Author: gabrieltew

The Christmas story, lovely as it is, is a hiding place where many life lessons can be found. Here are four of them as they apply to marriage.

1. God makes and fulfills outlandish promises. Telling an obscure engaged virgin girl that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, causing her to conceive and bear the Son who would be the King sitting on the eternal throne of David can certainly be placed in the category of outlandish. 

God also made the promise during the very first week of His creation that a man and woman coming together in matrimony would no longer be two, but one. That, too, is outlandish. And just as the coming of the Messiah would require deeply intimate divine intervention, so does oneness of flesh in marriage; it’s made possible only by God, thus Jesus’ statement, …what God joins together…. Remembering that the Spirit that sowed the Messianic seed in Mary’s womb is the same Spirit that joins together a husband and wife should cause all us married folk to view with trembling the marriage relationships that join us with our spouses. Let’s allow God’s Spirit to draw us most closely together this Christmas.

2. God often uses the humblest in His loftiest works. A peasant girl. A carpenter. A group of shepherds. A manger. These are the players God conscripted into His story of the Savior’s birth. Not a princess, a prince, a group of noblemen or a brass crib with goose down bedding and a midwife. No, God chose the lowly, the meek, the things deemed foolish to the world.

The choice ingredients of a Godly marriage are those things which bring us to a humble position. I’m sorry. I was wrong. Sacrifices. These are the things God uses in a marriage. They require us to take a position lower than our spouse’s. Let’s give our spouse the gift of humility this Christmas. 

3. The loftiest enemies of God’s plan will ultimately come to frustration. Herod never got his murderous hands on the Christ child. The wise men subverted his plan by not reporting back to him. And Joseph heeded the voice of God and took his family of three to Egypt until Herod had died. 

The enemy of our marriages is the same spirit that incited Herod to seek to kill little Jesus. That evil spirit wants to spoil God’s plan, which is to have us spouses enjoy each other and dwell in homes of kindness and peace. This Christmas let’s have peace in our marriages and goodwill toward our spouses. 

4. God has factored “detours” into His plan. Living in the country God had told His people to never live in again must’ve seemed almost wrong to Joseph and Mary. But God has His reasons for making His exceptions, and preserving the life of the Messiah was a perfect one.

Life can hit our marriages with circumstances seemingly designed for our destruction. But these are just detours. Unemployment. Parenting challenges. Health hurdles. If we can just remember that these difficulties haven’t caught God by surprise, that He’ll work them all for our good and that we can be stronger by going through them, maybe we can keep a Godly attitude through them all and have stronger marriages on the other side of them. If you’re on a detour this Christmas, may God comfort you, strengthen you and give you wisdom, you and your spouse.

Merry Christmas!!

Five years ago my wife, Sharlene, and I had it in our hearts to start something we call Marriage Club.

We invited several couples to meet with us once a month on a Friday night; we would have dinner (we would enlist the couples to contribute to the meal), after which we would have a marriage topic about which we would watch a video, lead a group discussion and pray out. Almost all of our videos were YouTube videos; it’s pretty amazing how much is available on YouTube that matches up with our Marriage Club needs. 

We just completed our fourth straight year of Marriage Club. We’ve had a blast with it, grown closer to dozens of couples and seen our and the other MC members’ marriages strengthened. Now we’re gearing up for year five.

This year, we’d love to see others lead their own MCs. Perhaps you’d be interested in starting up one. If you’d love to get one going but aren’t confident that you can lead it, you can spread out the responsibilities across a couple different roles and take the multiple-leaders approach. It’s essentially like a church small group without being under the umbrella of a church or ministry organization. 

Sharlene and I considered organizing it in a way that MC chapters could form under a growing MC umbrella but decided against it. We don’t care to have a “big” ministry or have any control over its growth and development. We prefer to let it grow organically in grassroots fashion, allowing freedom for the Holy Spirit to use others to make it whatever He wants it to be. 

We also considered developing a leader’s guide but decided that isn’t necessary because it’s such a simple model that it can be explained in a single blog post, thus the blog post you’re reading now.

Here’s all you need to know. But it’s important to customize, think innovatively and organize things in a way that works for you. This is not anything close to a cookie cutter template, but just based on our experience; your club may look very different from ours. We do strongly suggest your club agree from the start to recognize the Bible as the standard for marriage and to build your club on its principles.

