A Passionate Christian Marriage: How To Have It & Keep It

A Passionate Marriage: How To Have It and Keep It

When we first become engaged to the woman or man of our dreams, we envision a certain amount of perfection that will follow in our marriage. We see our life filled with smiles, laughter, passionate kisses, maybe some children. We don’t dare imagine life without a few little bumps in the road, because after all we are trying to be honest with ourselves.
What happens after we say “I Do” is where the rubber meets the road. All of our hopes and dreams we have separately, jointly and even unspoken ones… all join together. The brightness of a newly married life and romantic adventure wears off a bit. After years it may fade away completely.

 Why would this happen? Why is it accepted as part of the way things are when you get married? As Christians, we should immediately reject that lie. We should understand that marriage is a life long romance that requires us to be vigilant to guard it and our hearts. The enemy of our souls is seeking to kill and destroy and our marriage. Christian Marriage, tops his list of things to destroy. There are a lot of reasons why he does this. Mainly because marriage is holy before God and he hates everything called holy. Another big reason is that when we are married before the Lord, we are blessed, strong and bonded in unity. Literally that must make the devil’s skin crawl.

When we remember all these things, we should stand a bit taller and be ever more committed to protect and strengthen our relationship with our husband or wife. We know that satan prowls about like a hungry lion and breaking a godly marriage is pretty delicious to him.
So, how can we strengthen and protect our marriage from that?

It takes a hard and focused stand on the issue. We must eliminate everything, yes every thing, that comes between the husband and wife relationship. If our marriage is full of bickering there is a struggle for power in the marriage. That will take some serious denying of your flesh and giving God control. If we are spending too much time or too much money on “things” or “hobbies” then cut that out too. Sensual movies, sensual books, victorias secret (forms of porn!) have no place in your marriage. Ever. Don’t fool yourself if you think you are not affected by it. Your eyes & heart should only be for your sweetie. God’s word is clear on the matter.

Our children, according to scripture, are NOT ahead of our spouse or the Lord.
The Biblical order to your priorities is:
1. God
2. Husband/Wife
3. Ourselves
4. Children
5. Other family, Friends, Serving in Church
6. Exterior world

When we are at worship practice 3 nights a week, playing cards or out with friends frequently, shopping for kicks, on the net chatting or facebooking, texting, at soccer practice & games, pta meetings, television, netflix and so on… we are spending way too much time NOT being married or a family. We have our priorities out of whack.

It then makes sense that we will have a cascading failure of our marriage and family!

If we take the time to prioritize our walk- God first, Our husband or wife second- then our life will shift back into proper focus. No longer will chaos, busyness, fighting, power struggles, passive aggressive remarks and behavior, sexual problems in the bedroom and our children’s behavior plague us. All of these things do straighten out if we genuinely turn all of this over to the Lord.

On the subject of our bedrooms, it is a taboo topic for some reason in the Church. Secret sin abounds in this area. It is not a place to manipulate, coerce or avoid and make excuses. The marriage bed is pure and holy and good and safe. A place of trust and intimacy. God says so in Song Of Solomon, “Drink deeply!” Passion and romance are very good and He wants us all to have it. When we begin to treat our husband or wife like they are a treasure to us, with honor, with adoration, we will see a change. Make an diligent effort and do it regularly. Progress may be slow at first, but keep praying and keep up the good work.
Your marriage is worth it. Every little step counts. If you need help, a fantastic book “The Love Dare” is available at the link here.



 

The Great Purge... De-Crappification 2013: Part 1 (Parts 1 - 6)

Here it is. 

My honest, open, nitty gritty journey chronicled here on my blog for all to see.
I touched on it a bit in the last post, where I ranted about crappy-ness, clutter, time wasters, new techy gadgets and Facebook. Where I urged all of you out there in the world to also say, "Enough is enough!" 

I don't want a minimalist lifestyle or some new agey zen or feng shui jazz going on. That stuff is not from the Lord.  I want less. Less stuff, less mess, less belongings.
If my life is full of busyness, too much activity, too much belongings, too much drama... then I am not genuinely free to serve the Lord and I am too self concerned. If I am honest with myself then I know that to be true.

Did I already freak you out? 

Then I gotta tell you this: 
When you are purging, you do a lot of thinking. You think about why you have held this stuff and how much money and time has been wasted on it. You think about a lot of things.

