This was posted on Monday May 19 2008 by Pastor Ralph Harris.
Link to his blog is down below(Waaay down below)
He titled it "Devotionally Single" Best marriage and relationship advice I have ever read.(My opinion)
Oh, the problem with marriage.
While I love being married to Sarah, marriage is fundamentally a big problem—it’s a devotion divider. The apostle Paul wants us to be free from concerning ourselves with it. In fact, he counsels married people to live as if they were not.
Impossible?
By the Spirit, Paul writes,
"What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none;...For this world in its present form is passing away. 32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34 and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband." (1 Cor 7:29,31-34, NIV; bold italics mine.)
Keep in mind that this is not a grueling sacrifice, a cold, reasoned point of self-denial. Instead, it’s a command to our own fulfillment, even in marriage, and the highest development of our life in Christ.
Paul continues, "I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord." (1 Cor 7:35, NIV; bold italics mine.)
Paul isn’t on a marriage-ending crusade; that would be unbiblical and ridiculous. Obviously, he doesn't mean we should dump our spouses or mistreat them in any way, but that we should continue to keep our devotion to Jesus genuinely primary—no, our devotion to Jesus must be undivided. Why? Because our devotion to Jesus is the only relationship that will produce love.
God is love--He doesn't have love, His love doesn't ebb and flow, rise and fall. He is love, and intimacy with Him will produce it in you and me. No other relationship can do that. At best, all that other relationships can do is elicit love or provide a place for it to go, but they cannot produce love. Undivided devotion to Jesus means love with a capital L.
So, when we book and sermon and seminar ourselves nearly to death out of concern for marriage and how to have a good one, take loads of notes and make plenty of pledges and commitments about how we'll behave from now on, we're likely dividing our devotion--the very thing Paul warned against. We’ve got only so much devotion to go around. Five techniques to have a happy wife (make sure you've got them all!), six tips for a happy husband (don’t forget any!), plus assorted marital pitfalls to avoid, and our devotional pie is getting eaten up. How much is left for Jesus? No wonder we’re too tired to pray or read or worship or spend enjoyable time with God--we’re not devotionally single, we’re devotionally used up.
By focusing our concern and devotion upon marriage (or any worldly relationship, for that matter), we're unintentionally saying, "Here's how to mess up your marriage—be really concerned about it. Focus on it, work tirelessly on it, and pray about it unceasingly. Give it everything you’ve got."
Again, no one is suggesting you abandon your marriage! If you’re a klutz at loving your spouse, if you ignore him, if you demean her, if you have no idea that your wife likes flowers and chocolate, and that your husband likes gadgets, then take a class on marital manners—you need them! But if you want to truly love, then no amount of marital techniques will bring it about. The fount of love is God—growing devotion to knowing and loving Him will baptize you and everyone around you in love.
My wife knows that when I'm overwhelmingly devoted to Jesus, she is going to get love, love which is way better than anything I might cook up on my own. In fact, she and I believe that marriage provides a unique opportunity to grow in devotion to Jesus by being weaned away from the many lesser devotions of this life. And that's not easy! When everything says, "Think of the benefits of being deeply devoted to your spouse, and here’s how!" we're learning to put it under our devotion to Jesus. It's not difficult to imagine what a great step of faith that is.
But, oh, the benefits.
http://lifecourseministries.blogspot.co.ke/
Ralph Harris has been my "go to guy"on Christian marriage mainly because he sticks to scripture.
This article is named"We've got to change marriage" and he posted it on Wednesday,April 3,2013.Link to his blog is down below.
We’ve got to change marriage. That’s what this post is about, and it
won’t be without controversy and disagreement. But it’s my take on
it. Are you ready?Christian Marriage is not Jewish Marriage 2.0. We’ve got to take it out of the former covenant so that it matches up with who and what believers have become and where God is in the New Covenant—He is in us. That changes everything. Think what He can do from where He is now. And that’s Christianity.
But let’s back up a bit and get some context to this.
The apostle Paul told us that he had been crucified with Christ, and that he no longer lived but Christ in Him. Paul had become a new creation, and life was now by the Spirit and no longer by the flesh. Life arrived and was directed by what God in Paul did, and not by any other means. We know that this is true for every Christian. We also know that life by the Spirit means He will produce in us what Christ is like: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. That’s His work to do in us, and He’s particularly good at it. We, on the other hand, are wonderfully lousy at the fruit of the Spirit—thousands of years have proven it—but He is perfect.