Roles. These can be filled by a team of couples or just one couple; it can even be a different team from month to month.

• Host (should have the space to accommodate the size gathering that forms)
• Food Coordinator (can decide how much and what food to contribute themselves and how much others need to contribute; should be gifted as an organizer of people)
• Childcare Coordinator (should search for options of sitters – usually teenaged girls by our experience – and schedule them in advance; should coordinate the paying of those serving in this way; we ask members who can to contribute to the childcare fund each month)
• Discussion Leader (They need to be gifted in leading small group discussion; this role is not that of teacher, but they should be somewhat knowledgeable and able to help the group share and receive the wisdom God has imparted to each of the members while keeping the discussion on topic; it’s ideal if a couple can do this as a team, which Sharlene and I do, but if only one person is gifted for it, better for us all to work in our own wheelhouse. Sharlene sometimes includes a game that reinforces the topic, which adds to the gathering’s fun and enhances the learning and growth process.)
• Members (We invited married couples and couples considering or working toward marriage; there are no attendance requirements, allowing couples the freedom to decide for themselves the priority of MC in their lives from month to month; attendance can be fluid from month to month, even having couples join and un-join organically) 

Topics. There are 12 meetings a year, unless you take off one or more months; whatever number of meetings you have is the number of topics you need. I suggest making sure you cover the following seven and decide what other topics you’ll cover to fill out the year. 

• Understanding Your Unique Spouse, Self and Marriage (we use The Five Love Languages, How Am I Smart, The Birth Order Book, Personality Tests, Enneagram Scores and other resources as tools for this.)
• Understanding Marital Love
• Biblical Roles of Husband and Wife
• Communication in Marriage
• Managing Conflict in Marriage
• Money in Marriage
• Sex and Romance in Marriage

Various Settings. We encourage member couples to connect outside the monthly gatherings. The group discussion can be only so personal and open. Couples can find opportunities for deeper connection as they form friendships that transcend monthly MC meetings. Sharlene and I also offer some counseling to interested couples; however, this is part of our skillset and gifting. If this isn’t a specialty of yours, you may be able to recommend trustworthy Christian marriage counselors, which you can search and find in your local area, to your members. 

If you ‘re interested in MC but have questions , please feel free to DM me; I’d love to help in any way I can.

I know we haven’t even gotten to Thanksgiving yet. But we’re still very close to Christmas. So, I want to look at a marriage from the first Christmas and see what we can learn from it.

God could have sent His Messianic Son to earth in any number of ways. He could’ve, like Hanna with Samuel, entrusted Him to the high priest. Imagine the miracle of a baby being delivered to the temple without any woman conceiving carrying or birthing Him; the priests just find Him in the temple one morning. Or what if God had given a child to one of the religious groups, like the Pharisees, the Saducees or the Essenes. He could’ve had King Herod one day discover a divine baby in his royal palace. 

But God chose man and woman betrothed but not yet married. Here are some gleanings from the Marriage of Mary and Joseph.

A High Purpose and Calling. Joseph and Mary were given the greatest responsibility of any couple ever, to bring up the one who would save the world from sin’s consequences. I believe God has a high calling and purpose for every married couple, something neither of them could do alone, something they can accomplish only as a one-flesh married couple. 

This is an awesome prayer focus for a married couple, to ask God what it is that He wants them to accomplish together.

A Sacrificial Love. Joseph risked his reputation by marrying Mary; surely people thought the child was his. And Mary risked a broken heart; would Joseph stay around to raise a child that wasn’t “his”?

It’s certain that God wants married couples who will humble themselves for each other and for carrying out God’s plan and calling for them.

Spontaneous Obedience. Joseph moved his new family to another country after a dream in which God warned him to do so. He and Mary didn’t require any preparations or long-advanced notice from God. They just left.

Would you, as a married couple, do the same? If God made it clear to you that He wanted you to make a major change in your life immediately, and His instruction was the only reason for doing it, no other factor supporting that message from Him, would you do it?

May your marriage be merry and bright, like the Christmas marriage was!

And Happy Thanksgiving!

8.3333%. That’s the percentage of disciples who stepped out by faith onto the stormy sea. One out of the twelve disciples used his faith to walk out on the water toward Jesus.

The estimated percentage of troubled marriages that survive is much higher – nearly 70%. 

The data includes marriages that see a counselor when they have trouble; about 70% of them make it through the storm. 

