Family Issues

Command! and goal is love is not my phrase. Let’s take a look at I Timothy. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. 5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith God knows. The word …

  Whose side is God On?  You are not wrong if you say, “Ours” See Romans 8 below: 31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? God is for us and wants us to succeed. Though Romans 8 assumes we are succeeding in living for God. That is for sure our best for this life. So, we need to go deeper. Next, let’s see what God says in Joshua: 13 Now …

Faith expressing itself through love is really what God wants from us. See Galatians 5:6: 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. First, we often are drawn to put some activity before faith as a marker for our life in Christ. Through faith the doors to the Kingdom are open and light dawns. It is not our kindness or church attendance that leads us to the Kingdom. However, …

God created emotions and has more of them than we do. He is softer than moms and tougher then dads. God gave us all the emotions above. We ought naught ban any emotion but let’s look at some guardrails. Let’s consider human anger. Ephesians says: 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”[a]: Do not let the sun go down while you are …

Dying for your wife is Biblically commanded. See passage below In Ephesians 5, there is the key passage on marriage Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her We men often think “sure I can jump in front of the bus for my wife ” to save her. That is good but it is not the final understanding of what the Bible is saying. At base line Jesus gave and gives us a lot or grace. …

Have you noticed that Jesus is a bad compromiser? So, we should be too? Lets pause and think on that. Why does Jesus not compromise? He is filled with spirit and truth. We are compromised with subjectivity even when we are quoting the Bible.  Now, by personality I am quite black and white. I have put my foot down too many times when I was trapped in my own biased judgment. God sees this and frowns. It is quite rare …

Why was the prodigal good enough is on the table to today. The son said sorry very well actually. Is that the point? I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his …

God forced me (thankfully) to see my weakness this past week when I was listening to worship music. It gave me some thought, so here I am on weakness and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is established for us on Jesus shocking choice of complete vulnerability. He suffered and died in weakness though he was the ruler of all. He did this to save us.    However, he also asked us to be this way. Thus, the Apostles and …

When tribulations come, our family will sometimes smirk and say, do we have pure joy yet? Why such a strange family you say? 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds. James kicks off his epistle with these stirring words. Was James talking nonsense? Why does our family sometimes smirk and say this? The truth is that we know James is right, but we cannot feel pure joy quite yet. However, we see …

I sense we know that love over fear and hate is a true idea. Love drives out both fear and hate, but often we are not using this thought/feeling. Interestingly, fear and hate cannot drive out fear and hate, but we go to these too often. Fear and hate are natural, but we should not be shackled by them. Let’s First Look at Hatred Proverbs notes this point of wisdom on hatred. Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers …