Family

The Power of His Resurrection

The fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead tells us something very important: our God is in the resurrection business. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is declared by St. Paul to be the assurance of our own resurrection on God’s appointed day (1 Cor. 15:12-20).

The goal of our lives therefore should be to know Christ and “the power of his resurrection” (Phil 3:10). This means that we cannot lead defeated lives, nor can we evade our responsibilities under God to bring every area of life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ.

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I Love You But I’m Not “In Love With You” Anymore

Has your spouse told you they weren’t “in love” with you anymore? Well do I have news for you. The saying “I love you but I’m not in love with you anymore” is a worn out cliché. It’s not possible to “fall out of love” because you weren’t “in love” to begin with. The excuse “I’m not in love with you anymore” is nonsensical. Let me tell you why.

There is no such emotional condition as falling out of love; it’s a justification for doing whatever you are planning on doing. It’s a way to let your spouse down easy. What you’re really feeling and should be saying is “I don’t want to love you anymore”. It usually means that the attitude towards your spouse and marriage is not what it once was. Perhaps you are talking yourself into having an affair or perhaps you have already had an affair.

The person who says “I’m not in love with you anymore” is searching for a feeling.

The marriage has stopped giving them a feeling they want and expect to have. It is an attitude that builds up after months and or years of a lifeless marriage – a marriage that has no intimacy. This is why quality time spent together (intimacy) is more important than sex in a marriage. Not that sex isn’t important, because it is, but that sex IS NOT INTIMACY. Sex may be a part of intimacy but it is not the whole picture.

Intimacy can be as simple as playing a board game or planting seeds together in your garden; or intimacy can be as complex as working together in a business or getting involved in a hobby with your spouse. But couples aren’t doing any of these things together anymore! They have drifted apart, each doing their own thing. When couples stop doing things together they lose the intimate bond between them they once shared when they were first married.

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The Parent-Child Relationship

Ultimately we are left with family. In fact, that may be why so many people get divorced or break up relationships. They are looking for the kind of stability that one should find within a family. Perhaps the idea of a soul mate even comes from this longing, the longing to have a place called “home” within which there is love and safety and comfort.

A stupid child is ruin to a father,
and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.
Proverbs 19:13

This proverb isn’t about children who lack intelligence, but rather about children who are foolish and silly. Matthew Henry writes:

“A son that will apply himself to no study or business, that will take no advice, that lives a lewd, loose, rakish life, and spends what he has extravagantly, games it away and wastes it in the excess of riot, or that is proud, foppish, and conceited, such a one is the grief of his father, because he is the disgrace, and is likely to be the ruin, of his family.”

Proverbs 23:24-25 states that

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who begets a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.

There is a reciprocity within the parent-child relationship. Parents are to raise their children to be righteous; children are to choose the path of righteousness. When these children turn their backs on the Lord, it is a great sorrow to the parents. Wise children follow the Lord and His will. Foolish children stand up in arrogance and turn their backs on everything their parents believe and taught.

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How To Stay Faithful In Your Marriage

Did you know that our thoughts and beliefs become actions over time? The more we think about being with other people outside of our marriage, the more these thoughts will become our actions. Knowing this then, the first step to conquer infidelity is not to have the desires within our mind in the first place. Easier said than done? Not really.

We desire others sexually because we have been conditioned into believing its ok to do so – it’s a mindset. We have been trained to desire others sexually at a young age, and we have been conditioned into believing it’s ok to look at scantily dressed women and men. Our conscience may even tell us that it’s wrong to actually commit the act of sex outside of marriage, but does our conscience tell us that the desire is wrong?

The bible definitely lets us know that desiring others sexually is wrong because it leads to sin, so then what is the problem? The problem is we aren’t going to the root of the problem. The root of sexual lust is in how we think towards human beings. So then to stop the desire we only have to change the way we think about others. Are we really respecting others in the way that Christ has taught us to? If we truly respect another person then we should have the attitude to not think about desiring them lustfully and disrespecting them in any way.

You were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love you neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14

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The Subliminal Messages of Sexual Imagery on Our Children

What is a parent to do about all of the negative imagery splashed around in society? It’s almost impossible to go anywhere without having some form of immorality shoved into our face. Negative immoral garbage is everywhere! It’s scary when you think about how after a while of your children seeing the same sexual innuendos over and over it begins to form a part of their thoughts and beliefs. And that is where the problem begins.

Think about what negative immoral images have been ingrained into your child’s mind? Can negative images make them think negatively about themselves? Yes! Young girls have been taught from society that what is seen on the outside is basically the only thing that matters and that being only half dressed is appealing and that if you want to be “something” you need to look a certain way, dress a certain way and behave a certain way. How can a parent counter such an alluring suggestion from the world? Simple, don’t be that way yourself. Teach principles by God’s standards and not worldly standards.

And this is where the teenage boy comes into the picture. He is only seeing what is on the outside of females and finds it difficult to understand, respect and value what is on the inside. Even church leaders have gotten themselves ensnared within the sexual lusts of society? What kind of a picture does that tell your children? What is going on when so-called men of God can’t keep spiritually fit? It is a vicious cycle that you should not even be a part of.

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Pornography Addiction: What Can a Wife Do?

Don’t give up on your marriage! Porn addiction doesn’t have to mean the end to marriage. In fact, it is time to nurture your marriage with the tender loving care it so needs and deserves. You can actually learn from this and have a better marriage over it. I encourage you to put forth every effort to reinforce the bonds of trust and love that may have been broken between you and your husband.