So, we’re actually talking about going for help, not walking on water. But what Peter walking on water has in common with married couples getting counselling in their troubles is that they both look outside themselves for help in getting through the storm.

But it goes deeper than that. (Pardon the pun.)

Why did Peter walk on the water? The eleven others felt safer in the boat; why didn’t he? Was it just that he had a sense of adventure the others didn’t have? Or was there a longing, even in those peculiar circumstances, to be where Jesus was and do what Jesus was doing? Let’s assume the latter. 

If your marriage is in a storm, do what Peter did. We see phases in his experience.

Faith Phase. It took faith to step out of a perfectly good boat and walk on water toward Jesus. It also takes faith to reach out to God for marital help and heed the advice He gives in His Word and by His Spirit. 

Fail Phase. Before Peter arrived in Jesus’ arms he sank into the deep. Sometimes things get worse before they get better when you trust God’s process of redemption. Obedience of a Biblical principle can bring testing by fire before it yields the desired fruit of marital healing.

Fulfillment Phase. Ultimately, Peter got what he wanted: the embrace of his Savior; his felt need was fulfilled. A married couple desperate enough to seek help and wise enough to seek and heed God for it will enjoy the rich fulfillment of replacing their storm with His calm, strong presence. 

Finally, to clarify, while marriage counseling is valuable, it’s really God and His direction that I’m advocating here. Secondly, there are some wise and skillful counselors who aren’t Jesus followers, but my advice is to find a counselor who can help you find the counsel of God for your marriage. He’s its creator and knows its blueprint better than any other.

The account of Peter and Jesus walking on the water is found in Matthew 14:22-33.

“Tell her about it; let her know how much you care.” 

Those words are from the song Tell Her about It by Billy Joel. In the song, Billy urges guys to express to their girls the love they have for them. 

While I consider Billy Joel a pop music genius – as both a musician and a lyricist – he’s not the one I suggest turning to for marriage advice. But he did get this one right. 

The one to go to for wisdom in marriage is God and He’s laid out for us in His Word the wisdom we need for life. 

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. 

Three questions:

Is their a person in our lives more suitable for receiving our words of life than our spouse? 

Is it life-giving to let someone know how much they’re loved?

Do you want to lift your spouse’s countenance and warm their heart by speaking life to them?

Three answers: Yes. Yes. And yes. 

Three more questions:

Have you been an under-speaker of life to your spouse?

Do you want to correct that going forward?

Will you speak life to your spouse today?

Assumes answers: three yeses.

This is something my wife does well. She has the power to lift my spirits or tear me down and she always chooses the former. From the receiving end of words of life I can tell you that it’s a great blessing to have a spouse that isn’t an under-speaker of love and admiration for her spouse. The effect of those words goes far beyond the time they’re spoken. The words are like seeds that grow very good fruit, and that fruit has the taste of confidence; knowing that someone loves and believes in you boosts self confidence like nothing else can. 

So let’s take Billy Joel’s advice on this one. And let our spouses know how much we love them.

God’s Word doesn’t intersect all that often with Billy Joel’s lyrics, but it does here. When it comes to marital love, tell them about it.

1^st Corintians 13 – the Love Chapter – is the chapter God designated to describe the love He has for us. It’s agape-love, one of four types of love in the language of ancient Greeks, the language in which the Bible was written. Agape-love is essentially what Jesus came to introduce to the world; it’s basically grace, unmerited favor, and the core ingredient of the gospel, the good news that the kingdom of Heaven is here to receive us as citizens through faith in Jesus. 

Agape-love is not only the way God loves us, but the love He also calls us to have for each other. Of all human relationships, which one is most important to include agape-love? It has to be the marriage relationship. Husband and wife giving to one another favor without requirement is, perhaps, the most effective illustration for an onlooking world of God loving His people. 

If we zoom in on 1^st Corinthians 13, into verses 4 through 8, we see something remarkable right there in verse 7. It says there that agape love always trusts

If we take it at face value, which is the right approach for all of God’s Word, we know that God always trusts us. 

If you’re like me, you don’t feel right accepting that God (the supremely trustworthy) trusts us (the utterly untrustworthy). Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we be the ones trusting Him?

Our problem is that we tie trust to expectation. Agape-love doesn’t do that. Agape love trusts without regard to the recipient’s track record of stewardship. 

Even though we haven’t managed our money well in the past, God continually provides for our needs. 

