I will have been married for 7 years this January so for some people I may not have enough “real life” experience to blog about marriage.  They are probably right…if I were just giving you my opinion.  The Bible gives us some core essentials that every marriage should have.  Here is part 1:

1. Unconditional Love – Ephesians 5:25 tells husbands to love their wife as Christ loves the church.  I know lots of men who will take a bullet for their wife but complain about spending time together watching a chick flick…does this make since?  Jesus Christ DIED for the Church.  He gave ALL so that we may have LIFE.  He DIED knowing people would REJECT Him.  He PROVIDED when we didn’t even know we had a NEED.  Are you seeing the sacrificial side of Jesus and how unconditional love should be in our marriages?  Unconditional loves says, “I will love you not matter what you do!”  Men, it starts with you and your wife will follow.
2. Respect – I have seen lots of husbands and wives that don’t even respect each other.  You can tell by the way they talk to one another and treat each other in public.  Philippians 2:3 says it all…view others more significant than yourself.  If we could do this then we would respect our spouses and we would see affinity in our marriages.  I believe that if we understood what respect is and how we use respect in marriage we would dramatically change the amount of divorce in America.

Work on these cornerstones in your marriage and we will discuss part 2 soon.

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I was in traffic the other day and in just a few short minutes I noticed three bumper stickers with the word “COEXIST” printed in large letters for all to see. I remember the day when you could see Christian bumper stickers on lots of cars, now they seem like a rarity. I’m not suggesting that we all go to Family Christian and buy the first bumper sticker that we see, I don’t even have a bumper sticker on my car, what I am suggesting is that the world around us is evolving and what was once a Christian generation is mutating into a society that has changed the definition of Tolerance.   This has directly watered down the real truth and we as Christ followers need to do something about it.

In Josh McDowell’s book The Last Christian Generation, Josh talks about how today’s youth generation has formed a misconception on tolerance.  Josh states that,  Not long ago, the word ‘tolerance’ meant ‘bearing or putting up with someone or something not especially liked’. However, now the word has been redefined to ‘all values, all beliefs, all lifestyles, all truth claims are equal’.   Denying this makes a person ‘intolerant’, and thus worthy of contempt.

Where does this leave Christians? Jesus said,

‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6).

And the apostle Peter said,

‘It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:10-12).

My greatest fear is that we, as Christians, have allowed this to happen.  What is your response at the office, the water cooler, in your classroom or when you are out with friends and the topic of religion comes up?  To you shy away from the truth because you do not want to offend anyone?  Are you ashamed of the Christ that hung on a cross and bored every despicable sine you and I have ever committed?  It is time to rise up and  become men and women of strength and might we are not created to sit by and let Christianity as we know it to dissolve and to be diluted into something that does not have power because it is not the Gospel.

What will you do?

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