That production of life is going to benefit you personally, as well as all those around you. Christ in you is exceptionally good at relationships—all of them—including marriage. We have the Great Lover Himself within us. He is our hope, and a very real one. 1 John 4:8 says that, “God is love.” He is the original source. He doesn’t experience shortages of love or run out of it either. “Sorry, Vicky. Come back next week. I’m expecting a new shipment.”
God is love, and genuine love comes from Him. Relationship with God is the only relationship that can actually produce authentic love. That’s why we become so attracted and devoted to Him; we do it for love! No matter how good any other relationship is, it cannot produce God’s love—it can only be a receiver of it. (Do you suppose there might be a plan there?) And God has come to live in people, a staggering new development, making every other plan obsolete. Forever.
So when it came to marriage, Paul did not Christianize the former union between male and female, adding nifty new promises and commitments, working toward a sort of Jewish Marriage 2.0. Instead, he put it into the context of the new reality of Christ in us, who is revealed in us by the grace and work of the Holy Spirit. It could be said that marriage during the Old Covenant, the male and female union that uniquely produced life, prefigured Christ joining Himself to mankind in the New Covenant gift of new and eternal life.
So the headline news of Christianity is not, “Hey! We can do this better than the Jews ever did. Watch this, God!” Christianity is not Judaism 2.0. The premier aspect of Christianity is, “We have God living in us, and He has all the life, love and ability necessary for every situation and relationship. We watch for Him inside and offer ourselves to Him.”
This is why Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden light (Matthew 11:30). He is where our rest is. He does the work in us for situations and people! But try quoting that verse to people hard at work on their marriage and not only will they tell you that you’re absolutely wrong, they’ll look at you like you’re an alien. . .which should make the point that they don’t believe they are alien in this world. This is the position every born again vessel of God has in the world: “Christ in me, for every situation and relationship, including marriage.” Knowing that God is in us, we go out amongst people and give ourselves to them and see what happens. More accurately, we see how God happens. It makes everything adventurous, and our focus remains within, upon Christ.
In the context of New Covenant marriage, just like the church, wives have the unique position of knowing where God is (inside), and of then offering themselves to their husbands. This means Christ in them for their husbands. Husbands, with Christ in them as well, have the unique position of offering themselves to their wives just as Christ did for the church. This means Christ in them for their wives. Do you see what that means? Christ for everybody! That’s the plan.
This is why, when it came to Christian marriage counseling, Paul told the Corinthians an otherwise odd thing: if they could not remain single, but chose instead to marry, they were to avoid being “concerned” with their marriage and “how they might please their spouse” by instead remaining singularly devoted to Jesus. Paul didn’t mean it as a way to degrade or cheapen marriage, but as a way to elevate and position it as a receiver of God’s life and love. (See 1 Corinthians 7:29-35) In other words, “Stay in the knowledge of God’s love for you—make that your only concern—and He, who is now in you, will produce what He is like for your spouse. Life! In that way, God will be evident in you. That’s how God benefits! (So does your spouse!) And that is the New Covenant plan—Christ in you.”
Now, you’ve got to go see this, so read 1 Corinthians 7:29-35. Take your time with it, and knowing what you do about the New Covenant and Christ in you, see if this doesn’t make sense and explain why Christian marriage is so messed up today. We’ve got our fleshly, grubby hands all over it. We’ve taken over the New Covenant delivery vehicle of God’s grace—the union of a man and a woman—and made it our own work. And that will not work.
This may seem terribly foreign to you because the church hasn’t been talking about it much, but we’ve got to.
http://lifecourseministries.blogspot.co.ke/
In this article,Ralph particularly praises single women for their 'predicament' I just want to add that it applies to men too.This was originally posted on Nov 23 2010
Link to his page is down below,I recommend you check it out.
If I had the chance to stand up and praise the heroes in my life, I suppose it would take a while. And if I stood up today, perhaps I’d give the most time to a specific group of heroes—single Christian women. From Zagreb to Georgia, and Barbados to California, I admire and respect them deeply. They’re incredible.
While they have become the righteous and holy, new creation daughters of God, they nevertheless endure the faulty, measuring scrutiny of the world. Even from the church.
Even though the apostle Paul suggested we would all be better off single rather than married in our service to God (1 Cor 7), nowadays we don’t actually believe it’s true. Think of the single Christian women in your church and tell me they don’t endure endless prescriptions from well meaning, but Bible disbelieving people as to how they can “be healed” of their infirmity—singleness. Spoken or implied, we mostly think of them as incomplete or crippled, and shuttle them off to Children’s Ministry where they can at least partially fulfill their presumed destiny.