Almost every resource God has placed into my hands I’ve mismanaged in some way. I’ve squandered, wasted, abused and undervalued God’s blessings in my life, yet He hasn’t stopped pouring them into my life. 

Trust means to commit something to; it isn’t a mere attitude or mental stance. It requires action, the action of committing something to a recipient. 

What’s preposterous is that God trusts us, knowing our handling of the resource will be flawed. He doesn’t require expectation be met before trusting us with resources. 

Imagine a marriage where the spouses give freely to each other, not requiring expectations be met, and they keep on giving to each other without regard to track record. This is trust in marriage. 

Trusting the untrustworthy isn’t without problems. There will be pain and loss, just as Jesus endured pain and loss in trusting us with His life, His body. God has ways of helping us deal with the pain and loss, but the solution isn’t to stop trusting. He’ll help us navigate those difficult waters, all while we continue to trust. 

Why? Because agape-love always trusts. This is agape-love. And this is trust in marriage.

Believe it or not, there is a way to have an easy marriage.

I admit, easy is a relative word; what one considers easy another may call difficult. So, let’s take Jesus’ perspective. He said that His yoke is easy.

A word that appears often in Scripture is anoint. To anoint something is essentially to apply oil to it, making it work smoothly, making it easy. 

Oil is a symbol representing the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s presence, His involvement, brings an anointing, making easy whatever it is in which He’s involved. The Spirit is given to reside in the heart of every believer in Jesus; that’s what Jesus meant when He said His yoke is easy. Submitting one’s life to Jesus is taking on His yoke, receiving His Spirit. Having the Holy Spirit is the greatest blessing we can receive on this earth. In fact, the Bible says He’s a deposit of our life to come in eternity. 

This is yet another principle that can be applied to marriage. God never intended marriage to be carried on without His involvement. Look what happened when Adam and Eve chose their own path instead of His in the garden.

Now that we have, in our present age, the Holy Spirit always with us – more precisely, in us – we never have to be without Him, His presence, His influence, His involvement. 

Yet Paul, writing to believers in Galatia who already had the Spirit within them, urged them to walk (or live) according to the Spirit’s guidance, because they still had the option of not being in step with Him. 

Every married couple who are in Christ also have the option of being in step or out of step with the Holy Spirit in every part of their relationship. 

Dancing can be difficult, two dance partners being in step with each other; if one gets out of step, it messes up the dance. But what if they had an instructor guiding them in every step, making the dance as simple as following his lead. That’s what the Holy Spirit is for us married couples, our divine Instructor in our marriage dance. So, the dance becomes a matter of following His lead. Marriage becomes a matter of walking according to the Spirit, being in step with Him. 

The most important relationship in my marriage isn’t the one between my wife and me; it’s the one she and I have with God. When that relationship is strong, when she and I both are in step with Him, our marriage becomes a beautiful dance. 

That’s when marriage is easy.

A married couple I know were trying to decide whether to continue attending a certain church they had been attending for a few weeks. Every Sunday at morning worship service a church leader would approach the wife and urge her to help in kids’ church. The wife always said yes because the need was there and her gifts and talents were a perfect fit for it. 

The problem was that the church did nothing to staff kids’ church until they saw the wife each Sunday morning. The wife told the church leaders that she couldn’t be in kids’ church every week, that she needed to be in the adult service with her husband at least some of the time for her own discipleship growth. 

Nothing changed. Each Sunday, a leader would come to the wife and pressure her into serving in kids’ church.

Meanwhile, the husband otherwise loved the church. The preaching was edifying, the relationships he formed were strengthening and the mission of the church resonated with him. 

As the husband and wife discussed the church over the weeks, it became crystal clear to each of them that their respective satisfaction with the church were on opposite ends of the spectrum. 

As guests in our home one evening, it came to a head. As they were telling my wife and me about their dilemma, it escalated to a full-scale argument. It was intense and both spouses were obviously intent on winning the argument. It was also inspiring, a truly beautiful thing to witness. 

The beautiful thing was that each of them was arguing for what was beneficial for the other, not themselves. The husband insisted they leave the church that had become such a burden to the wife, while the wife argued that she could suck it up and they could continue attending the church her husband loved. 

I was impressed that they both fought as hard as they could. Each genuinely wanted the other to be satisfied. They verged on being angry, emotions rising as they argued. Neither backing down, this wasn’t a negotiation; nobody was giving an inch. There would be no compromise. 

