Thursday's Thoughts-Dating & Marriage: Who Are You Going To Marry?

                  We recently asked a group of teenage girls to list topics they would like to study more in our Bible studies; the most requested topic: dating & marriage. One request in particular: “Tips for dating and marriage.” Honoring their request, this will be the first in a series addressing these topics.

Most little girls dream about their wedding day. We dress up and practice marching down the imaginary aisle. We play mommy to my baby dolls and picked out names for our future children. During our middle-school years, we use our notebooks to doodle our first name with the last of our current crush. Then we approach our high school years; the years most of our dads (and moms)-begrudgingly-allow us to begin dating. While I was in high school, I remember discussing the topic of marriage in our Bible class at church. Here is how the conversation went…

Teacher: “Who are you going to marry?”

(blank stares and silence)

(finally someone speaks up)

Student: “We can’t know the answer to that yet.”

Teacher: “Wrong. You will marry someone you date. Therefore, be careful who you date.”

                  Common sense, right? After all, the dating process is designed to help you get to know someone in order to find out if they are the type of person you would like to spend the rest of your life with. To a group of teenagers, this advice still seemed rather mind-blowing. Yet, it was some of the best advice we ever received. This month my husband and I celebrated five years since the day we vowed to love, honor and cherish each other. Guess what? I dated him. Last week, my grandparents celebrated sixty years of wedded bliss. Guess what? They dated. Ladies, be careful whom you choose to date; you just might end up sharing their last name.

-M

Sunday's Scripture

II Peter 3:9

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Acts 2:38

"Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Who do you serve?

You have two choices. There are only two masters we can serve. One is Satan and the other is God. In Luke 16:13, Jesus says "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Sometimes we think we can be on the fence about spiritual things but this verse clearly says we cannot. We are either with God or we are with Satan. Either we are separate and different from the world or we are just like it. There is no having your cake and eating it too in Christianity. It is a choice between heaven and hell every day. When you make the choice to be baptized for the remission of sins, you are giving God your loyalty. You are a new creature to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). Also in Romans 6:17-18, Paul says that you were servants of sin but after obeying the gospel you now become a servant of righteousness. None of these verses indicate you can have split loyalties. You can only serve one or the other. 

Choose wisely.

-C

Wednesday's Wisdom

Proverbs 21:2
"Every way of a man is right in his won eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts."

Luke 16:15
"And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

From these two verses we see that man thinks he knows more than God. However, this is an arrogant lie man tells himself. We do not know more than the Almighty God. He knows best and He has laid out His instructions for us. He also knows what's in our hearts so we must not be judgmental of others. We don't always know what we think we know about that strange, quiet girl on the ball team or why our neighbor is rude sometimes. They may be dealing with struggles that we know nothing about. But God knows. He knows everything!

Let us look to Him and obey His ways rather than deciding our way is better.

-C

Tuesday's Task.

Don't waste another minute thinking you have all the time in the world. This is one of Satan's greatest tricks! He makes us lose sight of the urgency of living right and obeying God. He makes us think that we can get to it tomorrow. This is a lie. We are not promised tomorrow so do what needs to be done today. Study and learn what you need to do to be saved. Pray for strength to endure hardships. Tell the people in your life you love them. They don't have time either.

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and the vanishes away." James 4:14

Let us not fall into this trap of Satan. Let us live for Christ today and anticipate daily when we shall be with Him one day.

-C

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching His understanding."

Isaiah 40:28

Friday's Focus-Be you.

Today I want to focus on YOU. Psalm 139 says we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" and Genesis 1:27 says that we are made in the image of God. That means that YOU are made in the image of God. He is your creator. He loves YOU. No matter what the bullies at school say to you, no matter what the magazines promote you should be, no matter how others treat you, YOU are made in the image of the Almighty God. Each of you is unique and special to Him. Don't let the world dictate how you should look or act. Let your Creator be the guiding force in your life. Proverbs 31:30 says that "favor is deceitful and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." Your skin will not always be wrinkle free and your hair will not always be luxurious. But your heart can always be beautiful if you let the word of God live in it.

As much as we all are uniquely ourselves, we also have different talents for doing the Lord's work. In I Corinthians 12:12-27, Paul deals with this very subject. The body of Christ is like our own bodies. The eye has a specific purpose just like feet have specific purposes. The eye is not more important than the feet; they simply have different jobs. We all work together to do God's will but each of us don't do the same things. Some ladies are great at fixing meals for the sick while others are better at sending encouraging cards. Find your talent and use it! Do what YOU are capable of doing. Don't compare yourself to others because they are doing what they can do while you need to focus on what you can do.