Single Christian women live with the not-so-subtle prejudice that there is something wrong with them, something that can only be cured by a ring on their finger and a man in their bed. Do you think my words are too strong? Then accept my challenge: ask them. Ask them if they believe they are seen and valued for who they are according to God, or if they are seen as something less, something different. Ask them if they feel revered because they remain single. And not just the nineteen year olds; ask the thirty-eight year old single Christian women. Ask them.
While I don’t recommend a curative prescription of giving single Christian women new places of prominence and authority as a way of proving our repentance, I do believe that we need to look anew at our saintly sisters. Do you see what God says is true of them? Do you believe that each is His chosen dwelling place, the modern-day Holy of Holies, made pure and faultless? They don’t need to be fixed-up in order to be useful and whole, they’ve been separated single unto God, at least for a season. How fantastic! For some, it will be a life-long marriage to the One we cannot see.
But can you see them anyway? Can you, by the eyes of faith, see them for who they are—the chosen, twice born, holy and blameless, radiant daughters of God? If you can, I’m certain you will see similar “invisible traits” emerging from the rest of the church too. The temporal shadows of this world—clothing, physical looks and abilities, status, etc.—hide the sons of God already, even from themselves. But you and I see according to The Truth, even when the suggested truth of this world says otherwise. The Truth directs our thoughts about God, and it directs our thoughts about each other. It must.
If we would approach each other according to the truth—let it begin with our single Christian women—then the revival many of us hope for would begin with us. We would thank them for the great example they are to us in their single-hearted, undivided devotion to the Lord. We would encourage the single Christian women to “go for it” with God, to run off at His leading, to be daring and adventurous in their godly situation, unencumbered by the challenges Paul says marriage brings. We would think of them as the royalty they are, instead of the royalty they could become . . . if only.
Knowing something of the struggle they face, we would be their cheerleaders—our team is on the field! Hooray! for single Christian women.
You’re my heroes.
http://lifecourseministries.blogspot.co.ke/
Many of you have asked about Grace based relationships especially in marriage.Below is Bill and Anabel Gillham's(Lifetime guarantee) story which I believe will help those married rediscover the lost passion and also educate the unmarried on what Spirit driven marriage looks like.
This article was first published in HomeLife, the family magazine of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Jesus was saving their 20-year marriage in a far greater way than they ever dreamed possible.
She was in deep depression, thinking at times about suicide, even though she had become a Christian at the tender age of 12.
He was a psychology professor whose mind, inexplicably, started going blank in front of his classes. He had become a Christian 13 years earlier, at the age of 29, and yet his faith hadn’t lessened how harshly he treated his wife.
Waking up each morning she thought to herself, “Dear God, I cannot face this day.” There was no joy, no fulfillment in her faith. For years she had tried to make her marriage work. If anybody could make it work, she had believed, it was her. She had been her high school’s valedictorian and voted in college the most popular girl on campus. Her self-esteem had been built on how well she could tackle any challenge.
Even so, her marriage hadn’t worked, and she had no hope that it ever would.
He had been critical of her homemaking -- failing to acknowledge even her gestures of love -- from the outset of their marriage.
“What a guy,” Bill Gillham sometimes moans of how he treated his wife, Anabel, for, yes, 20 years and, yes, for the 13 years after he had become a Christian and had developed a reputation, everywhere but behind the doors of his home, for helping others find faith in Christ.
Then came the changes that turned the Gillhams from their destructive ways and began shaping them into marriage retreat leaders and co-authors committed to helping people move from their marital -- and spiritual -- wildernesses to fullness in Christ -- and do so far more quickly, hopefully, than the 20 years it took them.
“I think that time gap can be telescoped by good, sound teaching -- good, sound discipleship that this is the normal Christian life,” said Bill, whose outreach with Anabel, Lifetime Guarantee Ministries, is based in Fort Worth, Texas.
“For years, Anabel and I focused on but one facet of what Jesus Christ had accomplished for us, the forgiveness of our sins,” Bill said. “Wonderful as our blessed forgiveness is, living on earth is far more complex than being forgiven.”
Even after becoming a deeply committed Christian, Bill said, “Anabel found very little comfort in knowing that I was forgiven.” She still faced the pattern of criticism and ridicule that Bill had brought to the marriage at its outset. “What she needed was her husband to understand how to trust Christ to live through him to treat her with the tenderness she needed and deserved.”
In the midst of their respective agonies, Bill recounted, “The Holy Spirit showed us that Jesus accomplished two additional miracles for us:”
-- Everyone who has embraced Jesus as Lord and Savior has “undergone a change in his spiritual identity from sinner to saint.” The new birth gives each believer “a new identity -- your true identity now and throughout all eternity.”
-- Each believer has “received a new kind of life altogether -- Christ as life -- to replace our former life. Christ now desires to express his life through us, instead of our trying to follow in his steps in our own strength.”
