse can see their counterpart investing heavily in their relationship with God. This necessary component of trust must be built at all costs. No other form of intimacy is more important or should be allowed to supersede the formation of spiritual intimacy in a marriage. How do we build spiritual intimacy? There are a number of ways to do so successfully. Pray together. Worship together. Minister together. Serve God together. Give to God together. Spend time with God together. These are a great start but are not intended to be an exhaustive list.
The last of the spiritual intimacy builders I mentioned was saved for last so that I could expound on its incredibly high importance. Each morning my wife Lynn and I spend personal time with the Lord. Some would call that our daily devotional time. It is the time that we each spend reading God’s word, and asking Him to show us new truths that will impact our walk with Him. The twist that makes it a wonderful spiritual intimacy builder for us, is that we do it at the same time each day and though we are reading in different places in the Bible, we are doing so in each other’s presence. We sit down in adjacent chairs in our living room and use the same parcel of time to press into God. I see Lynn investing in her relationship with her Lord. She observes me doing the same thing. It gives us the opportunity for much that is good for us, and our marriage. We can ask questions of each other as we desire the other’s input about that which we have just discovered. We can share with each other things that excite us from God’s word. Most importantly however, it allows us to see with our own eyes that the trust we have placed in the indwelling holiness in our spouse is secure.
When you recognize that the 3rd biblical principle of a highly successful marriage is holiness…the only source of real trust, you begin to understand why it is 3rd and not 1st. This principle isn’t possible if we don’t first make sure of our spiritual compatibility and second, understand that our marriages are more about our relationship with God than they are about our relationship with our spouse.
So now, trusting completely in the God who dwells in your spouse, and doing everything possible to build the spiritual intimacy in your marriage…go be awesome!
7 Biblical Principles of a Highly Successful Marriage – Principle #2 – Your Marriage is More About Your Relationship with God Than it is About Your Relationship with Your Spouse
Hi, this is Pastor Ken thanks for joining me once again for the Monday Marriage Message where we search God’s instructions to experience a highly successful marriage.
We are continuing today exploring 7 Biblical Principles of a Highly Successful Marriage. Last time we covered Principle #1 – Compatibility. In that episode I shared with you that God’s word clearly says that in order to enjoy a highly successful marriage a couple must be compatible. Scripture tells us that the most important compatibility marker to consider is that we are equally yoked, meaning that Christians ought to only ask God to join them with another Christ follower.
Today I want to talk about the second Biblical Principle of a Highly Successful Marriage – Your Marriage is More About Your Relationship with God Than it is About Your Relationship with Your Spouse.
This is a concept that eludes most people and yet is crucial to enjoying a highly successful marriage. Even honest Christ followers most often look at their marriages as ancillary to their walk with Christ. This misunderstanding causes them to think that their relationship with God can be a healthy one, even if their marriage is failing. At the risk of offending I will emphatically state that notion is simply not possible. God uses marriage as an analogy for the relationship between Himself and His creation of mankind far and away more than any other in scripture. The sheer number of times it is utilized should squelch any claim that God does not see the two as intricately intertwined. It is my hope that this edition will help us to recognize that our marriages are fundamental to our walk with the Lord. When you consider both the primary purpose of marriage as stated by God…A man and a woman joined as one to reflect Him, and the high level of importance God puts on the connection between His relationship with us and our marriages it becomes clearer why the first principle is so important. We need to be equally yoked with another Christ follower if we are going to fulfill the purpose of marriage successfully.
As I mentioned last time, God is completely and totally holy and righteous. He graciously endows us with righteousness through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, and the redemptive work of His shed blood as the perfect lamb of God. If we ask Him to join us inextricably with an unbeliever, we have asked Him to join righteousness (us joined with Christ) with lawlessness (us joined with an unbeliever). The scripture we looked at then asked the logical questions. …what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
When we look at the scriptural evidence, God clearly draws a connection between Himself and the relationship He desires with us as His people and our marriages, the relationship we experience as husbands and wives. Today we will look at a portion of that evidence.
As I illustrated in the first episode of this series the primary purpose of marriage is unmistakably expressed in the very first chapter of the first book of the bible. In Genesis 1:26-27 it says, 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God referenced Himself as “Us” giving the first indication of the Triune Godhead we have come to know as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Before the creation of the first man, woman and marriage, God identified that He enjoys intimate union among the three persons of the singular Godhead. He also clearly stated that His desire was to create mankind in His Image and His likeness, in other words, beings that would reflect Him. Verse 27 tells us that the completion of that design was accomplished in the formation of an intimately created male and a female.
