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You’re in a standoff. Spouse against spouse. You have to win this fight. Things have to go your way this time. A lot rides on this situation. Precedent will be set. Positions of power will be set. Principles will be laid down for this marriage. 

You have to win. And you won’t rest until you do. You don’t want any more sleepless nights. It’s time to put an end to this. To attain the victory and carry off its spoils. 

Here are three Scriptures you need. But don’t be surprised. Victory will not look like you think it will. 

1. I beg you, brothers and sisters, agree with one another. (1 Corinthians 1:10) That’s right, the victory for your disagreement is found only when you come into agreement.

2. How can two walk together unless they agree? (Amos 3:3) I chose this verse not only to reinforce the 1 Corinthians one, but also to give you a logic-based motivation to remember that the best scenario for your post-argument marriage years (And believe me, there is good life ahead for your marriage with this plan.) You will walk together. But oh what an unpleasant walk it will be unless you step into agreement. You’re right in saying this situation will set precedent and lay the groundwork for the path you’ll be taking. But it isn’t the dominance of one spouse over another, especially if you’re the dominant one. It must be agreement that becomes the precedent.  Stated succinctly, the only victory in a marriage argument is when spouses come into agreement. 

3. Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand and He will exalt you in due time. (1 Peter 5:6) This verse takes us into the how-to of coming into agreement. And the DIY of an overcoming type of agreement is to humble yourself. Humility happens when we lower ourselves beneath others. And the two most important others to position ourselves beneath are God and our spouse. It’s by humility that we soften the heart of our spouse. And it’s by humility that we soften our own heart. Only soft, caring hearts can repent, and repentance is what it takes to move from standoff to agreement, thereby gaining victory in our marriage fight. Two softened hearts preferring one another, relinquishing the stance of battle and taking on the stance of victory through humility, agreement and marital unity. In due time – at exactly the right time – God will exalt you to the place of marital victory and success, which is agreement and unity with your spouse.

So, go forth in victory. Surrender. It’s only through surrender, humility and agreement that you’ll win this marriage fight. And marriage wins are always win-win. You never win if your spouse loses.

When I was about sixteen or seventeen, my dad sent me to town one day during planting season.

“Gabe, I need you to go to Agri-supply to get [so-and-so] bags of fertilizer.” 

“Ok.” I was always happy to drive a truck somewhere; much better than one of the many more physically demanding jobs on the farm. 

“And while you’re in town, go by [such-and-such] and get a few so-and-sos]. And you might as well swing by [what-cha-ma-call-it] and get a [thing-a-ma-jig].”

“Yes sir.” I took in the whole list of items but mostly thought what a nice break it was going to be driving our flatbed truck to town and back; plus, it had a good radio. This was the late seventies – the golden years of rock, R & B and all genres of pop music.

That was about forty-five years ago, so I don’t remember many details of the errand. What I do remember is the heart-panic I felt half-way back home as I realized I had run all the small item errands but forgot to get the load of fertilizer. My dad would be furious, I thought, when I get home a half hour or so after I should have.

I turned the truck around, went and got the fertilizer and got back home. I don’t remember being in trouble, so it must not have been as terrible a mistake as I feared.

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I have a real soft spot in my heart for Jewish people. They’re uniquely special in the eyes of God, but have gone through as great a persecution historically as any people have. There was Egypt, then Assyria, then Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, then Rome. Then fast forward to the twentieth century to the unmentionable treatment they endured at the hands of Nazi Germany. And I haven’t even mentioned the social discrimination all cultures, historic and modern alike. 

What hurts my heart most about so many Jewish people is what they, themselves, have missed out on. 

The main reason – The Main Thing – why God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s seed as the descendants of promise, gave them the Law of Moses and established David as the father of an eternal throne is so they could receive the gift of eternal life through the greatest Jew of all, the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Keeping the Law, honoring the patriarchs and venerating David, as weighty acts as they all are, are not the main thing. The Main Thing – the reason for the lineage, the Law and the nation – is Jesus!

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God created the earth, the heavens and all things on the earth, everything that lives on land, in water and in the sky. Then He said “Let us make mankind in Our image. He made the man but said it wasn’t good enough, so He made a woman.

