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This page was last updated 05/05/08
Week of: September 3, 2007
Title: Try, Try, Try Again
Series: Church ~ Part 4
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 11:1-4
Last Sunday I said that Christ was just like the sun—that our world depends on for warmth and light. Without Christ our lives would be cold and lifeless; Christ came to give us life and to give it to us abundantly. Many Christians feel that, without the Son (Christ,) life as we know it would be unbearable. We cannot over estimate what Christ means to our lives and how important it is to commit one’s life to Christ.
But as I’ve been trying to hammer home, we have another commitment that we need to honor as well and that is to the bride of Christ—the church. If Christ is the Son that shines in our lives in which we commit our lives to, then the church is the magnifying glass that focuses the rays of Christ’s love and power on the world we live.
Christ’s love and presence is all around us. We give are ourselves to the love which we don’t fully understand or grasp. We literally surrender all to this self-sacrificing love; however, in doing so, we also make a strong and binding commitment to his bride—the church… a bride that God uses to focus His power and love on a dying and sinful world, just like a magnifying glass might take the rays of the sun to the bidding of the one who is holding it. The bottom line is the church is a useful tool in the hand of God. If we commit to the God who is the master of all, how can we not commit to the church? And how can we not allow the Lord and Master of our lives to use us as one of His tools, if we call Jesus Christ Savior and Lord? The definition of Jesus as our Lord is that He has complete control of our lives and we are His willing slaves. The church is the slave of Christ, to be used as Christ sees fit.
I must admit that at times the church isn’t a very willing slave, just like you and I sometimes don’t like to be told what to do. Sometimes the Church doesn’t like to be told what to do. If so, the lens of the magnifying glass gets dirty and the Son is not as focused on this world as He wants to be. The church loses its commitment because the people have lost their commitment to Christ and the church. The church loses its ability to focus the power of Christ on this world.
What causes the people to lose their commitment? What weakens our commitment to Christ and the church? I think some of it has to do with what draws us to Christ in the first place. For example, some people come to Christ because they are scared to death of hell. And there is nothing wrong with that, but if, for one reason or the other, ones commitment doesn’t get any deeper than that, spiritually they are in trouble. They hear all this talk about once saved always saved, which is comforting to most of us, and they think well I’ve made a profession of faith, walked the isle, been baptized, and God has given me this “ollie-ollie-in-free” pass. I don’t have anything to worry about my salvation anymore. It is a lot like this guy that courts this girl, begs her, and begs her to marry him, and then once he gets her to marry him—ignores her. In many cases, the Bride of Christ (the people of the church) is ignoring Christ, its Lord, once the commitment is made. If you read Matthew 13, the real security of the believer rests in allowing the seed of Christ to extend His roots deep within the believer’s heart. So that the deeper it gets, the deeper one’s security as a Christian becomes, and this is done by deepening your commitment to Christ. Look, for those of you who have a good marriage, I would imagine that your commitment and love for your spouse is greater than it was the day you married them. For those of us who are committed to Christ, is not our love of Christ and our commitment to Christ and His church greater today than ever before? My second point today can best be expressed by Jesus’ own words in Matthew 13:22. “The one who received that seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it making it unfruitful.” The problem with our culture is that we are filling up our lives with things that don’t really matter. Last Sunday morning we all stood together and sang “I surrender all.” Do you remember what I said to you before you left? How many of you are willing to just surrender your Sunday nights? I didn’t count but I believe somewhere around 12-15 folks were willing to “surrender their Sunday nights.” Why? Because most of you made plans to be somewhere else. If I was to ask why you made plans to be somewhere else, you wouldn’t say church is not important, because most of you that are here today come because you think church is important. It just that last Sunday night something else was more important. It was more important or you would have been here. We do what is most important to us for whatever reason we do it, some good and so not so good. But do you see what Jesus was saying? The worries, the obsessions, the lust for pleasure, the need for relaxation, the obligations, the busy, busy business of life just chokes the very commitment to Jesus out of your existence. And yes, I know every one of those things was so needful and so very important, but if you are not careful, you will allow these other things to take the spiritual life from you and your family. Another thing that is so important to keeping our commitments strong is passion. I hesitate even mentioning this, because it is so misunderstood that I am afraid that I might add to the confusion. Too many people base their salvation on their feelings. I am saved, not because I feel saved. I am saved because of my commitment to the word of God that says, “If I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead, I will be