The moral outcome of a husband viewing pornography does not only affect him but the wife as well. A wife may feel unloved, invalidated, and sexually unattractive. “Why doesn’t he want sex with me anymore? Why does he look at all those gorgeous naked women?What’s wrong with me?”

Nothing at all is wrong with you! This problem has NOTHING to do with you. It is your husband’s problem. Don’t make yourself feel victimized by this issue in your marriage. Your husband is looking at porn and acting out sexually because of an underlying problem within his inner awareness that is still haunting him. He may not even be aware of it himself.

Most likely your husbands porn addiction is caused by something unpleasant that happened to him in his childhood that is manifesting itself within his mind. He may be feeling anguish over his past and for a temporary “feel better” fix your husband is acting out his emotional pain and feelings of grief through the use of porn.It makes him feel better emotionally and mentally.

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Overcoming Porn

** Are you having less sex with your spouse or stopped having sex with your spouse because you are looking at pornography?
** Are unhealthy emotions overtaking your thoughts and controlling the outcome of your actions?
** Have you tried to quit looking at porn but can’t?

If you answered yes to any one of these then you are addicted. Anytime we are addicted to something it means we are under its control and have become a slave to it. Does being addicted to porn mean you are a bad person? Not necessarily.

What it means is that you have a sexual temptation that you desire more than you desire the goodness of self brought on by God. You are allowing the sin to overwrite the natural goodness of your character. Satan is pulling at your flesh to look at porn, while principles and mores are put on hold somewhere in your mind.

Bad people remain in their addiction all the while getting worse spiritually and emotionally. Bad people don’t even try to come out of their addiction but rather revel in it and eventually get worse in their sinful behavior. Bad people don’t know they are lost, they believe they are following the right path already. Bad people are literally holding hands with Satan.

Some of you might be playing a game of tug and war because your conscience is having a difficult time dealing with your actions. This is the flesh (physical and emotional feelings) fighting with the spiritual aspects of your nature. The spiritual aspect of self knows right from wrong. Which way are you tugging? Did you fall into temptation again?

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When Valentine’s Day Is Difficult

“I hate Valentine’s Day. I’m divorced, and I don’t have a boyfriend.” Jenny had stopped me in the parking lot of the gym to lament her situation.

“At one time, I also dreaded Valentine’s Day but not anymore.”

Jenny raised her brows and said, “What changed?”

“Let me share with you what my mentors taught me. If I want flowers and candy, I buy them.”

She raised her brows again but said nothing.

“I don’t want to be in a restaurant at dinnertime on Valentine’s Day, but I can go out to breakfast and lunch or order dinner to go.

That made Jenny smile. I told her about the times I scheduled a massage or bought a new outfit on sale. She nodded.

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Are You Cultivating Seeds or Weeds?

How do you get vegetables out of your garden? By planting vegetables, of course. This is a fact almost too obvious to mention, except for the fact that most people seem to have forgotten that you reap what you sow and you harvest what you plant,

for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)


Now if a man simply kept weeding a garden patch without ever planting it to vegetables, we would certainly have a right to call him at least a fool if he expected weeding to give him vegetables. We should, in fact, question his sanity.

But this foolishness is exactly what millions of “good Americans” are dedicated to: they do nothing but pull up weeds, and they expect to harvest vegetables. How? They are always fighting the weeds which crop up in the life of America, in the churches, schools, and organizations, and this is all that millions of them do-pull weeds.

Meanwhile, the country and everything in it goes downhill.

Make no mistake about it, the weeds of communism, atheism, and permissiveness must be uprooted, but what good will all this weeding do if no sound seeds are sown? The net result is simply a better patch for new weeds to sprout in. Jesus said of the man who rid himself of an unclean spirit without submitting himself to God and bearing fruit to God that such a man becomes then a dwelling place for eight unclean spirits, “and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

“Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:45) When people are simply interested in getting rid of their weeds, their problems, and have no desire for planting seeds, for moral and spiritual regeneration, then they are only the worse off for their efforts.

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Five Ways to Help an Alcoholic, Addict or Dysfunctional Person

1. Prayer
Since the alcoholic, addict or dysfunctional person cannot be helped until he or she wants help, it is necessary that we begin to pray for them, asking that God will bring them to that place that he/she will seek help. Do not be discouraged. Things might get worse before they get better; but remember, God answers prayer.

2. Offer the Gospel
In Romans 1:16 we read, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”

So often, we tend to try everything but the power of God in helping the addicted or dysfunctional person. Now it is true that he may always need medical help, possibly psychiatric help, and the help of a counselor may be profitable; but without the power of Christ working in the life of this individual, nothing will be of lasting value. Witness to him or her of your own faith in Christ and through your church, putting them in contact with others who have a vital testimony to the power of God to change lives.

Good Christian literature will also be a help in getting this message across and we would be glad to make suggestions as to what books he might find profitable.

3. Fellowship
One of the strongest points of recovery groups is the fellowship that they have one with the other. It is necessary that when an alcoholic, addict or dysfunctional person makes a step toward recovery that we be willing to offer them fellowship, to make them feel welcome, to make them feel needed and to encourage them to share with others. This could be done through CIR or through the fellowwship of a church or a Christian businessmen’s committee such as a Gideon Camp.

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