So, the trinity – three that make one – beheld what was almost their image. Then when God went over and became the third person in the marriage relationship, God had, in a sense, replicated Himself. 

A married couple, as long as they make Jesus the center of their marriage and family, is the most accurate image of God possible.

But they have to keep Jesus in the center, make Him The Main Thing. That’s the way He intended marriage to be from its inception.

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So, what do marriage, the Jews and a run to town for fertilizer have in common?

All three show the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing.

For Jews, for married couples and even for a farm boy on a run to town, what’s the main thing?

It’s Jesus!

My main point is to current and future married couples: Keep Jesus – The Main Thing – The Main Thing!

Every good parent wants to see their child succeed. But not all parents know how to help. 

Here are three keys to remember and use:

1. Build their confidence. There are three essentials to giving your child the confidence they need. First, you need to believe in them, yourself. Kids are very perceptive and can tell when you genuinely believe in them versus when you’re puffing them up with flattery. Second, help them succeed at something similar. There’s nothing like success to breed future success. David’s confidence against Goliath came in large part from having defeated the lion and the bear. The past success has to be genuine (real), not a set up by making it far easier than the upcoming challenge. Third, speak life into their heart. Remind them of the truths about them, some that come from scripture and some from their experiences; the reminders should be positive and something they can believe and remember during their challenge. 

2. Help them build advantages. Many parents do some combination of cheering on and berating their child during the challenge the kid is facing, in response to their performance. I often wonder if the parent is so naïve to think any of that helps very much. I believe some are gullible enough to think that kind of input gives their child an advantage. But if they stop and look around, they’ll see most other kids’ parents are doing the same thing. The time and place to build advantage is privately before the challenge. If you, the parent are dissatisfied with your kid’s performance, be patient and determine to prepare them with advantages for their next challenge. 

3. Help them trust God. This is the most important one, and should be first chronologically. Try to get these three ideas in their heads: 1) God cares about everything in your life and wants to be involved in all of it. 2) There is much that only God can control, and He loves for us to pray about it and trust Him with it. 3) God can help your part of the endeavor succeed and wants you to request such. 

Two other thoughts. First, all these keys your kid can continue to use going into their future; your use of them serves as a model for them as well as a way to help them in their current challenge. Second, helping them learn to involve and trust God will be a foundational building block for the most important thing in their lives, their relationship with Him. 

I hope you find these keys helpful. Most importantly, I hope your child experiences increased success because of them.

It seems like the most daunting task in existence, and it may very well be – helping a family member come to faith in Jesus Christ. 

Jesus, Himself, said that the most difficult place for a prophet to find honor is in His hometown. This assertion was punctuated when the Nazareth synagogue leader and townspeople tried to throw Jesus off a cliff for simply revealing who He was. 

Jesus somehow averted the crisis. (It wasn’t His time yet, and Nazareth wasn’t going to change God’s order and timing of events.)

The point is that the people most familiar with us can be the hardest to reach with the gospel. They have a built-in perspective of us as ordinary that clouds their view of the extraordinary truth we present about Jesus. They often have a false familiarity with Him and can’t seem to accept that He’s made us more than they’ve known us to be. Plus, in our case (unlike Jesus’) our past (and present) sins and mistakes compete with our message of eternal life in Christ. 

Their view of us may not even be the biggest obstacle between them and faith. The biggest hurdle for them to get over may be the fear of a relationship with God. They probably see Him as a judge who will be more focused on their sin than on giving them the freedom and power they need. 

The truth they need to understand is that they don’t need to be afraid. It’s certainly understandable, the fear of God as judge rather than the love for Him as savior. 

Something about Heaven, and any being from there, is terrifying to mortals. Every time I know of that God or one of His angels came to connect with a human the first words from the Heavenly were “Don’t be afraid.” Then they would present Heaven’s message. 

That’s what we need to do with our mortal family members as we try to share with them our Heavenly message. Don’t be afraid. You can trust God’s love for you, that He won’t hurt you, but will give you exactly the help you need. 