saved.” I read nowhere in the Bible that salvation is based on one’s feelings. It is based on one’s commitment to the truth—that Jesus is Lord of my life. When I married Sharon, I loved her and felt love for her. I also committed my life to her. Together, the love, the feelings I have for her, and commitment I’ve made to her, form a strong bond that has kept us together. The love, and the feelings of love that I have for her makes my commitment to remain married to her easier. The passion in your heart for Christ makes your commitment to Christ a lot stronger. Now, by passion, I don’t mean that every day or every moment of your waking day you’ve got to be on cloud nine. It doesn’t mean you’re never going to get down about your spiritual life, or feel depressed or anxious, or have doubts, and fears about where you are spiritually. But it does mean that, somewhere within your heart, there is a spark that sooner or later can be flamed that will enable you be excited about your faith. And when you get excited about your faith, by the grace of God, your commitment to Christ takes off and is strengthened. Passion for Christ is a spark that by the grace of God can keep you going.
Week of: September 9, 2007
Title: Commitment and Giving
Series: Church ~ Part 5 Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:14 In talking about commitment, as we have been doing for the last several weeks, we’ve been really talking about giving and growing. True commitment to God is really about giving back to God as He has blessed us. True commitment is about the giving of time, of resources, energy, worship, and yes even money to God. And while giving is not about money alone, money certainly plays a very important part in our learning to give and grow. You may not believe that this is true, or you may not think that the subject of money is an important enough subject for Preachers to preach about, but someone has figured out that one fifth of what Jesus had to say in the New Testament is about money.
First, Jesus has said, “No servant can serve two masters…you cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13). In other words, really there is only room in our hearts for one thing that we are ultimately and most importantly concerned about in our lives. It might not be money that competes with God, but it might be success, popularity, prestige, self-worth, pleasure, comfort, leisure, alcohol, drugs, yet most the time it is just we, ourselves, that are in constant competition with God. But in Luke, the selfishness of the people is often expressed in money. In fact, Luke says: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all of this (that Jesus had to say about money) and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, (people today use money and wealth to justify themselves before people) but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” (Luke 16:14)
What does detestable mean to you? Do you know what I mean if I said that something “grosses me out?” The sight of it just makes you sick. So Jesus is saying the sight of what men and women highly value sometimes makes God sick to His divine stomach. Have you ever seen the TV program the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?” I find it interesting to just to see how big and luxurious people can build their houses. Houses to some people, however, are more than just a nice, comfortable, homey, place to live; they are a sign of status and prestige. To such people that put their prestige high upon a pedestal, Jesus says that such prestige and the houses that represent that prestige are detestable to God.
But you don’t have to be on the TV program “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to have problems with money. My dad used to tell the story about a man at work that would ask for leftovers at lunchtime. He would even rummage through the garbage cans at work looking for uneaten fruit and sandwiches. The men he worked with felt sorry for him and would bring an extra something for him to eat, until one day he let it slip that he was worth more money than all the men put together. He valued money so highly that he wouldn’t buy himself something to eat!
The point in these stories is not that houses or money in and of themselves are bad. It is, of course, the love of money or houses, cars, prestige, power, that is bad. Or, it is really when I love something so much that it competes and gets more attention than God does that it turns out to be bad. In practicality, when my commitment to these other things takes first place in my life to God then I am as a Christian trying to serve two masters. And the thing that I am trying to serve more than God becomes detestable in God’s sight.
How do I know if something like money is more important to me than God? Do I covet it? If possible, do to hoard it? Am I a good steward of it? Am I willing to give some of it away? We say God is more important than money to us, and I hope that is true, but in practice is that really true? In reality, how selfish are we with our money? Do we hoard it like some believing that we can take it with us? Or do we live beyond our means, just staying one month ahead of the bill collectors, so that we have to be as tight as a drum with our money? Do you realize that in most churches, and I am assuming that our church is no different, 20% or less of the people keep the church going financially? In this regard, Churches are little like the human brain. We are told that the average person only uses 10% of their brain capacity to function. Most churches get less than 20% of their giving capacity to function. Why? Again, because most people’s commitment to Christ and to the church is not strong enough to govern their giving to anyone but themselves. Which percentage group are you in?
