Thoughts on Marriage 1

By: Jim Umlauf

If I, as a pastor, have one thing to offer the people of God, it’s this: I love my wife. I don’t do it perfectly, of course, but it’s the best thing I’ve got going in this life. I love her and I love our marriage. I tell her so often. It’s also the best thing about me, and the best thing for the flock I love so much. It’s with this simple qualification I offer the following.

Every marriage is just three weeks away from destruction.

The reasons are manifold, but here are two supreme dangers, one on the side of the husband, and one on the side of a wife.

Wife: if you consistently make coming home an unpleasant, exhausting, exasperating, pressure-filled place, and if you undercut your husband, second-guess him, disrespect him, or make him feel incompetent, you are a fool, and you are tearing down your own house with your own hands. He knows what being respected is. It’s built into him as a male image-bearer of God. He thus deserves and rightly demands it.

Husband: if your most important life’s work aside from your walk with Christ isn’t tenderly and sacrificially staying a step ahead of what your wife is thinking/feeling/doing then you are lazy, inadequate, and failing. She knows what adoration is. It’s built into her as a female image-bearer of God. She thus deserves, and rightly demands it.

Try examining things for a week, asking yourself:

Wife: Does (this action, communication, etc.) make him feel respected, affirmed, honored, and have I made coming home a good thing?

Husband: Am I memorizing my wife, on a committed journey to more deeply know and respond to her needs, or am I just trying to put out a grease fire when it flares up?

A good marriage is possible. Ask God for the grace to die to self.

Why God doesn't always change our difficult circumstances

By: Morgan Martin

How often do I go through the day and say, "If only ___ would change, then I would be happy"? Or, "if I could only have ___ then I would be happy"?

I was recently convicted by a line in a book I am reading:

“We forget that God’s primary goal is not changing our situations and relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy."(Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, 241)

In the book of Jeremiah, God says,

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

Knowing this doesn’t make the trial I’m going through any easier. Knowing this doesn’t take away any of the pain or sadness I can feel because of a situation. But, knowing this does give me hope that my Father has a plan established for my life and that He is working to make me more of the person He wants me to become.

All I can do is call upon Him, seek Him, and rest in His lovingkindness. Then somehow there is peace in all the craziness of life.

Weeping to Joy

By: Clay Younts

"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." - Psalm 30:5 (ESV)

As I read this verse, I am reminded of the night Peter denied Christ three times and then we read that Peter went out and “wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). Yes, morning arrived for Peter, but there was no “joy [that] comes with the morning.” For Peter had fallen repeatedly and terribly that night. His Master had been mocked, beaten and falsely charged and Peter denied being a follower of Christ.

We do not hear of Peter coming near the Cross, and in fact, we hear no more of him until resurrection morning. John Piper tells us, “God broke the back of Peter's pride and self-reliance that night.”

Can you relate to Peter’s dark night? Do you feel far from the Cross? Are you struggling with finding the joy that the psalmist spoke of? I know I have dark nights that can cause me to want to stray from the truth. However, I must use those opportunities to run quickly into the nail scarred hands of Christ.

Piper goes on to state that God turned Peter around and forgave him and restored him and strengthened his faith. As believers, may we turn our weeping nights into everlasting joys as God restores and strengthens our faith.

Remembering Gethsemane

By: Kyle Jacobson

After the Last Supper, Jesus took His disciples (minus Judas, of course) to a place they were all familiar with, a place they had been many times (John 18:2) - the garden of Gethsemane.

In John Stott’s book The Cross of Christ, he says,

"Here something takes place that, despite the sober way the Evangelists describe it, simply cries out for an explanation and begins to disclose the enormous costliness of the cross to Jesus." (75)

Jesus leaves most of His disciples in the garden with the instruction to "keep watch and pray." He takes Peter, James, and John a little further into the garden where He tells them “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). He prays “Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). Jesus prays 3 times in regards to this cup he had to drink (Matthew 26:39-44). Luke tells us that he was under such psychological and emotional trauma, he sweated blood (Luke 22:44).