In fact, they left our home that night with the matter unresolved. The argument would continue on. 

It’s so cool when God shows you something. That’s what happened that evening; there was divine revelation. This was love, that spouses lay down their wills for one another. 

The lesson from this epic, beautiful marriage fight was this:

If you’re going to fight with your spouse, fight for their benefit. I can testify, it’s a beautiful thing. 

The earliest recorded miracle Jesus performed is found in John chapter 2. There was a wedding in the town of Cana and the wedding hosts found themselves in trouble. 

There are lessons for marriage found in this wedding story. Here are four of them.

1. Place Jesus at the top of the invitations list. It turned out that, of all the wedding attendants, Jesus was the most important. It’s the same with our marriages. 

The most important relationship in my marriage isn’t the one I have with my wife; it’s the one she and I both have with Jesus. A marriage without Jesus lacks intimacy with His Spirit, and of all the intimate opportunities marriage affords, intimacy with God is the most valuable.

2. When there’s a need, turn to Jesus. For whatever reason, the wedding hosts ran out of wine, a necessary part of a merry feast. 

God is not oblivious to the needs of my marriage; He’s sensitive to even the things important to my wife or me that others wouldn’t see as necessary. To some, wine may not seem necessary for a feast, but Jesus saved anyone and everyone in the wedding party from the embarrassment they might have experienced had there been no more wine. 

3. Obey exactly the instructions God gives. It must’ve sounded senseless the instructions Jesus gave. “Fill these pots with water,” is what He told the servants to do. This step in the process of producing wine only Jesus could yet understand. But obedience brought everyone into understanding.

When we find ourselves in a marriage dilemma and turn to God for help, His instruction may seem counterintuitive, but obedience must often precede understanding. There’s never a time in the history or future of humankind when obedience to God isn’t the best option, never a time in marriage when obedience isn’t the best choice.

4. Acknowledge the superiority of God’s provision. The master of the wedding feast announced that the miraculously produced wine was better than what had been provided originally by the hard work of professionals and experts. 

My marriage will find nothing better than what God offers. He’s the creator of my wife, me and marriage itself. He knows what marital love is and provides exactly the wisdom each spouse needs to navigate the sea of marriage challenges. To have these blessings from God and not give Him credit for them is grossly unfair to Him.

The story is told by Phillip Yancey of a group of Christian theologians in London who were debating among themselves in search of the answer to what sets Christianity apart from every other religion, faith or belief system. 

Was it fulfilled prophecy? No, there are other religions claiming prophecies fulfilled.

Was it God incarnate? Nope. Other religious leaders claimed divinity.

How about the founder of the religion dying for their cause? That wasn’t it either; there’ve been other martyred founders of a religion.

Then it must be resurrection. Surprisingly, though, other religions claimed their leader had risen from death.

The theological think tank, having reached the end of their answer rope, with perfect timing, noticed C. S. Lewis, whose office happened to be in the same building, walking past their door.

They got Lewis’ attention and posed the question to him. “That’s easy,” Lewis replied, “it’s grace.”

Every other religion or ethical system has its participants getting what they deserve. Do good, you’re rewarded. Do wrong, suffer the consequences. 

Jesus Christ introduced a radically unique concept to the world: grace.

Grace is unmerited favor. To receive God’s favor through Christ, you don’t work to earn it; you’ll never deserve it. Jesus’ favor includes no requisite, other than faith in Him. Believe in Him and you are favored. It’s simple and unique. 

The Christian married couple are called to this same uniqueness. As a Christian husband, my calling is to give my wife my favor without requiring her to earn it. You’ve received freely, Jesus taught, now freely give. Christians are in relay position for God’s grace, like a second baseman who catches the centerfielder’s throw and perpetuates it immediately to home plate, and who better for us to relay God’s grace to than our spouse? One of the primary ways God gets His grace to a married person is through their spouse.

Just as the London theologians found the uniqueness of the Christian faith in grace, so will the Christian married couple find their unique marital advantage. In fact, the case could be made that a really good marriage can’t be had without its inclusion of grace. If there were no other reason to be a Christ follower – and there are many, the greatest of which being the promised reality of being with God for eternity – the Christian marriage advantage would be enough. 

There is no marriage like the Christian marriage. Let us live out the marital advantage we’ve been given.