They probably fear their inability to live as God will require. To that, we say, all He requires is that you trust Him to help you; whatever else needs to be done beyond that, He will help you do. In fact, He practically does it for you…

You don’t think you can live up to His requirement? There are surprises in store for you:

Surprise #1 – He’ll place His Holy Spirit in your heart to whisper the helpful message you need every moment.

Surprise #2 – Any time you fail (sin) along the way, He already has grace in place to negate that failure. 

Let your non-believing family member know this: Walking with God will be much better than you think, so just trust Him. Don’t be afraid. 

Families who have tight unity among themselves understand unity’s value. And so do families ravaged by division. 

Maintaining family unity takes some skill, like conflict management, forgiveness, agreeing to disagree, patience and so forth. It may be that the most important factor is to understand and value unity. 

Jesus, God the Son who created the family and gave instructions for maintaining its integrity, told his disciples that, although He valued family members having peace with one another, it was for an even greater purpose that He came. 

Jesus’ mission was (and is) to deliver us from sin and reconcile us to God. If some family members accept Jesus while others reject Him, it presents a strong opportunity for division. 

Honoring father and mother stands near the apex of the most important commandments in the Law of Moses, yet Jesus supplanted it with the Law of Christ, which is simply to believe in Jesus Christ and follow His example of loving and forgiving others. 

So, if a person faces the choice between allegiance to parents, siblings or any other family member and God, they should choose God.

Christians shouldn’t be surprised when conflict arises within their family because they choose Christ while their opposing family member rejects Him.

The important thing – while they navigate the conflict and stand strong in their faith – is to be sure to love their adversarial family member, and to love them in a way that they understand their choice to follow Jesus increases, not decreases, the love they have for their family.

This can be tricky in a culture where people have the belief that love and disagreement cannot coexist. 

This is our opportunity. If we can get it across to family members with whom we disagree about the most  basic belief (how we view God and relate to Him) that we love them even when we differ in our worldview, we can actually be effective witnesses for the Lord to the people we love most.

Of course, our enemy sees an opportunity, too. He wants us divided and for God to be misunderstood, misrepresented and rejected.

So, as in all cases that involve the devil, spiritual warfare is the only way to victory. Spiritual warfare includes all of the following:

1. Prayer (pray for the person and your effectiveness in representing Jesus for them.)
2. God’s Word (Find, believe and confess in prayer the powerful relevant promises from Scripture.)
3. Jesus (Remember to never leave God out of the equation; the Holy Spirit indwelling believers provides whatever wisdom we need.)
4. Love (Communicating with and relating to family members without love will end in the opposite result from the one we want and God wants.)

So, don’t let the enemy surprise you; conflict is natural and is often a step on the journey to helping a family member find Jesus for themselves. Keep in mind the four ingredients above as you relate to unbelieving family members. And may you have success in leading your family from division to unity in Christ. 

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭12‬:‭51‬-‭52‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In case you’re a married person contemplating divorce, either you alone or you and your spouse, there are some things you need to know. 

If you’re facing a spouse threatening to end the marriage, these things could possibly help change their mind.  

1. Marriage was God’s idea. The first couple, God’s original humans, He made with the intention that they be together. After creating the first one, the man Adam, God declared that it wasn’t good; he was alone while all other animals had partners for procreating. Humans being his most prized creation, He certainly planned our continued existence to be eternal. 

God had more in mind for the human partnership than mere procreation. Remember that He made mankind in God’s triune image, which He accomplished, not by creating Adam (one) or even adding the woman to the man (two), but only by having close fellowship, Himself, with the couple – that’s three (God, husband and wife)!

God also took the woman from the man’s body part (his rib), something else He did only in the case of humans. Adam exclaimed, “Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!” and God decreed that a man would leave his parents and cleave to his wife. 

2. Divorce damages those involved. When a couple divorces, they sever what God has joined together, as Jesus described. A divorced spouse is, for a time, a grieving ex-spouse. It’s been said that a divorced person has it harder than a widowed one because their ex-spouse is still alive, making it harder to have closure on the past marriage. 

Children of divorce take a hit, too. Lingering issues like feelings of abandonment and separation anxiety present challenges for children, even well into adulthood. 