“It’s such a simple truth,” Anabel said, “verbalized to us at salvation in the simplest way: ‘Would you like to ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart?’ And we say, ‘Yes, I would.’ But then we aren’t taught what happens now that Jesus Christ has come into our lives. He has come into us to empower us to live the Christian life.
“There is an answer for the marriage that has no life,” Anabel continued. “There is an answer for the marriage that is just existing or one in which the husband and wife are constantly sparring.
“And that answer is to realize that you, now, can be the healing agent in your marriage as you allow Christ to live through you.”
For Bill, the first inkling of these spiritual truths came in his career.
“It was through a failure in my job. I had just gotten my doctorate from Oklahoma State University and had become a university psychology professor. And this is where God allowed the evil one to -- I think it was all supernatural, choreographed to bring me to the end of my strength -- just go blank in front of my classes.
“It didn’t happen every day, but it happened often enough that I was paranoid about going to class. I would go blank. My notes would not make sense to me. There was just a deathly silence in the classroom as I was up there struggling. My face turned red as a stoplight.”
The crisis prompted Bill to cry out to God. “I’d go into my office and shut the door and lock it and just cry out to God, ‘Help!’ And through that terrible, personal failure is how he began to give me a peek through the keyhole of Christ as life.
“As I began to understand this, that Christ wanted to teach psychology through me, using me, using my body, using my personality, using my knowledge of psychology -- to express life through me by faith -- then I claimed that in a time of prayer.
“And then I did a critically important thing. I didn’t sit there and wait until I felt differently. I got up off my knees and started toward the university. I was tentative, I was scared, I was afraid it wouldn’t work, I felt insecure, I thought I was just being a phony, just faking it, but I had no alternative and I just kept pushing on.
“And it began to work.”
For Anabel, her crushed hopes for a good marriage were the soil in which deeper spiritual truth sprouted.
She had been a lifelong “performer,” with an attitude in the face of life’s challenges that had always been, “I think I can; I’ll certainly try; I’ll give it my best shot.”
“I was performing, not for a group of people, but for Bill. I wanted his praise. I wanted his approval of my performance in the marriage. He wasn’t giving that to me, and I finally realized he was never going to give it to me. I had to come to the end of my strength to even be ready to listen to an answer. I had to come to the horrible realization that I couldn’t do it.”
Sobbing in bed one night, she came to “the complete end,” admitting to the Lord, “God, I don’t understand what is going on in my life. My marriage is so far from what I long for it to be and what I know you intended it to be. My kids are not turning out the way I want them to, and Lord, I am so tired. I’m weary. I’ve given and given and given, and I just don’t think I can give anymore.
“I’ve tried and tried, and I give up.”
And, while it wasn’t in an audible voice, she sensed the Lord’s compassion, “Thank you, Anabel,” followed by his promise, “I’ll do it all for you.”
“That night, I began walking in that truth. I’d fall at times, but I’d realize, just like Bill, what option do I have? I’d tried everything my way, and my way didn’t work. So I’ve got to try his way. And his way brought me through.”
Somehow, Bill and Anabel remained unaware of each other’s spiritual discovery. “Bill and I fell into that category of not communicating,” Anabel said. “I didn’t communicate because I had been hurt so many times. And Bill just was not a communicator. And so, we just didn’t talk about it.”
Then, several years later, Bill and Anabel were asked to lead a marriage seminar, after Bill had become director of a Christian counseling center in Missouri and Anabel was utilizing the truths in discipling some women.
“She put her notes on marriage together, and I put my notes together on articulating Christ as life and who we are in Christ, and we married the two together into a seminar.
“And that was just all the direction of the Holy Spirit,” Bill said. “We didn’t even realize it. Hardly anyone else was talking about it. None of our friends knew anything about this kind of a walk. And yet, the way we teach today is still very similar to what we taught in our first seminar back in ’75.”
Those truths also have been put into several books, including “Lifetime Guarantee” and “What God Wishes Christians Knew About Christianity” by Bill, “He Said, She Said” by Bill and Anabel and “The Confident Woman” by Anabel.
“Every phase of our married life,” Anabel said, “involves the belief that Christ through me is going to make this the experience that my husband needs, that my wife needs. The cry of people today, I believe, is: ‘You’re a Christian? Well, show me that you have something that I need. Your marriage is just like mine. What’s the difference?’ There is something that can make a gigantic, marvelous difference in a marriage, in a life, in a single person’s life, not just a marriage, but in a life. And that is to realize Christians are accepted and beloved by God and we have a power living within us, Jesus Christ, to meet the circumstances of life.”
