Spiritual connection

“so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” – Romans 12:5.

Few things in a marriage are as important as spiritual intimacy between a husband and wife.

Spiritual intimacy is a sense of unity and mutual commitment to God’s purpose for our lives and marriage, along with a respect for the special dreams of each other’s hearts. It’s the greatest depth of intimacy we experience in marriage.

In Proverbs 31 we find an example of such a marriage. They complement each other perfectly because they share a spiritual depth. The wife’s influence is so powerful that her husband and family can’t help but praise her (verse 28). The husband is equally worthy of admiration: “Her husband is well known at the city gates, where he sits with the other civic leaders.” (verse 23). He meets with the leaders to give advice and help people solve their problems. His wife also provides wise instruction and is faithful in all the roles and responsibilities God has given her: “When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.” (verse 26).

This ancient couple serves as an example for modern-day marriages. Because of their godliness and earnest commitment to God and their commitment to each other, their love is amplified. Men and women around them can’t help but notice, and their relationship stands out. Can you imagine this kind of spiritual connection in your own marriage? But if you want a spiritual connection with your spouse you are going to have to work at it. 

Jesus described marriage on a very spiritual level: A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one separate them, for God has joined them together (Matthew 19:5) It’s very possible that those verses were read at your wedding. And for most of us, those words would be the desire of our hearts. When you look at this beautiful statement, isn’t that what you would hope for in your relationship? A man and woman leave their parents to become united. They become literally one flesh.  

We desire for God’s presence to be in our relationship. But to want something and to have it are two different things. We may desire a spiritual connection as a couple, but sadly it is usually the least developed area of the relationship. It takes time, open communication, humility, grace, and a desire for spiritual growth for any couple to grow together spiritually. Even then, there are major blocks we must overcome to achieve it. But if your spouse is of a different faith than you are then it is very difficult to have a true spiritual connection. 

Regardless of where you are at as a couple in the spiritual intimacy department, there is probably room for growth. That is because spiritual intimacy is perhaps the least developed area of a marital relationship. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does having a spiritual connection mean to you?  
  2. What can you do this week to improve the spiritual connection with your spouse? 

Faith Mismatch

To be honest, I didn’t want to believe that Christianity could radically transform someone’s character and values. It was much easier to raise doubts and manufacture outrageous objections than to consider the possibility that God actually could trigger a revolutionary turn-around in such a depraved and degenerate life.” – Lee Strobel 

Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel is the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and best-selling author of more than twenty books. His classic, The Case for Christ, is a perennial favorite which details his conversion to Christianity. The Case for Christ, which was made into a movie, tells the extraordinary story of Lee’s life and his marriage.

Lee had been an atheist and a successful journalist and when his wife Leslie found a church and became a Christian. Lee thought she had lost it, so he set out to prove her wrong using his journalism skills to research the Christian faith and attempt to disprove it. What happened instead is that the facts he found convinced him that Jesus was real and the Bible is true.

But in the years in between her conversion and his were turbulent to say the least. Leslie was wholeheartedly following Christ and Lee was doing everything he could to undermine her beliefs. Ultimately, Leslie’s powerful testimony of love and grace, combined with the evidence of Christianity, led Lee to give his heart to Christ and devote the rest of his life to ministry.  

Lee and Leslie are certainly not unique. There are many couples who are in the situation Lee and Leslie were once facing. If you are a Christian and married to a non-believer, Paul outlines in 1 Corinthians what we as believers should be doing. First we should promote peace. (1 Corinthians 7:15). That means simply to not pick fights with your spouse. Don’t try to manipulate or coerce them to see things from your perspective. Strive to be the one who finds solutions to problems in the marriage rather than causes them.   

Second, use your actions to demonstrate your faith.  Your life can be the most compelling evidence for Christianity. The most powerful “sermons” come through actions and not just words; your faith will be attractive if you’re living out a Christian example of love and grace.

Next don’t try to fix, change or judge your spouse. Just love them. The rest is God’s business. Love is the primary tool God uses to change us all. Then pray without ceasing. Prayer is powerful and it always brings results. Sometimes God uses prayer to change our circumstances, and sometimes He uses prayer to simply change our perspective about our circumstances. Pray for your spouse daily. Pray that God would help you to love him/her selflessly. Pray that God would give you strength, grace, and encouragement on those days when there is trouble in your marriage. Pray for their salvation.  

Discussion Questions:

  1. What are your obligations if you are married to an unbeliever? 
  2. What could we do this week to be a better example of God’s love and grace?  

3 Is Better Than 1

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” – Ecclesiastes 4:12.

A friend had a houseplant that had grown to nearly six feet. It had produced large leaves from three spindly trunks. Over time, the weight of the leaves had caused all three of the stalks to curve down toward the floor. To straighten them, he put a wedge under the plant’s pot and placed it near a window so the sunlight could draw the leaves upward and help cure its bad posture. At a doctor’s office, I noticed the same plant in the waiting room: same height, same broad leaves growing from three long skinny stalks. But there was a difference. The three long skinny stalks had braided together over time to form a more solid core. This plant stood upright without any help.

This reminded me of Ecclesiastes 4:12. Married people can try apart from each other and from God. But woven together with God, however, there is a greater sense of stability and closeness. Their relationship will grow stronger “for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). 

Simple equation: You + Christ + your spouse = 3. When Christ is at the center of your marriage you will find a depth and love that far surpasses that of what the world offers.

There are many things we can do to produce a healthy marriage, but there are some things that only God can do.  We count on our spouse to make us happy and to fill our lives with joy.  In the final analysis, the only person who can meet your deepest needs is Jesus. If you are looking for a man or woman to do that you are looking in the wrong place. From the beginning of the honeymoon, all along the way, partners struggle with their weaknesses, their differences, and with the crises that life brings their way. Every marriage experiences conflict. Every marriage is a journey of hills and valleys, highs and lows. There are times when we argue over trivial issues or when we think our partner acts like a child. There will be times when we get frustrated because we cannot agree about something that is important to each of us. 

God wants a healthy marriage for each of us that get married. But we must work at creating the environments that allow Him to do that. In loving God and loving each other, couples grow together – and become the people God wants us to be. We simply need to operate on faith that God has our marriage in His perfect plan.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Where do you stand in giving God total control over your life?
  2. What problem(s) in your marriage do you see as your responsibility? Which do you see as God’s problem?
  3. What do you think God is doing in your marriage right now?

Acceptance In Marriage

“A good marriage isn’t something you find; it’s something you make and you have to keep on making it.” – Gary Thomas

Too often married couples rely on agreement rather than acceptance. But the fact of the matter is true love relies on acceptance, not agreement. True love accepts the other person whether you agree with them and whether they have flaws. Priceless love accepts the person (no matter who or where they are) with the understanding that it is God’s job to fix them, not ours. 

It is interesting that the traits that initially drew you to your spouse that you may have to come to terms with after you are married. For instance, you may have a husband who is clearly watching the family money, and even now that money is less tight, he still watches every nickel and dime. You may have been impressed by his frugalness while dating but now you think he is just cheap. Or maybe you’re married to a wife who is very detailed-oriented. While you were dating, you appreciated her everything has a place and everything in its place mentality. Now, it seems like all she does is nag you to put everything in the right place. Accepting your spouse can be hard. So hard, you decide the best course of action is to grin and bear it, but you soon realize that strategy doesn’t work.  

Every marriage has difficult moments. We should expect that. We’re marrying people that the Bible promises will stumble in many ways. You will not find many people who tell you marriage is easy. Rewarding? Yes. Character-forming? Absolutely. But easy? Never. Understanding that marriage is not easy and takes hard work and commitment should make us appreciate our spouse. We should appreciate our spouse who is willing to overlook our flaws and who is willing to walk side-by-side on this journey with us. 

“If you knew my spouse, you would understand why I can’t just accept him or her?” We all have the tendency to overlook our faults while magnifying the flaws of our spouse. Jesus could not have been clearer: “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42).

We’re not called to judge our spouses—ever. We are called to love them. We are not called to recount their failures—we’re called to encourage them. We are not called to build a case against them, we are called to honor, respect and accept them.