I was forty years old when my parents divorced, and it had a strong emotional impact on me, even at that age. 

Good point, you may think, but how is this a reason God hates divorce? Well, if we know God we know He hates for His people, especially as children, to be damaged. It’s the work and will of the enemy that brings death , destruction and harm to people, and God hates the damage and the one who brings it. 

3. Divorce brings unnecessary financial challenge. Statistics and common sense both show that a divorced couple will have a tougher financial time than a married one. They have two households to maintain with the same income they had when they were together. And if they’re coparenting, they likely don’t coordinate and work in tandem as well as when they lived together in unity.  

4. Divorce weakens a couple for accomplishment.  In God’s economy, one puts a thousand to flight and two puts ten thousand to flight. The context of that scriptural principle is a Godly nation in warfare against an ungodly one. The interpretation is that when we’re unified in God’s way our effectiveness increases by a multiplier of ten, not two. The application to marriage versus divorce is that staying together makes us five times more effective than splitting up. The effective I’m referring to is in God’s bidding, and He wants us in all the strength He makes available to us. 

5. Divorce weakens a couple for protection. Another Biblical principle is that, since a three-stranded cord is very difficult to break, it behooves a couple to remain together and unified with God.  

6. Divorce brings forfeiture of opportunities and callings. Every married couple has opportunities God reserves just for them. And while they don’t lose everything when they become divorced, they do forfeit those accomplishments reserved by God specifically for them as a couple. 

7. Divorce removes the closest possible example for children to see a model marriage. Their parents’ marriage isn’t the only one they’ll witness, but it is the closest view possible of one, and it’s made up of the two people from whom they came. 

To be fair, two more things also need to be said.

1. If divorce is part of your story, do not accept condemnation for it. It isn’t the unforgiveable sin. If the divorce resulted from some sin or another, it’s in the past and however great the sin is, grace for forgiveness and redemption is even greater. 
2. Children can still thrive after divorce. While parents in a good marriage is ideal, God can still fill in all the void from loss, and if grandparents and others rally to offset the loss, which is often the case, the kids can even gain advantages in some ways. 

Bottom Line: God has better for us than divorce, and if we’ll walk with Him, He’ll lead us in His better way. He also still has goodness for those with divorce in their history and walking with Him will bring redemption. 

When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the newborn Savior. Around the events of the Savior’s birth, leading up to it, at the time of it and in the events that follow, we encounter a marriage. As unique as this married couple and their circumstances are, there are some lessons to be gleaned from the marriage of Mary and Joseph. 

First, Joseph and Mary, both made God the center of their marriage. Granted, they had little choice since God the Son was going to be literally growing up in their household. But they still offered some examples of giving God His rightful priority in their lives even before Jesus needed their assistance in His development. 

God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary with an outlandish announcement. Her response was exemplary. Even though she asked for an explanation of how it would come about that she would be pregnant and birth a child as a virgin, she ultimately – and immediately – submitted to God’s plan. Let it be to me according to Your word, she told the angel.

As for Joseph, his obedience was also key and his directive from God through a dream was as unheard of for an engaged bridegroom as Mary’s was for a bride. Yet his immediate, decisive and criticized obedience was the example he set for all men for all time to follow, including the men who are husbands in our day. 

To sum up this point, Mary and Joseph were obedient to the will of God even when His will was more than countercultural., as is almost always the case, but also counterintuitive. I didn’t even make sense on a sheer natural human level. Yet, they submitted to God. As we apply this lesson to our marriages, may the same be said of us.

The second lesson comes from Mary following the lead of her husband, Joseph. Remember one of the least popular commands in the New Testament is that wives submit to their husbands. Here’s Mary presenting a model for that command some fifty or sixty years before it was written. 

She literally followed her husband to Bethlehem for the Roman census even though she was in the most uncomfortable phase of being great with child. 

Later, we see her following Joseph to the pagan land of Egypt, trusting completely his interpretation of God’s message to him (in another dream). 

The principle set forth for a husband decades later in New Testament Scripture, as head of the wife, was to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Joseph risked his reputation (by marrying a pregnant girl) and process of establishing his livelihood (by taking a hiatus to Egypt for a time to protect his family). 