Today I am decluttering and purging again. I think I am doing it every day except Sunday. It is nice to have only 1/4 of the toys we had a couple months ago and to have less crap in general. When I have ditched a lot of stuff out of a drawer or cabinet, I have taken the extra time to wipe it down with cleaner. That extra step is not really decluttering and minimizing my belongings, but it felt good to have it done. No one “saw” the mess ...or sees that it is now clean... but it looks clean to me because I know I just cleaned it. Hah! Kinda funny. 

I have been trying this last 2 years to get a hold of my clutter problem and I literally have a spotless house compared to what I used to have-- but I know what normal standards are and I still have a long way to go. One of the big motivators for me is that whatever our future home on a farm will be, it is sure to be a whole lot smaller than we have now. Probably without a garage to stuff things into also. The other big motivator is that I keep hearing over and over that less stuff means less stress and less cleaning and more of the "appearance" of clean. I seriously would like that instead of freaking out all the time that my house is a disaster. 

EDITED TO ADD all Parts of the adventure:
Getting Rid Of Crap For Real
Part #2
Part #3
Part #4
Part #5
Part #6
 

The Great Purge... De-Crappification 2013: Part 3

I’ve never been a chotchky person, you know… someone who puts cutesy things on shelves that they’ve collected or photos of their family all over the walls. I have zero stuff like that. When I have received stuff like that as gifts, I am sad because I know that I will be getting rid of it as soon as I can. One time someone bought me a wooden sailboat with a scripture printed on the sail. They knew I was a Christian and walked into a Christian store and bought this “thing” for me believing in some naïve way that anything Christian would make me happy and satisfy their obligation to give a gift. Ugh.

Shouldn’t there be a rule? Don’t buy perfume, books, music, clothing or collectibles for someone unless they specifically ASK for it? But I digress.

So, it’s not collectible thimbles from pancake houses around the world that I simply cannot part with. That is not my problem. Forgive me if you do that. I can’t stand that sort of thing.

My problem is the accumulation of crapitude.

One reason that has been the bane of my life- for what seems for forever- is that I have four children that are really widely spaced in ages. Not a problem, of course. The problem is that it goes girl, boy, girl, boy. Hand me downs then are then held a long time in boxes in my garage waiting for the next appropriate gender child to grow enough. After a child is done with the clothes in their size, I get rid of my non-favorites and nonessentials. The rest go into a plastic tote to store. I often ask myself why would I hold a box for so long? I could, in theory, get rid of all of it and then re-buy all of it later. I can’t bring myself to do it. The expense of it is so high in my mind!

Clearly I am not ready to cross the purge bridge with my hand me downs. Maybe soon that will change.

The Great Purge... De-Crappification 2013: Part 2

“Organizing is often well-planned hoarding.”

Recently I read this statement and it stuck in my mind. I think about it in relation to myself and realize that in many ways I still do keep things I should let go of. I've spent my whole life drowning in a clutterific mess and then periodically hitting a crisis moment where I freak out about it and then buy organizing bins, labels and stuff to help control my clutter. I also take a bunch of stuff to a donation center and recycle lots of magazines and papers. Eventually it all comes back and the cycle continues.

On the other hand, a couple of years ago, I turned a corner personally with being able to ditch stuff. I never understood that holding on to stuff was a personal issue, not a stuff issue. 
I have come a long way. 
A really long way.  
Unfortunately, I still have a long way to go. Understanding that about myself and not wigging out about the length of time this process is taking me is a sign I am growing. Maybe it is that I am getting older, too. 
Further victory: I do not buy crap to add to my home. Gifts for my children are well thought out, household gadgets and tools are minimal. I do not "craft" any more, just sew. Only genuinely useful needed things. When the usefulness has passed, the item must leave. 
People who hoard or pack rat often say, “What if I need this in the future?” There are very few items that actually will have a future use. That is if I am honest with myself.

Isn’t purging and cleaning about being honest?

Soul winning

"Any objection to the carryings on of our present gold-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, 

'But we are winning them!' 

And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world´s treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? 

Of course the answer to all these questions is no." -A.W.Tozer

Lawlessness and The Church

Though there are plenty of important discussions debating the semantics of whether or not Christians are subject to the Law, as given by Moses, that is not my subject today.

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.
Proverbs 29:18

When you think of someone who does not keep the law, what do you see? Is it a stereotype you imagine, a rough looking individual? Does the phrase “cast off restraint” make you think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans? At its most basic definition, lawlessness means without law. That does not necessarily mean against the law. It is a very important distinction we must see.
The spirit of lawlessness has borders that might surprise the average believer and there are some very interesting ways this spirit affects people. In fact, it may shock you to hear that most people today have it. A spirit of lawlessness has paved the way in the hearts of men to think and do a myriad of appalling things.

