Author: gabrieltew

Ok, first of all, this title is intentionally ambiguous. 

To say communication helps marriage would be a gross understatement. Communication is one of those completely pervasive factors in the marriage equation because it touches every aspect – money management, conflict management, parenting, sex and romance – every single part of marriage is impacted by communication. You can’t do anything effectively without communicating well. 

And then there are communication helps, helpful ideas for marriage, and I have three of them.

1. Communication can transfer ease, not just disease. The opposite of disease has been said to be ease (making life easier for someone in some way). We all know about communicable disease, like Covid, the flu, and other sickesses. What happens is that something harmful inside one person gets transferred to the inside of another person. And the transferring is communication.

Well, there can be helpful things (ideas, in this case) that one person (the spouse, in this case) can transfer, or communicate, to another (the other spouse). Spouses are helpmates to each other (Wait, some will object, it’s the wife that’s the helpmate, not the husband. To that I say, show me a good husband and I’ll show you a man helpful to his wife.) While it’s possible – even common – for spouses to communicate unhelpful ideas to one another, it’s possible – and very common in good marriages – to communicate helpful ideas. Affirmation, appreciation, kindness, affection, good examples and generous acts all communicate helpful ideas, sentiments, values and priorities. 

2. Communication is vital in warfare. A married couple is an army. They have a common enemy, a common objective and mission, and they serve the same commander-in-chief (God). If an army loses its ability to communicate, it will almost certainly be defeated. Keeping lines of communication open and sending an abundance of helpful information is vital to success. And the worst scenario is when the enemy accesses the lines of communication and secretly sends harmful messaging designed to deceive and defeat. Married couples must command the communication system and include God in it. That will keep the enemy out and help husband and wife become more intimately connected. 

3. Good Communication Takes Practice. We become better communicators only by practicing good communication. Remember this: practice makes permanent, not perfect. What we work at repetitiously will become who we are and what we do. So, if we want to become good communicators in marriage, we need to make it a disciplined focus. Talk about what you talk about, how you talk about it and what you communicate in ways other than talking. In other words, if you want to be good at communication in marriage, communicate about it. 

There are the three marriage communication helps. I hope you find them helpful.

One of the great things about Christian principles is that they apply to every part of life.

One of the great things about marriage is that Scriptural principles always apply to it in some way.

Pardon the pun, but this wonderful marriage between God’s principles and holy matrimony  God, Himself, has authored, and we should look for how they’re joined, and never be guilty of separating them. 

So, here’s a principle and how it connects with marriage.

The principle is the Law of Christ.

The Law of Moses contains 613 laws, and those to whom they were given through Moses (the Israelites) were required to keep all of them. Of course, it was impossible, which God knew when He gave them. Its real purposes were to demonstrate their propensity for sin and to show the need for a greater law and a Savior of those whose sin had been made known.

Enter the Law of Christ. 

While Moses gave 613 laws, Jesus required just one. 

The Law of Christ is simply to believe in Jesus Christ, that He accomplished perfection, gave His life on the cross and rose from the grave, thereby paying the penalty for our sin and qualifying us to spend eternity in His heavenly kingdom with Him. 

This connects with marriage in three ways:

1. The sacrificial love Christ gave to the world husbands and wives who want the best possible marriage will give to each other.
2. This love that husbands and wives should want to give to each other, they also need to receive from each other the kind of love Christ gives to His church.
3. Just as Christ offers forgiveness to believers husbands and wives ideally offer forgiveness to each other. 

The Law of Christ and its connection to marriage. There it is. May we prosper in our marriages as we prosper in our relationship with Jesus!

As parents, our first responsibility, in both a priority sense and chronologically, is to raise our kids to be disciples of Jesus. As I look back over my life, I see three experiences in my own discipleship that parents can apply to raising up their kids as disciples.

1. Private Moments with Mama. My mom (We called her Mama growing up.) is the most impactful human in my life’s history; I didn’t realize it until years later – not fully until after she’d passed away – what a force she was. She had such a quiet and humble demeanor that one would never describe her as forceful, but of all the ways that I know God, the majority of them I learned without even realizing I was learning, before I even reached the point of surrendering my life to Christ, being born again or receiving the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

Here’s the way she did it. She would draw herself close to me, literally, and speak very softly, often in a whisper, in the context of whatever was going on in my life. Her superpower as a mom was being able to say exactly the thing I needed to hear. Her soft messages always challenged me to consider God, recognize that He was present with me, and respond in the way He wanted. As I look back fifty years later now, those moments were the most powerfully formative that I’ve ever experienced. I only wish I’d recognized their value so I could’ve thanked and valued my mother more. 