Stott makes the argument in his book that Jesus was under such agony and trauma not because of the physical pain he was about to endure (the beatings, scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails in his hands and feet, the torture of hanging on the cross) - as awful as that was. The cup that caused Jesus to say he was "sorrowful to the point of death" and to sweat blood in the garden was the wrath of the Father toward the sins of believers being poured out on Him. He would become our sin, and the Father would pour out divine punishment on Jesus for our sin.

“From this contact with human sin [Jesus'] sinless soul recoiled. From the experience of alienation from his Father which the judgment on sin would involve, he hung back in horror.” (Stott, 79)

In the midst of all the preparations for this Easter weekend, let’s not forget the agony of Gethsemane, and more importantly our redemption that was paid for on the cross by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Will I Make It?

By: Erin Pearce

Today I am remembering some days in college. It wasn't hard for me to see my sin, because I came out of the gates rebelling any chance I got. I just wondered if I could ever change. I remember becoming a Christian and being very scared that I wouldn't be able to "make it" as a Christian. I just knew that somehow I would fail and turn back to everything that is worldly.

I will never forget meeting with Les Newsom as he shared with me the great truth of "perseverance of the saints." He told me, yes, you will always have to fight your sin. Some days sin will really get you good, and that is why we must learn to repent. However, if you are truly trusting in Jesus Christ, in the end the enemy cannot have you.

Louis Berkhof helpfully wrote,

"Perseverance may be defined as that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer, by which the work of divine grace that is begun in the heart is continued and brought to completion. It is because God never forsakes His work that believers continue to stand to the very end."

Jesus says,

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." (John 10:27-29)

You see, I thought that I had to persevere. But it is God who perseveres us to the end.

I know that there will be hard days of much trial and tribulation - we are told that, and that there will also be very happy days. But no matter what emotion the day brings for those of us who are trusting in Jesus Christ, we can rest assured that we will make it, because Jesus has us and will never let go.

Our 21st Century Simony

By: Dr. Jimmy Young

Simony. Ever heard of that word? It has to do with the buying or selling of ecclesiastical preferment. One of Martin Luther’s greatest hatreds was simony, as he watched Pope Leo X sell three German bishoprics to Albert of Brandenburg for a fee of 25,000 gold florins.

The word, included in every dictionary you own, comes straight out of a story in Acts 8, where a man, whose name was Simon, tried to buy the power “so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:19).

How crass and unthinkable! Who could possibly be that carnal?

How about you and me? Oh, sure, we would never whip out our checkbooks and seek to purchase some spiritual privilege. But we do, almost daily, try to offer God things to make Him love us more, or to make sure He is “in our corner.” We teach a class, we perform a benevolent service, or we may even write a check, all in the hope that by our good performance God will respond in a way we desire. Let’s call it 21st century sophisticated simony. What Peter said to Simon in Acts 8, we need to hear: “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money" (Acts 8:20).

Guys, everything God has for His people comes to us by way of a gift. Nothing is ever earned. So, with an eye simply on His glory, let’s give up our penchant for performing, and learn to love. I’m hard to love. God isn’t.

Fanfare for the Common Man

By: Jim Umlauf

If one had to make a short list of the people who’ve made an impact on the Kingdom of Christ, Martin Luther would be on it every time. From the Bible’s translation into the language of the people, to the church’s return to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, to the Protestant reformation, he certainly made an important—even eternal—mark on the world.

In his book, Table Talk, which is a compilation of informal conversations he had with students and friends, Luther mentions the martyrs, those who famously died taking a stand for their faith, and uses an interesting word: “legends.” He doesn’t belittle their sacrifice or love for Christ, but he does say that the stories about them aren’t “pure.” In other words, we tend to put them on a pedestal, building them into more than were. People do that with ministers too: “Oh, if only I could be as good a Christian as __________.”

To this notion, Luther said:

I hold in consideration the saints whose lives were not marked by any particular circumstances, who, in fact, lived like other people and did not seek to make themselves noted.