But Preacher, how much should I give? Some people give 10% or what the Bible considers their tithe. Others give a lot less, and then a few give even more. In our scripture this morning, Paul is telling the Corinthians to give as God prospers them. In other words, as God blesses you then increase your giving accordingly. There may be some of us that God is prospering in ways other than financially. Therefore, your increase in giving will come through other means, such as time, labor, or service. Yet, there are many of us that God has been prospering for years financially and we’ve never bothered to increase the amount or the percentage of our giving. If that is so then, maybe we haven’t grown as we should spiritually.
I talk a lot about stewardship, but I don’t talk that much about money. Maybe, I should preach more about money because Jesus sure talked about it. But I really don’t believe we are in the business of fundraising. Instead, we are in the people-raising business. Our responsibility, as John Ivins wrote several years ago, is to train people to become better Christian stewards. If we get that job done, the giving will take care of itself. Giving, and I don’t mean just money, is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. If we are becoming more Christ-like as we live, we are going to seek out ways to give of our resources and of ourselves. I wonder how hard is it for you to give? Look at your pocketbook, and your bank account, at your spending habits, and you’ll see just how hard it is to give.
Note: The link to John Ivins’ “The Biblical Concept of Christian Stewardship” may be found on the home page of our website (temporarily), then will be placed in our on-line archives for your future reference.
Week of: September 16, 2007 Title: Our Indescribable God Series: The Name of God Scripture: Exodus 3:11-15 In Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet,” Juliet asks: “What’s in a name?” The ancient Israelites would have responded, “A whole lot.” They would not agree that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” For example, in naming a child, the parents might express a conviction about God and their commitment to God by the name they gave their child: Ezekiel means may God strengthen, and Daniel means my judge is God. And do you remember what Abraham’s wife, Sarah, did when she was told that she was going to have a child at 90 years old? She laughed! She laughed at God, and they named their son Isaac which means laughter. It seems to me that every time they looked into Isaac’s face they were reminded not to underestimate their God. Names were very important. In the ancient world, names did more than just designate objects and places—they attempted to indicate character, qualities, and even mysteriously the essence of that object.
Well, what about God’s name? How important is it? People that curse the name of God, do they really know what they are doing? No, they are very ignorant.
In our scripture this morning, Moses stands before the burning bush. God has revealed himself to Moses and commands him to get God’s children out of Egypt. Moses is somewhat skeptical about appearing before his people, the Israelites, much less Pharaoh because he says to God “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God replies to Moses, “’I am who I am.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
God was saying to Moses: “The God that is appearing to you now, and wants you to go to His people is the same God that appeared to your forefathers hundreds of years before.” You tell them that I am who I was, I am who I am, and I am who I will be has sent you to them.
The Hebrew phrase of “I am who I am” is simplified to the equivalent of the four English letters- “yhwh.” This word was considered to be so holy that in the Hebrew no vowels were included in the word so that it could not be pronounced correctly. Modern day scholars have added the English vowels “a” and “e” to make it spell “Yahweh.”
An interesting bit of information about the word “Jehovah” is that it is incorrect. Biblical scholars know that the word “Jehovah” is grammatically impossible. In other words, there is no Hebrew word for Jehovah that you can you use to get the word Jehovah. According to some “a 16th century German translator wrote this name of God using the vowels of the wrong Hebrew word in it. My point in saying all of this is that not only is God mysterious, but also His very name is mysterious and difficult to understand. The Israelites wanted His name to be Holy as He Himself was Holy.