Parents, remember that the greatest opportunities in your whole life may be the open ears – and hearts – of your child in their most vulnerable moments. Don’t miss them. And don’t ruin them by being overbearing in moments that call for gentleness.

2. Times of Spirit-filled Corporate Worship. My parents had us kids in our Bible-believing rural Baptist church every Sunday. In addition to that, my mom played the piano and formed a family gospel singing group with two of my sisters and me. We sang all over our county in local church revival services (where we often witnessed and experienced very powerful moves of God’s Spirit).  Those experiences allowed me to know God in a way many people never get to. 

Parents, we don’t want to over-delegate our kids’ spiritual training, but having them in a solid church and in worship service alive with the Spirit will serve them well in their relationship with God.

3. Just friends. A lot of parents miss this, but there comes a time (when the kids grow up) when the only help a parent can be to them is by being their friend. Authority is a thing of the past. They were under our authority for years, and they now enjoy the freedom of independence. Still, they want us as friends. My mom did well with this. She understood that each of us five kids had to figure things out for ourselves and nobody – even she and our dad – could dictate for us how to live, think and believe. The friendship of parents to their adult children is very effective; they need our affirmation, recognition and encouragement, things friends give to each other. And if the kid isn’t where they should be in their walk with God, praying for them and showing them our love will be our best course.

These three ingredients will serve parents well in helping their kids into a relationship with Jesus. May God bless us all – parents and kids, alike – in these ways.

During my years ages twelve through twenty-one sex was my god. Not that sex existed for me very much, mostly in my imagination and lustful heart. 

I wasn’t the only one. The sphere formed by my friends and me was pretty much a culture where sex was lord and king. We’d do almost anything for it and we all said so often. 

It was the ultimate – the most valued – the subject of most of our thoughts. It consumed us, devoured us; we were the subjects of this selfish carnal king.

Eros was the Greek god of love. The word eros was, through the ages and across the world, translated and transliterated to represent romantic love. But all this love ever was was a selfish sexual type of love. And I use the word love very loosely. 

The Greeks also used another word for love: agape. Agape was in its etymological infancy in the first century. Who knew what it would come to mean? Who knows what it would mean today had Jesus not walked the earth teaching about God’s kingdom in the first one-third of that century, and had the apostles – especially Paul and John – not continued for the remainder of that century to use agape to describe the kind of love God has for us?

While early Christianity served to define the Greek agape, it made little to no use of eros. Eros was ungodly, carnal, selfish and evil, whereas agape was (and still is) the opposite. 

At age twenty-one, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and had a radical, born-again shift in my life; virtually everything changed for me, not the least of which was my view of sex. Eros still presented itself to me, inviting me to serve it. And even after forty-two years of walking with God (21 + 42 = 63), eros is still probably my greatest foe. 

Not that I have already obtained, as Paul wrote (Philippians 3:12), but this one thing I know (now me, not Paul), that eros is no good to anyone unless agape is applied to it. 

My book, Interwoven Love, describes how to interweave agape with all the Greek loves to make them what God intended them to be. In the book I use the term (my own) holy eros to represent what a life of sex and romance should look like for a Godly couple. 

To simplify it, it should include the following three threads:

1. Marriage Covenant. God makes it clear in Scripture that sex is reserved for the husband and wife, and no other arrangement is a viable substitute. 
2. Husband & Wife Surrendered to Jesus. (This really should be number one.) A believer in Christ has received the Holy Spirit to abide in their heart. Which means they have dwelling within them the very one who produces agape-love. 
3. Not Self-seeking & Not Delighting in Evil but Rejoicing in the Truth. These are two of the defining traits of agape-love Paul listed in 1 Corinthians 13. These two traits serve to sanctify eros as much as any of the others. A selfish sex life is domineering and unpleasant for the other partner while putting the other’s needs first make sex better for both partners. An example of evil is what you might see in porn. But, contrary to the lustful eros message of this Christ-opposing world, of which porn is an accurate representative, the truth is that the best sex isn’t carnal, making human anatomy and physical pleasure a god, but is actually always both spouses serving each other in every part of their relationship, not just the bedroom.  

So, there it is. Now take these words to heart and sanctify your sex life.

For Christian parents who want to make sure their kids understand who Jesus is and what He has to offer us, Easter is a perfect opportunity. Here are some suggestions for various age ranges:

• Toddlers: Just make it fun. Have an Easter egg hunt, or attend one hosted by a local church. I know there are objections, like “Easter has pagan roots” and “eggs and bunnies  distract from Jesus and the resurrection.” 