Every one of us is married to an imperfect spouse. We confront different trials, different temptations, and different struggles—but each one of us faces the same reality: living as imperfect people, in an imperfect world, with an imperfect spouse. Learning to love, appreciate, accept and to be thankful for that imperfect spouse is one of the most important things you can do.  

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does accepting another person mean to you? 
  2. What can you do this week to improve the acceptance level of your spouse? 

Disappointment In Marriage

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:28-31. 

Seasons of disappointment will find us. Our marriages are particularly vulnerable because we become discouraged and disheartened when disappointment sets in.  We ask ourselves why relationship struggles are so disappointing. Why do the problems we have with other people affect us so powerfully? Why is relational disappointment one of the hardest disappointments for all of us to face? 

A broad answer to those questions might be that we enter our relationships with unrealistic expectations: Somehow, someway, we’re able to deceive ourselves into thinking that we’ll be able to avoid the difficulties that attend any relationship in this broken world. In the early days of a relationship we work to convince ourselves that we’re more righteous, and the other person more perfect than they and we actually are. This causes us to be shocked when an unexpected but inevitable difficulty gets in the way of the bliss that we had convinced ourselves we had found. 

Without being aware of it, our relationships are often about what we want out of our lives rather than what God wants for our lives. Often we’re disappointed with a relationship at the very moment when God is producing through this relationship exactly what He wanted to produce. Our problem is that our agenda doesn’t agree with God’s. When we believe that God is always up to something in our lives, we will see the value of looking at disappointment in a different way.

When we bring everything before the Lord Jesus—our gifts, our flaws, our hopes, our dreams, and even the tangled mess of our marriage, God can make something beautiful out of the worst mess.  Disappointment can take our breath away, but in due time and at the right time, God will restore and redirect us. Spend much time in the Word, and allow your disappointments to fuel your determination and empower you to possess all Got has for you.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How self-serving are you in your relationships? Where can you be more self-sacrificing?
  2. How can you make these relationships more about the Kingdom of God?

Real Attention In Marriage

“The more you invest in a marriage the more favorable it becomes” – author unknown.   

Love is displayed through attentiveness. This is one reason our hearts can be glad in Christ; He has made clear to us the attentive nature of God. God has an infinite capacity for attentiveness. For example, consider Psalm 147:4: “He counts the stars and calls them all by name.” We can marvel at God’s awareness of all that is happening in the universe, but this verse describes something deeper. God doesn’t just keep an inventory of the stars, He determines how many will exist and names each one. That’s unrivaled attention to detail. As humans, we cannot match God’s capacity, but we can imitate Him—in this case—by being attentive to those we love.

A pretty good blueprint for being attentive to our spouse is found in Colossians 3:12-14. “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.“

If you get nothing else, get this. You don’t get much credit for going through the motions or doing the bare minimum. Nothing is likely to improve if you spend a few minutes now and again just for show, so you can check that off as being addressed.  Marriages, in fact, all relationships, will not grow deeper or richer on minimal efforts and on tidbits and leftovers. Eventually, a successful marriage requires more.  We should expect more as husband and wife. It’s too easy to give our best time and energy away to everyone and everything else, other than the one you vowed before God to “love, honor, and cherish” for the rest of your lives together.   

Take a few moments and do a constructive evaluation of your attentive effort or your lack of effort. This is difficult to measure and not nearly as obvious as other marital challenges. There are exceptions to be sure, but many of us will assume that the relationship is going along just fine. It just doesn’t require as much effort because we have been married for several years and have settled into a routine that doesn’t require as much effort or as much romanticism.  That’s a more businesslike way of saying that we take our spouse and our obligations to him or her for granted. 

Malcolm Gladwell says in his book, Outliers, it takes 10,000 hours to become world class at something. I have no idea if that number is valid, but I do know the more time we spend doing something the better, the more quality, we get at it.

Practice investing time in your spouse. Learn to spend time and to make the time count for something.  A marriage relationship cannot thrive if our contact with one another is limited to a quick bite of supper or a brief chat before bed. A good marriage requires serious commitment and hard work.  