Not only is the name of God mysterious or indescribable, it is also powerful. Not powerful in the sense of God’s name being magical, but in the sense that His name represents the God of power. The Bible believes that when anyone calls upon the name of the Lord, it invokes not magic but God’s presence and, therefore, his power. To speak in the name of the Lord, in sincerity, is to speak with the power and authority of His presence. So that when the early church spoke in God’s name, they did with the power and presence of God. In the name of the Lord people were healed, in the name of Jesus sins were forgiven, and in the name of Christ demons came out of people. However, the name of God is not magical, it is powerful.
The name of God in the Old Testament was too mysterious, too Holy and too general for people to be comfortable with, so other names for God were used. One name is “Adonia” which means “the Lord or My Great Lord” Psalm 8 is one reference to that name. Yet, another name of God is “EL Elohe YIsrael” which means God, the God of Israel. The word “El” means “the Strong One.” It is used only 217 times in the Old Testament. “Yahweh” is used 6,873 times in the Old Testament. Elohim means the “All-Powerful One” or “Creator,” it is used 2,570 times. “El Roi” means “the God who sees me.” “El Shaddai” means “the God of the mountains” or “God Almighty.” There are several variations of Jehovah or Yahweh, Jehovah-jireh” means “The Lord will Provide.” Do you know the scripture for that? In Genesis 22:16, Abraham names the place that God provided a substitute sacrifice for Isaac, Jehovah-jireh “God will provide.” Another is Jehovah or Yahweh-Shalom which means “The Lord is peace.” Jehovah-Shammah means “the Lord My Companion.” All in all, someone has figured out that there are 21 names for God that, in some way or the other, try to describe the essence or character of God.
No wonder the third commandment is so important to God. After all, how can a Christian who knows how wonderful and glorious the name of God is take the name of God lightly or in vain? A name so wonderful, glorious, and indescribable should not be abused. In fact, the name of God should not be abused, but is worthy of our strongest commitments.
Week of: September 23, 2007 Title: Who are you going to believe? Series: Belief in God ~ Castlewood/St. Paul High School Football Sunday Scripture: Numbers 13:26-31, 14:1-12 What really motivates you? Preachers, coaches, teachers, parents, anyone in leadership positions, want to know what motivates other people. The word “motivation” comes from the Latin word “motivus” which means “to move.” To motivate yourself, or to allow someone else to motivate you, is to move toward “a goal” no matter how big or small it might be. It may be winning a football game, attending church, having the correct behavior, making a good grade, or trying your hardest to do your best.
Behind all motivation (not necessarily all behavior) is what you believe about yourself and the goal that you want to achieve. For example, what coach wouldn’t want to know what was in their player’s minds the week of the big game? What coach wouldn’t give their paycheck just to see fire in the eyes of their players the night of a big game? The confidence and the motivation we need in life depend on what we believe about ourselves and what we are trying to achieve. If this is true about sports, it is especially true about life because life is the biggest game of all. People who believe positive things about themselves, who have confidence in themselves, and who understand that they have to work for what they want in life, generally do very well.
What about your belief in God? How important is it to what you do in life? I believe most Christians would say, “very” and non-Christians would say very little. It should have been very important to Israel, in this morning’s scripture. If it had been, they wouldn’t have spent 40 years wandering around in a desert. Does anyone know why Israel ended up wandering in the desert? Because, they didn’t believe in God enough to go into the Promised Land. They listened to the experts who said it could not be done… and they paid the price. A lot of people, in my opinion, are wandering around aimlessly without purpose and direction in their lives because they don’t believe God. They believe that all this God stuff is just foolishness or at least something that is not for them. They listen to so-called experts, who have frozen them by doubts.
What does it means to believe in God? Let me illustrate with Israel in our scripture this morning. To say that Israel didn’t believe in God would be very wrong. They were liberated from Egypt after 430 years of bondage. They saw the terrible plagues that God brought against Israel in order to free them. They saw Moses ascending and descending from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments and awesome glow of the glory of God about him. They were led by a cloud of God by day and a pillow of fire by night. And yet, they as they stood before their goal of a promised land of milk and honey, they stopped dead in their tracks and wouldn’t go any further. They were like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car—frozen and refusing to go any further. Why? They didn’t believe God, they believed other people. Again, they listened to the experts. The experts fed their fears and they believed the experts rather than God. The experts were the group of scouts sent in to determine the strengths and weakness of the enemy in the Promised Land. Caleb was the only expert that thought they stood a chance, the rest of the experts were shaking in their boots.
