Marriage-the beginning

I have had a request to a devotion on marriage. Sadly the divorce rate is sky high (over 50%) and what is even more troubling is that the church divorce rate is no better! So I can't cover marriage in one devotion as I try to keep them as quick reads. I will do several devotions over marriage in the next few days. Let's start where it all began!



Genesis 2:20-24

20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

23 And Adam said:



“This is now bone of my bones

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman,

Because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.



Well here it is my friends, where God instituted marriage. There are several things I want you yo notice here.



1. In v.20 We are told "there was not a helper comparable to him". This is very important to catch. Men we are not above our wives, nor are wives above the husbands. We are helpers to one another. We must keep this in the front of our minds!



2. This should have been first! As I said earlier God instituted marriage not us! We are told in we are not to break what God has brought together here:



Matthew 19:6

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”



Take your marriage very seriously.



3. In v.24 the Word tells us to leave mom and dad and be joined to each other to become one flesh. This is very important not to read over without thinking about it. When married we are to be one flesh with each other. Make decisions together. Have children together. Live together. A problem comes about when we keep brings mom and dad from one side to our business. Now there is nothing wrong with getting advice from moms and dads as long as we are both agreeable to it, but big problems come when inlaws are in our business on a regular basis!



4. On a final note...marriage is man and woman. No where in scripture do you see it any other way!



That's it for today, we will dig deeper tomorrow, God bless.



Tom

Envy

In the past several weeks we have at times we have looked at the "seven daily sins" study we are doing at church right now. Today I wan to continue that and look at ENVY. We see envy in the very front part of the bible:



Genesis 4:2-8

2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother;[a] and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.



Wow! Among other things we see here that Cain was envious of Able that God accepted his offering and not Cains. It made Cain so mad that he killed his brother over it. I hope and pray our envy will never lead us to that! But envy can cause us much harm if we do not keep it under control.



Envy is dangerous to us because it is a direct disobedience to God's command "to love our neighbors as ourselves".



Matthew 22:39

And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’



We are also told in the Word that "love does not envy!"



1 Corinthians 13:4

4 ; love does not envy



So let me sum all this up for you. You see when we envy it is selfish! What I want, how I want it, and when I want it. We resent others for what they have and we are at odds with their good. Godly love on the other hand is being selfless, sharing, giving, wanting others to have good before yourself!



So this morning, does envy have control of you or do you have control of envy? If envy has a hold on you this is what you have to look forward too:



James 3:16

16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.



Tom

Are we getting next Generation ready?

My Pastor spoke about this yesterday morning. If you think about the difference from your grandfathers generation to your dads generation and now to our generation...it is a sad state when we think about spiritual things and morals. Look at these verses:

Judges 2:6-13
6 And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land.
7 So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. 8 Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old. 9 And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. 10 When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.
11 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; 12 and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

A couple of things here I want to point out:

1. V.7 tells us Joshua and his generation followed the Lord.

2. V.10 tells us that the next generation did not know the Lord or what He had done for Israel! Something is very wrong here. It tells me that Joshua and his generation may have been faithful but they did not a very good job of passing along the Lord to the next generation. Let me be clear here that we have a job to do with the next generation. This is the most important job we have! This job is to train our children in the Lord! Ask yourself...how are you doing in this training right now?

Deuteronomy 6:4-9
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

It is not the churches job, they are to help you but the main responsibility is yours!

3. V.11-13 tells us what happens when our children do not get the training from us!

Brothers and sisters look at society, look at our schools, colleges, even our declining churches...what are we doing? Failing God! Failing ourselves. Failing our children. Don't compare to everyone else, do what God wants you to do, train your children and yourselves in the Lord!

Tom

Know you are saved!

I have heard many folks say when you ask them if they are saved say "Well I think I am." The Bible tells us we can know! Look at this verse:



1 John 5:9-13



9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.



This is what these verses tell us:



1. Witness of men is good, but witness of God about His son is greatest! God has told us through man and through the Word that He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins. What else do we need?