Toddlers are too young to understand those concepts, but one thing they understand and love is having fun. Make Easter fun and mention several times during the fun that on Easter we celebrate that Jesus gives us peace, joy and love in our hearts.

If you’d like, you can help the kids see some parallels between modern day Easter celebrations and the gift of eternal life Jesus presented at His resurrection. The egg represents the new life we have because of Jesus, like a little chick coming out of the shell, now empty like Jesus’ empty tomb; there’s even something called Resurrection eggs to help communicate it and it’s interesting for all ages: Resurrection Eggs: 30th Anniversary Edition | Focus on the Family Store ; the important thing in the toddler years  is that they associate Jesus with joy, and celebration is joyful. (It may be too late for this easter but you could order it and store it until next year. 

• Ages 4 to 10: Kids in this age range still want to have fun, so celebration is important. But unlike the previous phase, these older kids can comprehend figurative concepts much better. They still may enjoy an Easter egg hunt, but they can also benefit from an added component to the game, like having some eggs with simple questions about Jesus, the resurrection and the gospel inside that they answer to receive a prize; here’s a sample of questions to include:

• What do Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the grave mean for us who believe in Him? (Their answers don’t have to be textbook, as long as they demonstrate understanding that we now have a never-ending relationship with God.)
• Jesus gave His life so that we can live forever with Him; how should we respond to what He’s done for us? (something like: by believing in Him and living our lives for Him)
• Jesus wants believers to tell others about Him; where can you find people to tell about Jesus? (at school, on my sports team, etc.)

• Preteens and Teens: The egg-in-the-spoon-race and barrel-race are fun games for the older ones. After the games, sit in a circle and encourage discussion about their relationships with God and how Jesus’ death and resurrection made it all possible.

It’s likely that families may have one kid in one or two (maybe three) of the age ranges. But with some thought, and Mom & Dad putting their heads together, parents can find a way to make Easter fun and meaningful for their kids, whatever their ages. 

May God be glorified this year and every Easter in your family and may all our families grow in our knowledge of and lovefor the Lord!

Happy Easter!

John chapter 4 records Jesus, just out from the town of Sychar, telling His disciples, after they urged Him to eat, that His food – this secret food they didn’t know about – was to do the work the Father sent Him to do. 

That story has long intrigued me. So much so that I asked God to let me experience this satisfaction from doing God’s work, this work that’s so satisfying that it relieved Jesus of the need for physical food.  

God didn’t answer my prayer the way I expected, but He did answer it in a different way. Actually, I guess He combined that prayer with another prayer I had prayed many times before. 

To clarify, the prayer I’d prayed many times was: God, please help me to get all the rest my body and mind need in fewer hours of sleep. (My body was requiring 8 hours per night and I wanted to be more efficient.)

The more recent prayer was: Lord, please help me experience gaining sustenance from doing Your work, to the degree that I need less food. 

God responded to me in this way. He has allowed me to get by on less sleep (I need only 4 to 5 hours now.), because my energy comes from the excitement of accomplishing the things He puts in my heart to do. 

This has been the case over the past four years, when I began giving my primary ministry energy to writing. 

In 2022, I published Brilliant Faith; in 2025, I published Interwoven Love; this year I’ll publish my first novel, Unaffordable Loss.

Call me crazy, but I see a correlation between those prayers and the energy I’ve been getting from excitement about God’s work. 

Now this is a blog space designated to marriage and family subjects (and this blog’s title is The Marriage Feast).

Jesus told a parable about a man whose son was getting married and he threw him this big party, a wedding feast. He wanted everyone to be there so all were invited. That story is found in Matthew 22. 

The wedding feast I’m talking about, though, is the sustenance for life that a husband and wife can gain by doing God’s work. 

I believe a married couple can be infused with energy by doing the work God has called them to do. 

I know each couple has specific, unique work God envisions for them, and I encourage couples to seek Him for that work. But let’s also consider what He calls all married couples, in general to do in their marriage. 

In its simplest phraseology, He calls us to love one another the way He loves His spouse, the church. 

Maybe you’re skeptical; maybe you aren’t; either way, dare to try loving like Jesus loves (with patience, kindness, selflessness, active grace and proactive mercy), and see if your energy, motivation, excitement and need for physical food and/or rest don’t change. I predict that you’ll be more effective as a loving spouse and more efficient as a servant of God. 

I believe the benefit will be this: we’ll make our spouse’s life better while we require less. 

So, please. Do the work of God in your marriage, and watch the changes that come about in your life. 

The Grace of God. It changes our eternity from misery to glory. We’re transformed from guilty to forgiven, from condemned to set free, from fearful to hopeful. But does grace really work in every part of life? Some would say no, that its place is in the spiritual, eternal, religious part of our existence. 