When we look at chapter 2 of the book of Genesis we find in verse 23, when the woman was taken out of the man and presented to him, Adam (the man) proclaimed that they were “one flesh”. There was no wedding ceremony necessary, they had been created married. Adam and Eve were one, though they were also two. They were two human beings, of differing genders, but made from the same flesh and bone. In the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi 2:15 tells us that God joined them with himself in their married state. That verse asks, But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. In this scripture we find that God joined Adam and Eve (and subsequently every husband and wife) with a portion of His Own Spirit (the Holy Spirit) so that we could possess innate knowledge of how to act in godly ways within our marriages which were designed to reflect Him. As a result of God making the man and the woman one flesh and by joining them with a portion of His Spirit, He created marriage to be a triune entity illustrating one of the many ways marriage is in fact, reflective of its Creator. If marriage is purposed to reflect God, and by God’s own words it is, and if God is the supreme participant in that union, and He is, then marriage must be primarily about Him. Additionally, the scripture from Malachi points out that the connection marriages share with a remnant of God’s Spirit, is intended to prohibit them from dealing treacherously with one another. God is making the clear connection that He designates poor interaction between a husband and wife as a personal act of contempt against Him.
In Ephesians the Apostle Paul wrote of this connection between our marriages and our relationship with Christ as well. In Ephesians 5:21-33 we read, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Here as nowhere else I am aware of in scripture, the connection between the relationship of God and mankind and the relationship between husband and wife is made abundantly clear. Paul vacillates twelve different times in just thirteen verses, back and forth between the two relationships. My personal view of this passage causes me to proclaim that what Paul wrote here explains how the Great Analogy transcends into the current reality.
In verses 30-32 Paul wrote 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. The connection God identified between our relationship with Him and our relationship with our spouse could not be made more clear. First, Paul stated in verse 30 that we are members of Christ’s body. If you and your spouse are Christ followers then you are each one with Christ, members of His body. Second in verse 31 Paul wrote that the two of you are also one (one flesh, members of each other’s body) made so by God. (Matthew 19:6) Finally, Paul eluded to the great mystery (I call it a miracle) that God continues to this day to recreate the one flesh condition between a husband and a wife. Paul then immediately says however, he is writing concerning Christ and the church, and is making note of the “one flesh” condition or the marriage between Christ and believers. Again, if Christ is the supreme being in that marital relationship then our marriages are in fact more about our relationship with Him than they are about our relationship with one another.
Of final note and quite likely greatest importance is this great truth that speaks directly to the 2nd biblical principal for a highly successful marriage. Remember in Genesis 2:23-24, Adam makes the declaration that he and Eve have been created “One flesh” and are therefore married. Then God endorses Adam’s understanding and makes a declaration of His own concerning marriages to come. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This is where we gain the understanding that God recreates that “One flesh” condition enjoyed by Adam and Eve in our marriages. Now, here in Ephesians 5:31 Paul writes of an additional understanding we ought to have. Verse 30 states that we are members of Christ’s body, of His flesh and His bones. Then in Verse 31 Paul says of that truth, “For this reason”, in other words because we are members of Christ’s body, “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh”. Here I believe Paul is being quite clear that the importance behind our marriages existing is because God exists. We are made one to reflect who He is. What is the thing of greater importance? The reflectiveness of a mirror or the one being reflected in it? I believe that when Paul writes verse 32 He is reiterating that all important point. After quoting Genesis 2:24, Paul is now using God’s declaration concerning marriage to refer to Christ and believers in Christ. This clearly makes our marriages more about our relationship with God, than it is about our relationship with our spouse.
Paul concluded with verse 33 which says, 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. This admonition seems to be redundant when compared with verses 22 and 25 but I believe according to 2 Timothy, it was inspired by the Holy Spirit to be placed here for several important reasons relevant to the 2nd Biblical principle for a highly successful marriage. First I will point out that if it were not for verse 33 it might be possible for us to interpret that only if the wife submits (verse 22) then the husband must love (verse 25) but with the order being reversed in verse 33 (husband is to love, wife is to respect) that mistaken interpretation is less likely to occur. More importantly, with the two commands being given in the closing remarks on the subject in this scriptural context, their connection with the marriage between Christ and the believer is easier to see. Who gives the command to a husband to love his wife? Christ does. Who gives the command to a wife to respect her husband? Christ does. So who is it that they are each responding to when they are obedient to the command? Christ. In this scripture as in others throughout the Bible, husbands and wives are given commands as to how to interact with one another. Their obedience (or disobedience) is a response to Christ and His commands. We interact with our spouse but we do so in response to our Lord.
Biblical Principle #2 for a Highly Successful Marriage – Your Marriage is More About Your Relationship with God Than it is About Your Relationship with Your Spouse.
So now, interacting with your spouse in response to your Lord…Go Be Awesome!