The subject of lawlessness goes deep and has far reaching ramifications. The distance of which, we as the Church, underestimate.

To begin with, God makes the rules. He set the laws of nature, of what is love, what is holy and so on. He set them all, regardless if we accept them as true or not. We cannot rewrite the laws, the standard, that God set into motion. But that is exactly what we try to do. We are ridiculous and head strong.

Each of us has our own personal concepts and our personal defining of what is right and wrong, even in light of scripture we do this. We actually put our individual self on the scale of righteousness. Like a shade of gray on the spectrum from black to white. If Adam did that and shifted the awareness of his own sinfulness and need for the Lord and then next generation shifted that a notch down the ladder? Multiply that from generation to generation further on the scale away from holiness. Our “perceptions” are so far off the mark now that we are standing neck deep in sin and claim we are barely up to our ankles.

“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
Matthew 24:12

This personal standard (pure invention) of right and wrong sets up an entire panorama of justification for sin and perception on who is in error. Yes, it means hating God’s law in many cases (some would argue “all cases”), but this lawless spirit goes farther. Some of it is along the lines of ‘what is right for you is not what is right for me’ but that is way over simplified. Really that is just the first layer. The foundation being- we as creatures are steeped in sin and we refuse to conform or obey ANY standard unless we ourselves judge it to be acceptable. By doing that- we are setting our own laws– not conforming, but instead copying portions of a premade set of standards. Creating our own new set, and because these new laws are our own, we can flex them and bend them to allow ourselves to still be “sinless” in our own eyes and therefore above judgment. What a set up! We are fooling ourselves. It is exactly as if we are plugging our ears and singing “Free To Be You And Me” as loudly as we can, all the while believing that butterflies and sunshine await us when we die. Denying truth and embracing the lie.

Jesus said, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
Matthew 7:23


“Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 13:40-42

We cannot reject God’s law without consequence. We are not above judgment. We are not sinless. We do not set the standard. So then, what can we do? Can we correct this gross distortion our society (and the Church) is entrenched with? Perhaps. I believe we need to start within each of ourselves and teach our children as well. We must pull in the reigns on our ideologies. Correct our vision. We must get on our faces before the Most Holy and pray for revelation:

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.
Proverbs 29:18

When we receive revelation FROM GOD, we see clearly. The false perceptions we have fall off like scales from our eyes. Restraint becomes very important suddenly… Righteous living, or rather living within the standard that God has set, has enormous significance as a result. Therefore, our personal relationship with the Lord will intensify and deepen. One by one, we raise the societal standard of righteousness and holy living… OR one by one we each lower that standard.

Today, the Church has a choice.



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Unequipped to homeschool?

We ALL feel some days like we can't homeschool. But we do it... by God's grace. The character issues and trials in our lives are enough to cause us to doubt our abilities. We homeschool because we know the Lord has called us to do this and because He has, He will work it out when we trust Him to do so.

No homeschooling family is going to tell you that it will all be easy or every day will be easy, but we are here to lift each other up during the hard times. This why homeschool support groups are essential.

There is a saying in homeschool circles and I do not know where it started or who said it first: The worst day home educating is better than than the best day in government school.

Your children are sure to have bad days whether they are in gov't school or private school or at home. That is just fact. It has nothing to do with where they are at physically. All people have bad days. You will and do have bad days! The character issues we each deal with within our families are worked out when we are together not separated- and on our bad days the heat gets turned up on those issues.


My family has grown so much in the Lord because of this type of testing and refining! Because of this process, we actually care about each other in deep ways and seek to keep our family unit serving the Lord in every area of our lives. We are far from perfect or harmonious! But we seek to truly love our neighbor by beginning within our own family. The opportunities (a.k.a. trials!!) for this to happen are abundant when you home educate (or as some say "family discipleship" )

Remember, that is one of the main reasons for a homeschool group! To encourage each other! Share! Support!

Will they know you belong to Jesus?

Will the world know you belong to Jesus? Surely the sweet temperament we have, our prayer at meals and the fact we go to church every week tells people. Right? That is not what we see when we look to scripture. People should have no doubt if we are His disciple. We should stand out. Our lives should be without hypocrisy, an undimmed light, a constant pouring out of the words of Jesus. Is your life becoming of Christ? Do others raise an eyebrow at you and think you talk too much about righteous living, the Bible, Jesus and His soon return? If they do, you may be on the right track. If they don’t, it is time to check yourself.

Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ. [Phil 1:27]

What does it mean to have conduct that is worthy of the gospel?
Our conduct means our behavior, attitude, thoughts and actions- in short, our whole life. Therefore, our whole life has become a daily laying down of our own flesh, obeying and all that doing that entails. Understanding what our flesh is and learning how to put our flesh at the foot of the cross can be a long agonizing road. We must do so to the best of our ability as we ever increase in our understanding in how to do it.

When our conduct becomes worthy of the gospel, it is because it represents what Jesus did for us. He gave all. Jesus is the complete gospel. He is the Good News. Our whole life becomes worthy of the gospel of Christ when we endeavor to strip off the “old man”, to crucify our own ways and thoughts and become more like Jesus. We can only go through this ongoing process with His help.

The more we conduct ourselves worthy of the gospel, the more we will not look like the world around us. The changes that have been taking place cause us to say and do things that inevitably draw attention. We choose to embrace the cross rather than be ashamed of it. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. [Matthew 5:15-17]

This attention we invariably draw is usually either very negative or very positive. If we continue to lay our flesh down then we care less and less about what the world has to say about it. There certainly will be those excited about what God is doing in your life, but there will be plenty of people who will not “glorify the Father” when they see the light spoken of in this verse. As horrible as it may sound, they may even begin to hate you. That’s a good sign.

By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. [John 13:35]

Would the world have known the gospel, if Jesus lived as you do? Ouch. Let’s each diligently seek the Lord to gain better understanding, revelation, on what Love is. The lessons on Love never seem to end, but they are critical in every way when it comes to knowing the Lord and reflecting Him to others.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. [John 10:26-28]

Jesus is telling us volumes in such a short sentence here. Right now we are just going to touch on a bit. If we belong to Jesus, we have relationship with Him. He knows us and we know Him. If we love Jesus: we follow Him, we obey His commandments (John 14:21). Jesus makes an important statement first: He says that if we belong to Him, we hear His voice. We should hear His voice.

How will the world know that we are His? By conducting ourselves worthy of the gospel, by our obedience to Jesus’ commandments, by the brightness of our light shining, by the way we love Jesus and one another, and because we look and sound like Him. Let’s put our focus to become more like Him and let the world know who Jesus is.

Taking a hit

The strongest we can be as Christians is when we fully understand who we are in Christ Jesus and what we can accomplish in Him. However, even when we are completely secure in our knowledge of who we are in Christ, we still occasionally trip and have a difficult time getting back up. The confidence we have has been marred but not altogether lost. We struggle to remember our identity when we stumble and feel weak. Depressed. It seems the longer it takes for us to return to that full standing position is dependent on many factors.
-Our own faith may have taken a hit. Even those who have been tested many times and had our faith stretched and grown until we are very strong can stumble a step or two backward when a heavy hit lands squarely.
-Physical/chemical imbalances in our system. Many suffer occasional or constant battles with an overabundance or lack of integral chemicals in our body. The brain especially. The answer, sometimes elusive, could be a simple vitamin-mineral or amino acid supplement, exercise, or blood sugar correction.
-Outside negative influences. Constantly being inundated with the unkind or poisonous behavior of others is difficult to keep guard against if it is a family member or coworker. We may even open ourselves to negativity by the media we listen to or watch or the company we keep.
-General neglect to protect ourselves from the fiery darts of our enemy. We should put on our spiritual armor. We should be praying for protection.
Our own heart, thought life and prayer life go hand in hand with our personal relationship with the Lord. When we have made a choice, consciously or not, to withhold one of these areas from Him who created us then we are setting ourselves up for an attack or outright infestation of enemy.
What can we do to get back on top? It is simple really- but can be a very difficult door to open. We must humble ourselves and ask the Lord to show us where we need Him right now in our life. He is waiting for us with the answers. He wants to guide us step by step, He wants to show us. Then in our place of humility we can hear the answer and see the path. This is where we can finally stand up victorious again and return to our knowledge of who we are in Christ.

What a comfy chair!

“I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” [Psa 4:8]

While we anxiously wait for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to return, we have found a nice soft place to sit and put our feet up. We see events that are signs of the times, even if we try to hide our head in the sand or plug our ears and sing. There are critical things going on all around us that, as much as we may try, still cannot be brushed away. Before you write me off as a wild-eyed ranting paranoid Christian, hear me out.