So, there we have it. The family of the first Christmas have more to offer us than the inspirational Nativity to beautifully decorate the season. Another gift they bring is a helpful picture of a Godly marriage. May we unwrap and enjoy. 

Merry Christmas!!

Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Knowledge is the possession of accurate information, and wisdom is the skill of how to use knowledge. So, wisdom is the skill of applying knowledge to the various parts of our lives. 

Marriage is, itself, a skillset, one all of us married couples need to have. The marriage skillset is a set of five skills:

1. Communication. You won’t find any part of marriage that doesn’t depend on communication. A couple lacking in communication skills is bound to have trouble. 

Marriage requires unity – that the couple become one flesh. The Bible asks how two can walk together (as in walking through life in unity) unless they agree. The logical question is: how can two agree unless they effectively communicate? 

Communication is transferring what’s in one person’s heart into the heart of another. We can transfer our positive or negative contents to our spouse’s heart. If I’m bitter and resentful, that can be transferred, just as mercy and grace can be; it just depends what the contents of our heart are. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Therefore, it behooves us to ensure that the contents of our heart are agape-love (see #5).

2. Money Management. Money problems is one of the top two reasons couples get a divorce. Chances are, one spouse will be better with money than the other. Still, that doesn’t mean one should be totally uninvolved. Most important is to determine roles and (you guessed it!) communicate what the roles are, through the process of making money decisions as you plan, carry out, and review financial operations.

3. Conflict Management. It’s inevitable that couples will have conflict. There are two perspectives and two personalities involved in everything a couple does. As important as it is to arrive at agreement, conflict resolution skills are often the deciding factor of whether agreement will be reached.

4. Sex & Romance. This is probably the most intriguing skill ; the problem is that it’s also the most misunderstood. Think of sex and romance this way. It’s like painting a house. It takes a whole lot of preparation to ever get to the point of applying the paint. There’s scraping, sanding, pressure washing, repairing, caulking and cleaning that happens first, and the prep work takes a lot longer than the actual painting. 

Sex and romance is the skill of connecting so intimately that we make a deep emotional, mental and spiritual-soulish connection as well as the physio-sexual one. In the house painting metaphor, the prep work addresses all the non-physio-sexual connections. It’s about caring, giving, sacrificing, prioritizing, respecting and serving, all for the benefit of the spouse, even without expecting anything in return. 

It’s even possible (It usually takes husbands a while to get this but typically is understood naturally by the wife. Husbands are like: who wants to have a prepped, unpainted house?) that the “preparation” (painting analogy, again) can be satisfying enough without sex. And most wives understand there’s such a thing as non-sexual physical affection. Here again, communicating about all this is important, as are resolving related conflict and keeping financial pressures at bay. 

5. Agape-love. This is the single most important skill to possess, in marriage and every other relationship. It’s the kind of love God has for us and that He’s imparted to us through Christ and the Holy Spirit that we might use it toward one another. There is no more important relationship for it than the husband-wife one.

Its description is found in 1 Corinthians 13, but suffice it to say that it’s the same thing as grace: unmerited favor, loving without expecting anything in return.

Without agape-love, none of the other marriage skills will really work. 

Want success in your marriage? Work on mastering these 5 skills.

We live in the Information Age. Or as some have called it, the Misinformation Age.

In a time that information is accessed at any moment by anyone with a hand sized gadget, which all adults carry, what information is it that we should seek (and find)? 

Knowledge and wisdom, Proverbs tells us, doesn’t even really begin until we have a reverential knowledge of God. So, there it is, the most important knowledge we can have is to know God, Himself. 

When it comes to physical and mental health, information is sufficient to the masses for us all to be experts if we’d choose to be. 

Well, I believe the most important knowledge to have concerning personal health is the knowledge of ourselves. As helpful as it is to know the science of the human body and the human psyche, it’s most important to know our own bodies and personalities. 

To know our own strengths and weaknesses, what things come natural to us and what things seem nearly impossible, allows us to effectively apply the scientific knowledge of health and fitness. 

To know God and ourselves well, then, are most important. Then, and only then, can we operate our lives in a truly healthy way. 

