Author: gabrieltew

Last week I wrote about the power of having a vision for your marriage. This week I want to offer a Part 2 of sorts, painting a portrait of what a good vision for marriage can look like. 

I’ll use the structure of last week’s blog to frame the portrait. 

1. Destiny. The destiny for a marriage vision isn’t like a place you’d arrive at on a trip, where you drop all guard, all responsibility and just relax and have fun. The destiny for a marriage is a state of being, a condition, a pattern of thought and behavior, a mentality and a philosophy. It includes agape-love more than anything else. 

Agape-love is the same as grace, the favor given without regard to desert or response. Make sure your vision for your marriage is heavier on agape-love than anything else. 

It’s the only thing that will sustain you through any and every storm. 

It’s the kind of love we receive from God in Christ, and the exact kind for which He designed marriage. 

2. Energy. Once you begin to grasp a marriage in which all is forgiven and favor is always offered, you’ll notice an increased passion for your spouse and your marriage. Your motivation to arrive at and live in this kind of marital state will increase perpetually until eventually you’re zinging in heart and mind with the excitement of this becoming your reality.

3. Safety. All along the way, you’ll value more and more greatly this destiny to which you’re headed, to the extent that nothing can pull you off track. Many of the faulty mentalities, harmful distractions and destructive temptations will become peripheral blurs as you move toward your destiny. 

There’s an artist on the streets in Paris who draws portraits of passersby. He’s a good artist but he draws the same mouth on all his subjects’ portrait, regardless of what their mouths look like. 

That’s kind of what I’ve done here. The portrait I’ve painted here is general; it’s good but it isn’t customized. 

Now customize your own marriage portrait. Your marriage includes two unique people, making the marriage itself even more unique than any individual person. So, seek God and collaborate with your spouse to customize your vision. Paint your own unique mouth. Conceive together your own vision for your marriage. 

You’ll do well to include what I offer, but don’t stop there. Continue on and make it undeniably your own. 

Proverbs 29:18 says that without vision people will perish. 

Vision, here, is a clear understanding of how things should be. Perish means to suffer in some way, not necessarily keeling over and dying, but can be serious compromise or lack in some part of one’s life. 

Vision provides three benefits:

1. Destiny. Destiny is the targeted outcome of a major aspect of our life. It’s been said that if you aim for nothing, you’ll probably hit it. Having a clear mental image of how we want things to turn out is more powerful to bring about that very outcome than many realize. 

2. Energy. I’ve seen in my own experience that when I have a clear mental image of a strongly desired outcome, especially when I have certainty that image is Godly, I’m energized greatly to achieve that outcome. The idea of getting to my destiny is the powerful fuel it takes to get me there.

3. Safety. One of the surprising benefits of having vision is that it provides the guardrails necessary to keep us on track and out of the trouble we’d experience without vision. 

Concerning marriage, the question is, what is our vision for our marriage? Once we’ve answered that question, the vision, itself, will provide the benefits I stated above. 

But here are a few pointers in ascertaining vision:

1. Seek God for it. The more specific meaning of the Proverbs 29:18 vision is God’s vision; it can’t be just any ole vision; it must ultimately come from God, and seeking Him for it guarantees that you’ll get the best possible one. Remember the awesome promise that if we seek, we will find. (Matthew 7:7) The secret is in the seeking, so don’t worry about whether it’ll come; it’s a guarantee.

2. Make it clear. Observe it, contemplate it and review it so much that the details are very clear to you. The more clearly you can see it, the more distinctly it will be etched into your mind. 

3. Write it down. Recording a vision statement solidifies it for you. You aren’t just getting it down on paper; your getting it into your heart, which is where it has to be if it’s going to do its thing.

Arriving at a vision for you marriage will take some time, thought, prayer and interspousal communication. But the work it takes to get it is a worthwhile investment that you’ll understand once your vision is realized.

Let’s define ark as a vessel that contains something sacred. The Ark of the Covenant housed the presence of God, Himself, He being the most sacred, He who makes sacred whatever He chooses to set apart to and for Himself. 

The ark in the flood of Noah’s day carried Noah and his family. This was the man God deemed good, the one through whom He would preserve mankind and whose family He would use to restart the future of humanity. God made Noah and his family sacred and instructed Noah to build a vessel that would carry all – human and animals – that He had set apart for the promulgation of life on earth. 

In the next era of world history, God instructed Moses to build an ark, this one much smaller, small enough to be carried by a few men. This ark was the vessel purposed to house the presence of the very God who created Moses, the Israelites and all the earth, and who instructed Moses concerning the ark. 

Some 1,500 years later, God would make a seismic shift and established another ark. The Temple curtain behind which the ark was located would be ripped open, because the Ark of the Mosaic Covenant would give way to the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ when He uttered “It is finished!” and gave His life on the cross. The New Covenant ark would be established about seven weeks later when God gave His presence in spirit form to be carried in the hearts of believers in Jesus.

This is the age we now live in, the one in which we believers get to be the ark of God’s sacred presence, thus 1 Corinthians’ declaration that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 

This blog is dedicated to marriage, so here are two points relative to married couples:

1. As a Christian couple, you and your spouse are dual arks, co-vessels of the Holy Spirit, and since you’re one flesh, you have the most intimate human relationship possible, and that oneness and that intimacy is made holy (sacred, Godly) by the Spirit who dwells within your hearts.

2. Just as the ark of the flood and the ark of the Covenant came with very specific instructions, so does Christian marriage. All the instructions can be summed up with agape-love.