I disagree. While grace’s greatest impact is that it reconciles us to God and accesses spiritual and eternal blessings for us, there is no boundary that grace cannot cross. Grace works in every setting, every relationship, every crisis. 

I’m a husband, father, grandfather and healthcare administrator, and I can say from experience that grace is the best approach in all those areas of my life.

From the time grace was introduced by Jesus and His apostles, the assumption of some has been that it doesn’t change behavior, but reinforces bad behavior, since forgiveness can be expected. Thus Paul’s: Shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? God forbid! While there’s certainly the option of continuing with bad behavior, God has taken the approach of motivating for good behavior through heart-change (being grateful for forgiveness motivates us for good behavior). And we should do the same: give grace and trust God’s grace in people to bring about goodness. 

The best description of grace we find is in the love chapter, 1^st Corinthians 13. Agape love (the love God has for us) is the same as grace. In that description, the word always is used several times. Always trusts…always hopes…always perseveres… That means agape is unconditional; regardless of the response, or lack thereof, of the recipient, the agape-love giver gives agape-love. They give grace. 

In the aforementioned roles I fill in my life, I find that people respond to grace in surprisingly positive ways.

Two common misconceptions about grace, though, are that it’s the opposite of discipline, and that there can be no consequences in grace. 

Paul’s letter to the Galatians dispels the first of those erroneous ideas: Do not be deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever you sow, that you shall also reap. And that verse is contained in the letter clarifying the preeminence of grace over the law.

And Hebrews addresses the second issue: The Lord disciplines those He loves. And He punishes each one He accepts as a child. 

Important truths to understand are: 1)  God oversees the reaping of seed sown, which He does within His system of grace, and He can be trusted to show us kindness in the process and to ultimately work it all for our good; and 2) God’s discipline is also carried out in the context of grace, which means He reminds us, by His Spirit within us, that our consequences are part of His loving plan of grace.

The application of all this is this. Do these things as you employ God’s grace in the various setting in you life (marriage, parenting, etc.):

1. Trust grace and those to whom you give it that they’ll ultimately be grateful for it and it will ultimately motivate them for good.

2. If you use discipline or consequences in response to people’s actions, be sure to communicate very gently that you’re doing it as a part of the loving grace which you’ve received from God and now relay to others. 

Do these things and you’ll find that, yes, grace really does work.

This was difficult for me to write because it hit so many nerves from my own upbringing. Sorry so much of this is ridiculous. I hope you can see just how backwards this thinking is, and that it can ultimately help your parenting perspective.

1. Don’t worry about treating them fairly. Fairness isn’t something kids can judge, anyway. If you happen to be unfair, they don’t really know what fair is, so they have no reference. In other words, they don’t know what they’re missing, so don’t be concerned with being fair to them. Life certainly won’t be. 

The Truth: Kids are very perceptive and know when they’re being treated unfairly. It hurts their heart to be undervalued. In fact, they see it as being unloved. And the painful reality is that they’re probably right.

2. Speak harshly to them. The world will be harsh, so we might as well prepare the kid for the world they’ll be going into soon. Handling children with kid gloves doesn’t make them resilient; it makes them soft and sets them up for destruction. 

The Truth: What a person needs most from their parents is love. And while a harsh parent may claim tough love, the most effective expression of love is kindness. Once out in a harsh world, remembering their parents’ kind expression of love will strengthen them far more than any harshness they got from them.

3. Use public settings to humiliate them. Embarrassment can be a real motivator. Dress them down, berate them, and even discipline them physically in front of other people, especially outside immediate family. They’ll hate it but one day appreciate how helpful it was to teach them lessons through public humiliation. 

The Truth: The saying about adding insult to injury is a negative one that definitely applies to training up children. Kids will one day appreciate loving discipline, even if it’s painful. But a public slap in the face – literally or figuratively – will never be appreciated, nor should it be.

4. Make it clear you don’t believe in them and never will until they prove themselves. It doesn’t make sense that parents would believe in their kids unless the kids have earned it, right? I mean, they need to get used to earning what they get, even people believing in them. 

The Truth: The New Testament teaches us that real agape-love (the kind God has for us, the kind that requires nothing in return) “always hopes.” Meaning we’ll believe in someone we love, even if they never prove their worthiness. 

5. Give zero attention to what they complain about. Children are to be listeners, not talkers. They have to learn to be seen and not heard. Listening to their complaining reinforces their negativity; demanding their silence teaches them self-control. 

The Truth: Listening to someone helps us understand them, and you’ll never be a good parent without understanding your kids. 