If we want to parent well, we must know our child well and our child’s Creator well. We must also teach our children to know God and themselves well. It’s the most important knowledge we can help them gain.

As we display for them an exemplary marriage, it will include similar knowledge; they’ll see that we know God so well that we place Him at the center of our marriage and family, and that we study, contemplate and learn our spouse so well that we know how to love them well and live with them in peace and love. 

So there it is. In this age when we can so easily access knowledge, the most important knowledge, knowledge even easier to access (It really always has been accessible by our very heart.) is knowing God. 

Proverbs is the treasury wherein God’s wisdom has been stored for us, and it’s wide open for all to access. Just one example is Proverbs 9:10. Make the withdrawal and enjoy its value in your parenting, marriage and personal life. 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  -Proverbs 9:10

“Lord, please do something to restore in us the joy we had when our kids were small.”  Clay and Julie McFarland were in their early fifties now. Their kids were all grown and on their own. The McFarlands loved each other and enjoyed their empty nest, but tonight as Clay led his wife in prayer something came out almost unintentionally; they’d reminisced fondly recently about what cherished times they’d had when the kids were small, but neither of them had really considered that they were unhappy or that anything was missing. “And please bless the kids and their spouses, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Clay and Julie’s prayer, even though it was a request Clay spoke almost without thought, got Heaven’s attention. A horde of angels gathered quickly and crowded around God’s throne, all curious as to how the Provider would respond to the prayer. 

“Your curiosity is a bit misguided.” God addressed the host encircling His throne, all kneeling in reverence. “Your question should not be how I will answer, although you will soon see. No, your real question should be why Clay made such a request. And the answer is that I, by my Spirit, incited it, Myself. As you know, I sometimes place in the heart of humans a desire for the very thing I want to give them.

The angels shifted around, adjusting wings and limbs to allow space for one another, as God continued informing them. “Now Clay and Julie know almost nothing about any of this. They are both sensitive to my Spirit, so as I introduced the thought, Clay spoke it in prayer immediately, and Julie agreed with an amen almost before she knew it but never regretting it.”

The Lord’s voice was booming and had been resounding throughout the throne room. However, He lowered it to pique the angels’ interest as He continued offering the privilege of hearing Him speak. “As you know, this is not always the way I work; I often have them process ideas mentally, sometimes so thoroughly that it takes weeks or months of earth-human time. But this time, in My sovereignty, I did it this way.”

The door opened and two majestic angelic beings entered, spread their wings and hovered low as they made their way to the throne. The angel ranks split to form an aisle before the throne and the two great angels, Michael and Gabriel, landed in their approach, kneeling before the Almighty, the Lord of Hosts. “Speaking of earth-human time, from this time until nine of their months have passed, they will receive their answer. They will receive their answer in the flesh, that is.” Then, God reached down and touched the heads of Michael and Gabriel.

“Michael and Gabriel will be dispatched in three earth-human months to support the McFarlands’ receiving the news of their coming grandchild.”

One of the angels, not Michael or Gabriel, asked the Almighty a question all wanted Him to answer. “Lord Most High, is this another of the wonderful traps you have designed for humans?”

“Yes,” the Holy One answered, “Clay and Julie will be trapped by the love one can have only for children. They will be helpless against its manacles. Their joy will skyrocket each time they see the little one, even when the little one has grown into the adult human I plan for them to be.”

The angels erupted in praise, lauding and honoring the Creator with their heavenly voices. 

On earth, Clay and Julie were joyful indeed. They were ecstatic at the announcement the child’s parents made, Michael and Gabriel standing guard against any opposition that may come. When the child was born, they were beside themselves, happy for the parents but happier still for themselves; they were grandparents now.

Just according to the Lord’s plan, they never escaped the grandparent trap. They spent their remaining years overjoyed at every phase of the child’s life. And that was the first of nine grandchildren the McFarlands were blessed to enjoy. Over the years, their awareness grew. They were increasingly aware that they were trapped. They never got free from the trap. They never did want to. Why would they. It was a trap God uses to give couples great love and joy. God has used it for thousands of years. It’s the Grandparent Trap. Enjoy, all you Clays and Julies out there!