Married couples, please add to your many roles and titles that you are co-arks of the Holy Spirit, and let’s carry Him together and carry Him together well.

I love the term helpmate. Dissect the word and you have help (to provide what’s needed, to satisfy a need) and mate (partner). 

Say the word in the marriage context and immediately for many comes the idea of the wife subserviently helping the husband accomplish his responsibilities. 

It’s true that Genesis designates the word to the woman God made to partner with the first man. But that’s really the middle English word chosen in translation. The Hebrew phrase there (ezer kenegdo) is another two part expression meaning respond to + strength, power or rescue. 

Does that sound subservient to you? Not to me. 

I understand it well because my helpmate is very strong and often comes to my rescue. 

But let’s flip this for a second and see if it fits the husband. I’ll pose a couple rhetorical questions. 

Husband, would like to be the powerful rescuer for your wife? 

What husband doesn’t want this role?

So we can see that:

1. Being a helpmate isn’t for an inferior one; if anything, it’s for the one stronger in some way.
2. Helping is more heroic than it is inferior. 

So, if helping is the calling of both husbands and wives, are we really helping our spouse or not?

A spouse can be a help, but they can also be a hindrance. Here are three checks to make sure you’re the former and not the latter:

1. Pay attention to your spouse’s need. Your intentions could be to help while you’re really hindering them. It’s important to help the way they need it, rather than the way you want to give it. Like speaking their love language instead of yours, learn to speak their help language. 

2. Help with humility. While helping may be heroic, let your spouse call you the hero while you assume a more lowly posture. Proverbs 27:2 is Let another praise you and not your own mouth.

3. Don’t take your spouse’s help for granted. Your spouse helps you so faithfully that you’ve come to expect it. Ok, fine. But always be expressively grateful for their help and imagine what your life would be like without it; that’ll help you keep the right attitude.

Are you a helpful spouse? Or are you a hindrance to your mate?

Whatever you were before reading this, I hope you can go forward as a true helpmate.

It’s a well known defense rule that you should understand your enemy. Knowing their strengths (what to watch out for), and their weaknesses (where the chinks in their armor might be) is of obvious importance. 

But there’s also an often overlooked not-so-small nuance, and it’s that you have to know who your enemy actually is and who it isn’t. 

When Jesus of Nazareth began to be known in Palestine, there were many different opinions about who He was. Some believed He was the Messiah and expected Him to conquer forever their enemy. Those who believed that were correct. The problem was that they didn’t know who their enemy was. Believing the Messiah’s purpose was to deliver Israel from the latest in their long line of national oppressors (the Roman Empire), many who had believed ultimately rejected Him when the Roman authority tried Him and Roman soldiers apparently subdued Him, beat Him and killed Him. 

The irony in all this is that God allowed the wrongly perceived enemy (Rome) to kill Jesus so that He could – in the process – defeat the real enemy: sin and Satan. Also ironic, what ultimately gave His believers life was brought about by His death. 

Many first century Jews didn’t know who their enemy was. Many married couples today also don’t know who their enemy is. It can easily become complicated, but to simplify it, your spouse is never your enemy and the only win in a marriage fight is when the spouses come into agreement. If one spouse wins over another, they both lose; their marriage is no better off and one or both of them got hurt. 

The Biblical basis for this is that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and rulers of darkness in high places. (In other words, Satan is our real enemy, never our spouse.)

But the illustration my wife often uses to illustrate this is the scene in the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie. Brad Pitt’s and Angelina Jolie’s characters are both double agent spies assigned to kill each other. They try that for a time until they realize they love each other and decide to fight together against the force that has pitted (pardon the pun) them against one another. 

In a scene in a sporting goods store, the army of ninjas coming to take the couple out (because they’ve rejected their mission to kill each other in favor of loving each other) tastes defeat themselves when Mr. and Mrs. Smith join forces and fight for each other rather than against each other, gaining victory over their real enemy while protecting their spouse, their love and their marriage. 

May we married couples be so wise. And it starts by knowing who the real enemy is and fighting together against him and no longer against each other. 

Married couples, KNOW YOUR ENEMY! And it isn’t each other. 

IF represents Influence / Fellowship. 

We used to teach our kids this before our empty nest era. 

Pay attention,” we would say, “to your friend relationships.” 

We challenged them to determine which way the influence needed to flow, to pour into them the good things you have for them, and to receive from them their positive influence. 

Fellowship has been defined as two fellows in a ship. Fellowship can actually involve more than two people. But the idea is that those in fellowship have much in common: goals and objectives, challenges and destination. 

Recognizing the IF factor in relationships is important; it can mean the difference in growth versus stagnation, success versus failure, peace versus anxiety, and even eternal destiny. 

The IF factor is strong in marriages, too. I can think of more than one couple who are divorced today because the IF factor became very unfavorable for them before they even realized it. 

Here are four guidelines to keep IF working for your marriage, not against it:

1. Be in relationship with people who share your belief in the importance of Biblical Scripture. God’s Word is true, powerful and necessary for real success in our lives. To be influenced away from that truth will steer you onto troublesome roads.
2. Don’t receive influence from friends with a non-Christian world view. It’s okay to disagree with or reject advice from a source that lacks faith in Jesus.
3. Prayerfully seek out couples who can benefit from your Christ-based influence. Pouring into others can be as fulfilling for the pourer as the receiver.
4. Recognize – even seek out – couples who share your worldview and invest in fellowship with them. Remember that fellowship is two-way influence.

The IF factor is huge for every type of relationship. Why not apply it to the most important human relationship, marriage?

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.