In an evangelical climate that strives to “radicalize” everything and bemoan the bland, I find it refreshing to hear an authoritative voice that allows for working, living, loving, worshiping, raising a family, and dying with a simple, but adoring allegiance to Christ.

It’s true that we’re to make disciples of all nations, and feel a burden for a world that desperately needs redemption. It’s equally true that we’re to live with some pretty straightforward requirements: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

Prone To Leave The God I Love

By: Scott Elliott

The halls of Grace Evan are full of bouncing, screaming, energetic little souls. Not having any kids of my own, I pretty much scoop up many of your kids and treat them as if they were my own.

While playing with these little ones, I often reflect back on when I was just a youngster - the teachers I had at church and the lessons I learned at such an early age: Colossians 3:20, Matthew 7:7, and course Psalm 23.

Another verse that has been one of my lifetime staples is Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” I believe I had some pretty good teachers but I have to confess I am getting old and have had my moments of wandering away.

How about you? Whether you are in your 20’s, 50’s or even 70’s, have you found yourself at times wandering from "the way [you] should go"? It's not inevitable that every Christian will wander, but it is probable. As the old hymn says, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it – Prone to leave the God I love.”

So as we (or least I) get older, are we prone to wander from the things we were trained up to do? Or do we stand steadfast on the truths of the gospel? As for me, I will still have my wandering moments. The important thing is that, by God's grace, I don’t “depart from it”! (The truth of the gospel, that is.)

No matter how far or long you find yourself wandering (and you will), come back to Christ! Trust Christ! Delight in Christ! That’s where we are to “train up a child" to go – to Christ!

Jr. High Girls: A blessing or a curse?

By: Erin Pearce

Before I took the job as Jr. High Girls Director, I got a lot of funny comments. “Are you sure you want to work with Jr. High? They are so awkward!” “Are Jr. High kids even human beings?” While these were just lighthearted jokes, I feel that this is the mindset of most people when thinking of Jr. High kids: “What could they possibly do to be a positive influence on this earth?”

Today I experienced something quite phenomenal with three Jr. High girls. We went to visit a dear lady who just turned 75. She has one amputated leg, the other leg has a blood clot and is extremely painful, her right hand has no functioning ability, and she can’t talk, just to name a few ailments.

These three girls marched into this lady’s room and started singing, dancing, reading, doing cheers, and telling jokes, and they brought more life to this room than I’ve ever seen! I truly have never seen so much joy exude from Ms. Shirley’s face. They definitely brought an energizing light that I was not capable of.

Isn’t it funny how God chooses to use "awkward" people to bring such a life-giving joy? So be encouraged: your Jr. High kids are not only doing what Jesus commands us to do, they are doing it well and wanting to do it more and more. Praise the Lord.

James 1:27 - “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

James stresses concern for widows and orphans as a true measure of obedience that is pleasing to God, because it reflects the concern of God Himself. May we follow the example of these sweet Jr. High girls.

Personal Reflection on Psalm 26

By: Will Savell

I came across one of David’s psalms this morning that really concerned me. I’m trying to read these verses slowly in order to reflect on what the writer is saying.

In Psalm 26:2 I read, “Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind.” Quickly, I wrote in the margin something to the effect of: I wouldn’t want to ask the Lord to do this. My mind is filled with thoughts that shouldn't be there. My heart feels far from God. So please, I thought, don’t test me. I think I just might fail.

So how could David write such things? He was human. He sinned. His thoughts, I assume, turned astray at times.

So how could he be brave enough to suggest that the Lord test his heart and mind? Was he arrogant? Prideful in his own ability to score well?

Well, I'm sure glad this is followed by verse 3 because this is where we’re told how. This is where I can also be confident and have my heart and mind tested. Because you see, although my mind wanders and my heart feels far, I’m not the one being graded on this test, and neither was David, and neither are you.

He continues, “For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.”

Praise God for verse 3.

No Falling Words

By: Jim Umlauf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ndW07eebk