Discussion Questions:

  1. Is your attention to your marriage good or does it need improvement? 
  2. What can we do this week to increase our level of attention and intentionality in your marriage?  

A Primer On Marriage

To fully know and still fully love, is the primary aim of marriage.” – Fierce Marriage: Radically Pursuing Each Other in Light of Christ’s Relentless Love

A 20-something told me recently that marriage is just too difficult and misery seems inevitable. She went on to say it’s just not working out. Nothing is changing. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, he doesn’t get it. She added, “I am angry and apathetic….I don’t have much hope that anything but tough days lie ahead.” 

Most marriages will have their ups and downs. Like a virus, discontentment, anger and apathy can affect and weaken every healthy aspect of life and marriage. It infects our affections, our views of each other, our contentment and happiness, and our very trust in God. There is no question that maintaining a strong, vibrant marriage is not an easy thing to do.  

For Christians who are married or in relationships, there are a lot of “one anothers” concerning how we treat each other.  Here are a few of them that relate to marriage: Live in harmony with one another. (Romans 12:16);  Accept one another. (Romans 15:7); Care for one another. (1 Corinthians 12:25); Serve one another in love.( Galatians 5:13);  Don’t spitefully hurt one another. (Galatians 5:15) Carry one another’s burdens.( Galatians 6:2) Be kind to one another. (Ephesians 4:32); Forgive one another. (Ephesians 4:32); Don’t lie to one another. (Colossians 3:9) Encourage one another. (Hebrews 3:13) Pray for one another. (James 5:16).  There are more but you get the right idea. 

These “one anothers” are perfect “to-dos” for a healthy marriage. What if we lived our lives and focused our marriages on these amazing biblical mandates on how to treat our spouse? But when troubles arise, when the day gets busy and we get distracted, we must admit that we all tend to short-cut this to-do list.

As we look at the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, He obviously lived out the “one anothers.” He understood that treating people by the Golden Rule of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not just a philosophy of life, it is the way to live life. Mother Teresa once said: “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” From my experience, the happiest people are the ones whose to-do list is filled with loving and serving one another.

God clearly presents the case that marriage is to be a covenant in which husband and wife and we need to focus on making the other party of the covenant better, stronger, more complete. The marriage roles of a husband and wife are designed to complement each other; one is incomplete without the other.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you look at marriage as a series of “one anothers?” Or as a to-do list? 
  2. What would be on the top of your to-do list in your marriage? 

Can We Understand the Trinity?

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” –Matthew 28:10.  

When asked about the Trinity, most people answer ”the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” But that is wrong. The right answer is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is one God in three persons.  

Admittedly the Trinity is probably one of the most mysterious concepts in our faith. But God is at one time, three persons; the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, with all the attributes of God, but each person is distinct from the others. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. However, they are all God. We need to remember that this isn’t just God showing up in a different form at different times. Each person of the Trinity has always existed and has always been fully God.

Matthew 3:16-17 says, “After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” Jesus (the Son) getting baptized, the Father speaking, and the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove.

If God is three Persons, does this mean that each Person is “one-third” of God? Does the Trinity mean that God is divided into three parts? The Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one hundred percent God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all fully God. For example, it says that in Christ “lives all the fullness of God in a human body.” (Colossians 2:9). We should not think of God as like a “pie” cut into three pieces, each piece representing a Person. This would make each Person less than fully God and thus not God at all. Rather, the being of each Person is equal to the whole being of God. 

If each Person of the Trinity is distinct and yet fully God, then should we conclude that there is more than one God? Obviously we cannot, for Scripture is clear that there is only one God: Isaiah 45:1-2 is one example:”Consult together, argue your case. Get together and decide what to say. Who made these things known so long ago? What idol ever told you they would happen? Was it not I, the Lord? For there is no other God but me, a righteous God and Savior. There is none but me.” 1 Kings 8:60 adds, “Then people all over the earth will know that the Lord alone is God and there is no other.”

Discussion Questions:

  1.  In your own words, how would you explain the Trinity to a non-believer?
  2.  Do you approach God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit with different requests?

The Love Of The Father

“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.” –  1 John 4:9. 