6. Let them know that God is judge and they’ll feel His wrath if they screw up. God is the ultimate dealer of consequences. Kids had better learn to please Him, otherwise they’ll experience His wrath. 

The Truth: If that’s your understanding of God, your kid’s in trouble and so are you. Teach your kids the grace of God, and if you don’t understand it, for Christ’s sake get to know Him and all He’s done for all of us by His grace and through His loving-kindness.

Anger in the heart of a child breeds rebellion, foolishness and destruction. Beware. And help them be who God wants them to be.

Two things. One, when you write a weekly blog, you decide the topic and content every time, and if you want to write something personal to your grandson, who’s gonna stop you? Two, grandparents love having connections with their grandkids, any connection, anything that links you with them. For the grandparents reading this, I know you understand.

So, Leo, happy birthday, buddy! You’re turning six, but you’ve really had only one birthday with your second one still two years away. 

We’ve all told you this, Leo, but you don’t really get it yet, we can tell.

Most readers have figured out, Leo, that you were born on leap day. Your parents make February 28^th special for you every non-leap year, and this year is no exception. 

Throughout your life, you’ll have to put up with people saying things like, you’ve been alive forty years but you’re only ten years old. Pretty sure I can tell already that you won’t be annoyed by things like that; you’ll just laugh with them. That’s actually a connection you and I have. We like trying to make people laugh and usually end up laughing ourselves. You’re hilarious, Leo, and I’m so glad God made you my grandson, so we can have a blast just laughing together. 

Another connection we have is that we both have the middle name Gabriel. When I was your age, I didn’t like my name. But when I grew up and learned what it means, I kind of liked it. Gabriel means Strength of God or God is my strength. I think it’s pretty cool that every time someone says our middle name, they’re declaring us to be made strong by the very strength of God.

Something else we have in common, something that connects us, is that we’re the second oldest of the kids in our families. That means we’re both a big brother and a little brother. Yes, we’re a middle child and we have some of those common traits, like not settling for being overlooked. But we’re close enough to the oldest child, in age to our oldest sibling to compete with them and to see up close the example they set for us. We’re also positioned to be close friends with the oldest of our siblings.

We do have a few differences. You’re one of four kids and I’m one of five. I have one brother and three sisters, and you have two brothers and one sister. 

Getting back to common connections, you’re being brought up to love God and I was, too. I just hope you take better advantage of that training than I did.

There is one thing – actually two – that you have on me: I never was as handsome or as smart as you are. 

And then another thing in common: you like tennis also. And it’s my privilege to give you your first racket for your birthday this year. I look forward to hitting tennis balls with you, buddy.

One last thing I’ll mention that we have in common, and this is HUGE: I too, had a very cool grandfather. 

Everybody now:

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Leo Gabriel! Happy Birthday to you!

Happy birthday, buddy! I’m glad you’re my grandson!

Would you prefer your spouse be enraptured with strong, emotional, passionate love for you – love largely befallen them beyond their control – or that they have an intentional, committed love for you – a choice they make everyday to be patient, kind and affectionate?

Everybody wants to be in love, to have strong feelings of attraction for their spouse who has a matching love for them. If we can have that kind of mutual love, we’re happy and feel extremely blessed. 

But if we had to choose between the two, wouldn’t it be better to have a spouse committed to love us regardless of circumstances or what they felt like on any given day?

Granted, both kinds of love would be ideal, but one (the emotional kind) is out of our control. Our goal should be to have the kind of love we can choose, not just the kind that may or may not supervene us. 

When Jesus commanded us to love He spoke of a love we can choose, not one that may or may not choose us. And our spouse is, above all people, the one who needs this love from us.

Speaking of kinds of love and degrees of love, Jesus said nobody will have greater love than that love that would compel us to lay down our lives for our friend (for example, our best friend, our spouse). 

Jesus laid down His life for us, His friends, and He calls us to lay down our will and preferences daily for the good of our spouse. 

That’s two senses – 1) choice-love over feeling-love and 2) laying-life-down love over gratifying our own desires – in which one love can be greater than another. 

But there is a third angle from which to view the idea of greater love: make sure your spouse doesn’t out-love you. This is one of the ways competition can be productive. 

Jesus’ final conversation with Simon Peter before He ascended into Heaven was Him challenging Peter to compete with his fellow apostles. Do you love Me more than these? Peter accepted the challenge and we see him stepping up a few days later to lead the disciples in the first acts the infant church of Christ Jesus would make. He acted and spoke from a heart of choice-love for Jesus as he looked after His lambs. 

Spouses, we can also step up our choice-love game and lead the way in marital love. 

We can have, in many ways, greater love.

May it be so.