2. When we believe in the Son we then become witnesses ourselves because we experience the awesome power of the Holy Spirit! Until a person has surrendered their life to Christ one does not know how great and peaceful a life can be knowing we have eternal life with God!



3. If we don't believe in Jesus, well we call God a liar. Not much more I need to say about that!



4. v.12 says if we have the Son (in our hearts) we have life....life now and eternal life in the future. Thank you Jesus! Plain and simple.



5. Finally, we see in v.13, this is how we know we have eternal life! How? Refer to point #4!



So do you know this morning? I know I do! I want to leave you with one more piece of security from scripture!



John 10:28

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.



Tom

Expose unfruitful works!

In some recent reading I ran across these verses. It made me do some think as scripture tends to do. What jumped out at me is the verses I have highlighted:



Ephesians 5:8-14



Walk in Light

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:



“Awake, you who sleep,

Arise from the dead,

And Christ will give you light.”



We are to expose sin and its destruction according to these verses. Take a moments and think about that. First we have to be in the light. That means we have to be saved in Christ Jesus. We need to be light to a dark world, which means living as Christ desires for us to live. Gives us an example of what this kind of living should be in verse 9 goodness, righteousness, and truth. Acceptable living to the Lord.



So what about verse 11? Many thoughts came to mind: drunkenness, abortion, corrupt business dealings, homosexuality, false teachings, folks in the church who are power hungry instead of serving and loving, and the list can go on and on. We are told to expose those things! Are we? It can create major problems if we do right? God's Word says we must check all things by the light of Jesus Christ. His Word has made clear what is right and wrong. We are not the judges He is but according to these verses we are to expose darkness! If more light shines less darkness is found!



Look at verse 14....we are told to awake! Rise from the dead! Christ provides the light....lets be using that light!



Tom

Greed for God!

To wrap up our look at greed after a short break yesterday let's look where our greed needs to be!



Luke 12:13-21



13 Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” 15 And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”



This is such a good picture that God has given us here in these verses. First, brothers are having a problem over an inheritance. Greed has split so many families over the years. This is a sad thing and no doubt it saddens God. Jesus warns the one brother to be very careful for covetousness can cause major problems. Then Jesus tells us a parable about a rich man who is basically preparing for retirement. So he can sit back and take it easy. Look very closely at this. First we never know when life will end, all our hard work to accumulate things goes to someone else when we die. They do us no good! Second, retirement from work for money is not a bad thing in itself but there is no retirement plan i serving the Lord...NONE! Third, The key to defeating greed is being greedy in serving God! Be greedy in your time, money and service TO GOD! Be rich toward God and you ca not go wrong for one can not out give God!



So this morning are you greedy for God or greedy for self?



Tom

Struggles!

It seems I am in a time of my life where so many people that I love and care about are struggling with various things. The big item seems to be cancer. I have an Uncle and a step sister who are giving it there all against cancer. Several friends who are also battling cancer. Then I have several folks in my life who are battling other sicknesses. Then there are those who are battling spiritual sickness, not having a relationship with Jesus which is the WORST SICKNESS of all.



So what do we do about all this? I have 3 suggestions for us this morning as I know many of you are struggling with the same things I am this morning.



1. Pray.



Matthew 18:20

"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”



God is listening to His followers. Pour your heart out to God. Join with your brothers and sisters at church and pour your heart out to God.



1 Thessalonians 5:17

pray without ceasing



Keep praying yourself every time you can. Our God loves us, he hears us, and he will answer!



2. Know God is in control.



Romans 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.



One thing we must remember is what God decides is good and best may not always be what we think is best. God is much smarter than we are. He loves us more than we can fathom and what ever He decides we must give Him glory and honor!



3. Trust God



I will be the first to say this is very hard when you or a loved one is suffering. We often want to question God instead of trusting Him. Resist that temptation to not trust!



2 Samuel 22:31

As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.



Psalm 62:8

Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.



1 Timothy 4:10

For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.



Oh my brothers and sisters, struggles are here, the devil wants us to lose hope and faith in our God, but I agree wholeheartedly with the scripture that says:



Joshua 24:15c

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord



Pray for me as I pray for you my friends!



Tom