Don’t get me wrong. We need people with special knowledge and understanding, and yet what do you do when the experts are disagreeing or they are telling you the opposite of what God wants you to do? For example, some of the experts will tell you some of these things: Jesus never lived; God doesn’t exist; there are no such things as miracles; Jesus couldn’t have rose from the dead; the Bible is not true, it is not current for our lives; the Bible is unreliable; all religions basically teach the same things; if God is real, how could He allow evil to exist; truth is relative, never absolute; therefore, Christianity is unreasonable.
For every unreasonable and skeptical expert, there are other experts that believe different. C.S Lewis wrote a book called “Mere Christianity” that is a must-read for anyone having doubts about religious matters. I’ve been told that a journalist by the name of Lee Strobel wrote a good series of books that make a case for faith, Jesus Christ, Easter, and the Creator.
I am currently reading a book written by Francis Collins. He is the scientist that stood by former President Clinton when he was President and announced that the genetic code had been broken; the genetic code that is in all of us that decides the stuff we are made of. He is a Christian and makes a strong argument for our Creator God. For those who say that evolution without a Creator God has given rise to intelligent life like a human beings, he says the odds of that are astronomical. He quotes another scientist by the name of Frank Drake who says that intelligent life as we know it must be the product of 7 factors (get your calculator out): the number of stars in our galaxy(100 billion), times the fraction of stars that have planets around them, times the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life, times the fraction of those planets where life actually evolves, times the fraction of these where the life that evolves is intelligent, times the fraction of these that actually developed the ability to communicate, times the fraction of these planets’ life during which the ability to communicate overlaps with ours.
We’ve been able to communicate beyond Earth for less than 100 years. Ok, big deal this is just experts!!! And you’ve got so-called experts that argue very convincingly both ways. What are you going to do? Do nothing? That’s what most people do. They are like the deer standing in the middle of the road—they cannot decide whether to go to the left or the right. So they just stand there. And then there are those who say they believe but they are fence straddlers, they will support you when you win, but they won’t be around when you lose. They don’t understand anything about commitment, about having a team, God or church. They just go with the flow, with the easy current.
And then there are those who understand about what it means to believe in something. How many of you believe that Castlewood is going to win Friday night? How many of you believe that St. Paul will win Friday night? Ok! But how many of you have made a commitment to see that Castlewood will win Friday night? How many of you have made a commitment to see that St. Paul will win Friday night?
The demons believe that there is a God, but there is no commitment to that God. Where is your commitment to the God that you say you believe in? James says that faith or belief without works is dead (James 2:17). Where are your deeds (works) that verify your belief in God?
Week of: September 30, 2007 Title: Commitment and Marriage Series: Hallmarks of a Great Relationship - Part 1 Scripture: Ephesians 5: 21-33 :) I’ve entitled my sermon this morning, “Hallmarks of a Great Relationship-Commitment and Marriage.” The greatest relationship on this side of heaven is the relationship between husband and wife. It has the possibility of bringing great joy or great sorrow or both depending on the nature of the marriage. The great joy of marriage might be expressed in the Biblical book “Song of Songs.” One of its verses (Song of Songs 4:1,9) reads: “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes.” However, the great sorrow of marriage might be expressed in the epithet a new widow finally decided on inscribing on her husband’s tombstone. What was she to put on the tombstone: “Rest in Peace, My dearly beloved, Until we meet again?” On and on she agonized, should it say this or should it say that, until finally she decided to use two of the slogans and put them together: “Rest in Peace---Until We Meet Again.”
What is it that makes a good marriage? Does anyone have any idea what makes a good marriage? The Apostle Paul does; in fact, he has figured out how to make a successful marriage and a successful church in our scripture. He tells them in Ephesians 5:15 to “be very careful, then, how you live, not as the unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil…” He tells them not to be drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, he wants them to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in their hearts to the Lord. In other words, he wants them to get high on the Spirit and to get along with one another. To describe how he wants them to get along he uses marriage as an example. He tells the wives: “Submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” (Ephesians 5:22-23) “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5:24) To which the women start to shake their heads no doubt.
Several years ago, Mel Gibson starred in a movie called “What Women Want.” In the movie, Mel gets the ability to read women’s minds, to literally hear their thoughts. Anyway, it changes Mel’s life and causes him to fall madly in love with the character of Jody Foster. If there was such an ability to read a woman’s mind and hear her thoughts on the subject of submission, most women would come in loud and clear as saying: “I am not going to submit myself to any man.” Submission for most women and for most minorities is a dirty word. They just don’t like it. However, can we really have a basis for any long and lasting relationships without submission of some kind? I don’t think so!!
Let’s look at what Paul says to the husbands: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but Holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27) The bottom line is that Paul is commanding the husbands to love their wives as Christ so loved the church, and to give themselves to their wives as Christ so gave himself to the Church.
So, to the wives he says submit and to the husbands he says love and give yourself to your spouse as Christ did to the church.
Now think about this for a moment, which would you rather do, submit or love sacrificially? There is really no difference. What we voluntarily give ourselves to is what we submit too. What we submit to is what we give ourselves to and love. Paul was saying the same thing to both the husbands and wives… love one another and give yourselves to one another. If you doubt the wisdom of this bit of insight, look at Ephesians 5: 21 and keep in mind that that there is no boldface type in the Greek dividing the chapter into a section of Wives and Husbands. It reads “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ” and then he proceeds to verse 22, “Wives, submit to your husbands…” In other words, the hallmark of any great and lasting relationship is mutual submission and love, and as Christians we submit to one another out of our respect and reverence for Christ.
Christ died for us, he humbled himself to die upon the cross, and as result submitted himself to His church, therefore we should do the same to one another. This atmosphere of mutual submission does a number of things for a marriage and a church.
One, it creates a safe place for love and respect to grow. Everyone wants to be honored and treated good in their relationships with other people. What do I mean by honoring one another? In the context of the church and of marriage, everyone wants to be treated as fairly as possible and with as much respect as possible. A marriage counselor, by the name of Gary Smalley, came to believe from his counseling experiences that the most important thing that marriages and relationships need are respect and honor. Think about this for a moment. How many of us want to be in a relationship (a relationship of any kind) where there is no respect? How many want to be in a marriage where the other person does not honor or respect you in any way? In many marriages there are folks who are crying out for simple respect. Mutual submission results in mutual respect and honoring of one another.
Another aspect of a great relationship that submission helps to fulfill is intimacy. By intimacy, I am not just talking about sexuality, but am talking about closeness. Human beings are separate and independent creatures, who can live their lives without anyone understanding or getting close to them. In fact, many don’t want anyone to really know them, but then there are others who hunger just to know there are people who care enough about them to want to really know them. I bet you there is not a single person here who doesn’t want to be known, really known, and cared for by other people here. People come to church looking for closeness with God and looking for closeness with one another. They want to be somewhere where they can worship God and fit in. They want to be one with God and with one another, which is what intimacy means. But it is in marriage that the safety of true and deep intimacy can be found. How did Jesus say it? “The man and woman shall leave their parents and the two shall become one.”
Sure, we can be close to one another at church, and that is good. But there is another kind of closeness, a closeness of body, mind and soul that only marriage can satisfy. When I think of intimate relationships, really intimate relationships, I think of the love (physical love and deep emotional love) that comes from a husband and wife relationship. I realize that people can have good and godly relationships out of marriage. As brothers and sisters in Christ we can have a deep lasting fellowships that the world is envious of. But between the sexes there needs to be proper distance as far as intimacy is concerned. Affairs start in and out of churches because boundary lines are crossed creating temptation in people’s lives. And if it happens to be satisfied in the confines of church or anywhere outside the primers of marriage it is wrong. Mutual responsibility!! The success of this church rests upon the shoulders of God himself, but alone with God we are held responsible. God will do his part, but it is our own part that is lacking. In marriage it is a team effort…
Do you have a relationship with God?
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