God the Father can be intimidating. He can be seen as creator, ruler, and enforcer. He can be seen as a stern dad who warns about making too much noise, obeying the rules, and going through the proper channels. He gets angry. But what do I do with verses like  Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8) We can’t talk about God the father without talking about love. 

We know He’s a Father because He’s always had a Son. Long before the earth was created or any rules had been set, God was Father. God the Father is not simply a creator, because there was a time before He made creation.  And He’s not just a lawgiver, because there was a time when He hadn’t made any laws. But He has always been a Father and He’s always been loving His Son. [Jesus prayed] “Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!” (John 17:24)

The Father loves us as Jesus reminds us in John 16 “Then you will ask in my name. I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God.’ (John 16:26-27) 

Our view of God the Father should not be a distant distributor of blessings and curses, rather He should be seen as a Father, looking on His beloved children, with open arms. Think of some loving parents that you know.  Do they let their children do exactly as they please? Of course not. If their child crawls towards the fire, they’ll warn him and pull him away. They will hold him and look after him and set limits for him too. In the same way, (but without any flaws) the Father disciplines us because He loves us and wants to keep us safe. He’s loving; because He’s just. And He’s just; because He’s loving.

The unconditional love of an earthly father gives us a wonderful start. But the unconditional love of a heavenly Father changes everything.

There is no better father than God. He formed us and knows us. He provides for us, loves us unconditionally, and longs for a real, life-giving relationship with us. He runs out to meet us in our sin, clothes us with a new identity, and restores to us the abundant life He has always planned for us.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How have you recognized God’s love in these areas over the last few weeks?  
  2. We return the Father’s love with the knowledge that our Heavenly Father already loves us. How does this understanding change how we approach our walk with God?

The Reward Of Self-discipline

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. 26 So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.” – 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27. 

Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time. His greatness, however, didn’t result from his elite, God-given athletic talent alone. He kept his body in peak condition through an extremely disciplined and rigorous workout and diet regimen. His self-discipline enabled him to work harder than everyone else. 

The power of self-discipline is not a secret as 2 Corinthians 9:34-27 tells us.  In a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize so you have to run if you want to receive the prize. Here’s the point: elite athletes don’t live disciplined lives because they think disciplined lives are virtuous. They live disciplined lives and endure all kinds of self-denial because they want the pleasures of the prize. They believe the pleasures of the “wreath” (or money, medals, trophies, rings, and records) are worth the effort. 

Paul doesn’t call their pursuit of reward wrong. Far from it. Paul shamelessly states that the pursuit of a reward also fuels his self-discipline and should fuel ours. The only difference — and it’s a big one — is that the reward he pursued was an “imperishable” reward, which he describes here: “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8) Gaining Christ through the gospel was the reward that gave Paul his laser-like focus and fueled his self-discipline.

We often chalk up our discipline failures to a lack of will power. We look at a Michael Jordan and think if we just had some of his iron will, we could stick with it. But will power is not our problem — at least not in the way we usually think. The problem is we lose sight of the reward. What typically happens is we imagine what experiencing the benefits of attaining some goal might feel like — perhaps a fit body, or reading the Bible in a year, or some kind of career advancement, or a financial savings goal. We want to think our inspiration stems from a new conviction that the reward we imagine will make us happy.

But once the initial enthusiasm wears off, we soon come to the conclusion that the goal no longer seems worth it, so we give it up. We failed because the reward itself wasn’t real enough to fuel our discipline. That’s why Paul said, “ I run with purpose in every step” (1 Corinthians 9:26). Like Michael Jordan or the ancient Olympians, Paul “ran” with his eyes on the prize he really wanted — the prize he believed would yield him the most happiness which is an eternity with his Lord and Savior.

That is the key to self-discipline: our real belief that the pleasures of a reward will be worth the effort to reach the reward.  The more we set our eyes on the prize the more we’ll view self-discipline, not as a drudgery to be avoided, but as a means to the joy we really want.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the definition of self-discipline?
  2. Why is self-discipline needed?
  3. In order to have discipline, what else must we have that goes hand-in-hand?