Covenant Marriage

Greetings:

In our small group, we have been discussing the difference between a covenant Marriage and a contractual one. The covenant marriage is one-sided. I covenant to my spouse no matter what they do.

Reading Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart, on pages 190 and 191 he makes some statements. Let me share them with you.

"The problem is that people don't know how to be married...."

"To be married is to give oneself to another person in the most intimate and inclusive of human relationships, to support him or her for good in every way possible - physically, emotionally, and spiritually, of course, but in every conceivable dimension of his or her being."

"Individual desire has come to be the standard and rule of everything. How are we to serve one another in intimate relations if individual desire is the standard for everything and if what we desire can be acquired from many competing providers?...."

"What then does devotion to another mean when one or both parties are constantly shopping for 'a better deal' or constantly appraising one another in the light of convenient alternatives?"

Think about these thoughts.

For Kingdom Education,
Doc

Covenants?

Greetings:

Matthew 19: 6 (NIV) - "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

In Matthew 19, Jesus is being tested by the Pharisees - actually they are seeking to divide the crowd who travels with Him. How? By getting into the issue of Divorce and Marriage.

Matthew records the confrontation, and Jesus stands firm for God's plan of One Man, One Woman, One Lifetime. He says that marriage is a covenant, not a contractual agreement.

This Sunday, we will discuss the difference between them. Look forward to seeing you in the Fireproof class.

For Kingdom Education,
Doc

First Love

Greetings:

1 John 4:19 (NIV) - "We love because he first loved us."

Simple statement of fact. Doesn't take a deep theologian to think this one out. If you check the Greek it says --- We love because He first loved us. Pretty straightforward.

We are capable of loving because God loves us. When we say we can't love someone, we are putting conditions upon them that God never placed on us. What does that say about us? Are we more right than God?

The last couple of weeks in our class we have studied the scriptures and discussed the portrait of unconditional love as demonstrated by God. As we are approaching this Easter season, it causes us to think about the truth of unconditional love. I for one am very thankful that God loves me unconditionally. I need to love others (especially my spouse) the same way. I can't, except that He does it through me.

This week seek to find a way to show unconditional love to your spouse.

For Kingdom Education,
Doc