Marriage is a total commitment and a total sharing of the total person with another person until death.
A leader must have a servant's heart. And if he has a servant's heart, he will act like a servant and react like a servant when he is treated like a servant.
According to [the Bible], a leader is first and foremost a servant. His concern is not for himself; his concern is not to give orders, to boss other people around, to have his own way. His concern is to meet the needs of others.
According to the Bible, the marriage act is more than a physical act. It is an act of sharing. It is an act of communion. It is an act of total self-giving wherein the husband gives himself completely to the wife, and the wife gives herself to the husband in such a way that the two actually become one flesh.
Knowledge of facts is important. Knowledge of truth is essential. Yet our Lord's concern goes beyond mere head knowledge. He wants us not only to know the truth but also to obey the truth. He wants us to live the truth, practice the truth, and be conformed to and transformed by that truth.
Wherever you find marital failure, you will find a breakdown in real communication. Wherever you find marital success, you will find a good communication system.
The Lord commands the wife to be submissive. Refusal to submit to the husband is therefore rebellion against God Himself. Submission to the husband is a test of her love for God as well as a test of love for her husband. The wife then must look upon her submission to her husband as an act of obedience to Christ and not merely to her husband.
The plain, unvarnished truth is, that every one of us needs the accountability that comes from formal, regular, intimate relationships with other godly people.
Fifty-fifty marriages are an impossibility. They do not work. They cannot work. In marriage someone has to be the final decision maker. Someone has to delegate responsibility, and God has ordained that this should be the husband.
It often happens that when couples get their relationship to God straightened out, their relationships with one another begin to straighten out as well.
Becoming mature Christians will require the sovereign work of God. Only God can save and sanctify. Still, God uses men and means. Certainly we as parents must seek to bring our children to Jesus Christ for salvation. But salvation is not the end of the journey. It is only the beginning. The destination toward which we are headed with our children is nothing less than maturity in Christ.
If...we do not think that a local church is worthy of joining, why should we be considered worthy of serving in it?
Becoming one flesh is a broad concept involving the totality of life. The context of Genesis 2 and the teaching of the rest of the Bible about marriage demand this. At the same time, it is generally recognized that there is no place where this total sharing is more beautifully pictured or fully experienced than in the sexual relationship of the man and his wife.
According to Scripture, the invisible church includes everyone who has ever been genuinely born again for every age of church history. This church will not meet in a visible way until Christ returns. The visible church consists of believers who are alive and meeting together right now.
We should use all our money for the Lord. This is, we should use all our money in a way that God would approve. In that sense, all of our money is to be given to the Lord. Stewardship is to be total, not partial.