Have you ever heard the line, “The biggest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he did not exist”?

We should cease laughing at conspiracy theories and stop making light of the impending collapse of the world’s financial system, “big brother” developments, the seriousness of Marxism and progress towards the one world government. We should not mock those who stand on the streets preaching that the “end” of the world is at hand anymore. The time for waving off these things has long since passed. We may not want to face that fact- the fact that we are standing right in the middle of some extremely distressing biblically prophesied events but it absolutely does not change that they’re really happening. The words “peace” and “safety” are securely the bywords of today. [1 The 5:3] We wonder how we can protect ourselves from deadly flu epidemics, food recalls, computer viruses & hacking, wars, atrocities to children, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, genocide, famine, identity theft and on and on. These are all in everyone’s daily conversations, riddled with fear and shock.

Perhaps now you might stop and consider why you feel the need to label me a wild-eyed ranting paranoid Christian? Does it make you feel more comfortable about yourself and allow you to be free to just “get by” until you are forced to change? When could that time possibly be? Is it when your world is completely destroyed and you are finally forced to admit that it just may be the end portion of the End Times… and not the beginning?

So then, what do we do? Some trust in chariots. However, our hope is in the Lord. He is our deliver, our strength, our defense. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and they are safe.” [Pro 18:10] There is no other name by which we are saved. [Acts 4:12] Since we are so clearly standing in the middle of end times prophecy, we have the wonderful privilege to share the protection and salvation that Jesus brings with those around us. Let us run to Jesus and stay with Him through all trials and tribulation with our eyes wide open.

Had enough?

How many sermons have we heard extolling the importance of faith? We groan, roll our eyes and hope we don’t fall asleep. What more could we honestly hear that would be different? The Bible has a lot to say about it and we never seem to really understand exactly what faith is, how to recognize it and how to measure it. Newer Christians, with zeal, pray for faith and may even look at Faith as the proverbial brass ring for Christians. They want it dearly. Many older Christians have patted these newbies on the back while politely smiling and nodding. Then, more mature Christians, bored, shrug off questions of their faith. Guess they figure “task accomplished”, they have enough.

Somewhere in our mind we have an intangible understanding of what faith is. Most simply, Faith is absence of doubt in the Lord. That translates into every area. We can have faith. We can show faith. We can be faithful. Be it noun or verb, the basic premise we all have is that faith is on a sliding scale. Measurable. The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith. In response, Jesus said “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” [Luke 17] Jesus made a metaphorical reference to a very small seed in comparison to our faith and how such a small amount of faith could do amazing things. Jesus also similarly said “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” [Mark 11:23] Why does Jesus keep saying we can do tremendous things with our faith, even if it is small?

Further, why would we settle for a faith that is small? Didn’t Jesus also say that we would do these things that He had done and greater? “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” [John 14:12] The disciples understood that they needed greater faith and asked for Jesus to help them, and here Jesus says we are expected to do incredible things, even more incredible than He did. That calls for Faith! On the same note though, the disciples were amazed when demons came out when they were out ministering to the people. They did not get it. If we are to do greater works, how can we really expect to do them if we're amazed at demons obeying or if we still sit cowering in the boat afraid to walk on water?

This is where much of the breakdown happens for the maturing Christian. We know we can believe for the car payment or for Marie’s son to be healed of leukemia, but if we suddenly had no income or met Marie’s son sitting hooked up to tubes in his hospital bed… would we really believe? Would our faith evaporate? For a huge majority of Christians the answer is: Yes.

Our faith is a weak prayer we wave over this and that, like a mystic wand, to ease our mind and pat ourselves to sleep at night. We’ve lost the war on doubt. Complacency has taken over our garden.

Few will admit that this is where they now live. And few will wake up from the autopilot they have put themselves into. It’s a hard hitting realization. It means coming to terms with our deviation from what we have read in the Bible to be true. We either believe the Lord 100% or we don’t. The time for excusing ourselves for not doing the same works Jesus did and greater has come to an end.

Ask yourself this: Are you willing, brave enough, to petition the Lord to show you your lack of faith? Are you willing to have a wake up call? If you dare to ask God these things, hold on tight. Situations and relationships all around you will go upside down for a while. You may find out you are not even saved! It is in the place of crisis where we learn to depend on, believe in, trust in and completely belong to the Lord. And complete trust in Jesus is a very good place to be.