Being married does not stop you from dating each other!
Dating your spouse will help to enrich your marriage and make it stronger.
On Earth Peace and Goodwill Toward Men
With Christmas approaching, it brings a mix of joy, anxiety, fear, stress and, to some, depression. Shops are filling with Christmas items—food, gifts, decorations, etc and the occasional shop, though getting rarer these days, playing Christmas carols.
As we get closer to the 25th, the hearts of some become increasingly heavy. This may be because of the thoughts of the preparation, the possible ramifications of a great family meeting/lunch/BBQ and its complications or spending a Christmas alone having lost a loved one.
How can we help others and maybe ourselves have joy throughout the season? We need to move the focal point from the “world” to what the season is about — the birth of Christ, with the sufficiency of scripture being our guide.
I. The Birth of Christ—the Reason
Some forces appear to be trying to remove the mention of Jesus Christ’s birth from public life, while focusing more on New Year’s celebrations and other events. We need to have our focal point on truth – Christ and His birth.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son
Our Need To Stand Firm On God’s Word
In John 10.10 Jesus warns us that “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy” and our spiritual enemy has been seeking to destroy marriage and marriages since Adam and Eve came together. Satan has direct opposition to God and thus all that He created for His glory and the good of His creation. God said that “it was not good for man to be alone” and formed woman from one of mans ribs and then brought them together, and later, through the word inspired through St. Paul, we see that marriage is designed to reflect the relationship of Christ and the church. Satan is particularly hostile towards Christian marriage and is also hostile against marriages in general, and indeed, is hostile to anything of God.
With specific regard to marriage Dr Carol Peters Tanksley wrote in Charisma Magazine article of August 2019 :
“A million things could be affecting your marriage negatively: your spouse’s mistakes, your own mistakes, differing personalities and expectations, lack of communication, busyness, financial or parenting hardships, sickness, extended family problems, and many more.
But none of these are the real
In some ways it does not seem possible that in a few days we will be at the start of summer and a few weeks away is Christmas a time when many Christians remember and celebrate the birth and life of our Saviour and also of many family get togethers.
Regrettably for some it becomes a time of stress, the reasons are many from busyness, illness, the loss of a loved one, unforgiveness …to mention but a few. For us all in the Church it is a time to keep our focus on Christ, to seek the Lord’s plan and submitting to him, letting Him accomplish it through us.
“…. the Lord said in his heart….. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:22
Submission is a subject that is often shied away from as in “the world” it is frequently interpreted as meaning being the under-dog, capitulation, of giving in. or being subject to abuse if we do not agree.
Back in 1828 Websters Dictionary defined submission as
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