Embrace your differences! Embrace your talents! God made you and you are beautiful.

-C

Priorities-Part two

As I said on Monday, part two of this study is going to be on what God's priorities are so that we know what is to be our focus.

1. Soul-saving. From the beginning, God's ambition was and is to save mankind. I Timothy 2:4 states that He "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." In Hebrews 2:9 the writer says "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Jesus tasted death for me and for you. He tasted death for all so that they could be saved. Shouldn't we care about souls if they were all important enough for Jesus to die for them? Of course we should! Soul-saving should be our ambition too!
2. The church. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says to Simon Peter, "And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The church Jesus built is the church. Acts 2:47 tells us that "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." Who were the saved? Those in Acts 2:38 who received the teachings of Peter and were baptized for the remission of sins. Jesus gave himself for the church. (Ephesians 5:25-26). The church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 5:23) and so it is a priority to God. We should make the church our priority too. We should care for the church and do what we can to help her grow and be as Christ would have her to be. 
3. His word. God's word should be our priority. Not only is it our instruction book but  it is how God communicates to us! It is how we examine ourselves and how we know how God wants us to live. Hebrews 4:12 describes the word as "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword" and it also "is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." He has "given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue." (I Peter 1:3). Psalm 119 describes what our attitude towards the word should be. We should never be too busy to study the word of God or too busy to share it with others!
4. Worship. In John 4:23-24 we learn that we are to worship God "in spirit and in truth." We are to worship God how He wants to be worshiped; not how we want to worship Him. It isn't about entertaining ourselves or doing what we like. It is about doing what He has instructed us to do. We are to praise Him in song with our voices and not with mechanical instruments (Eph 5:19, Col 3:16). We are to remember Christ's death, burial and resurrection through the Lord's supper on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7, I Cor 11:24-29). We also take up a collection (I Cor 16:2). There should be prayer and preaching of the gospel (Acts 20:7, Acts 2:42). Emphasis should be placed on John 4:23 where it states that the Father seeks true worshipers. He isn't interested in our half-hearted attempts to show up on Sunday morning and check a box. He isn't seeking our selfish attitudes when we feel like the service would be better with musical instruments. He is only interested in the true worshipers; the ones who worship Him in the correct way and also with the correct attitude.  

Let each of us examine our lives and make sure that our priorities are aligned with God's priorities. If they aren't, then the perfect time to fix that is now!

-C

*Again, credit goes to my local preacher for these points! 

Tuesday's Task-Specific Prayers

I know we've discussed the importance of prayer on this blog before but today I want us to think about what we should pray for when we talk to God. Prayer is such an awesome and incredible privilege that we, who are in Christ, have in our lives. We can approach the throne of the living God and talk to Him! And we have the promise that He will listen if we are His children. James 5:16b states that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." God listens. He doesn't always answer in the way that we want but He does listen and will do what is best for us.  For our task today, I want us to think about praying specifically for certain things.

1. Pray for the word of God. In II Thessalonians 3:1-3, the apostle Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray for a specific outcome. He says, "Finally brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith." We should pray that the word of God is always glorified in our local congregations and everywhere it is preached. 
2. Pray for people who are zealous in the error of false teachers.  In Romans 10:1-3, Paul says he specifically prays for the Jews to be saved. They had a "zeal for God" but were ignorant of the truth. There are good, decent people who are lost because they believe false teachers and not the whole gospel truth. We should pray earnestly for them to hear the word of God and obey His will. 
3. Pray for each other. In the first half of James 5:16, James says we are to "confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." Also in Philippians 1:3-4, Paul mentions that he keeps the people at Philippi in his prayers always. We are to pray for our brethren here and abroad. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things we should specifically pray for but hopefully it will give you a start in your own study of prayer. There is such power in prayer and we should learn now not to take it for granted and to utilize it the best we can!

-C

Priorities-Part One

Who comes first in your life? Who is the driving force behind everything you do? As a Christian, the answer should be God. What's important to Him should be what's important to us. We are His children so we must align our priorities with His. Throughout the old testament, the Isrealites were punished because they didn't align themselves with God. They rejected His word and rejected Him. They put themselves first. In Amos 3:3, the Lord says "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" If you aren't walking in the light of God's word then you are disagreeable to God. When we focus on what God wants us to focus on, everything else will fall into place. We won't question whether we're going to worship services or not. We won't lack in our Bible study. We won't treat people meanly or dishonestly. We will prioritize our life to put God and His will first.

For part two of this post I want to talk about some of the areas that are God's priorities so we know what we should be focused on.

Stay tuned!

-C

*Credit to my local preacher for this sermon Sunday!