We've Got To Change Marriage

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.  I’ve written a lot about it in my book, “God’s Astounding Opinion of You,” so I won’t give more time to it here.  But go get it, if you haven’t already.  Here’s my ministry web site address for it (http://lifecourse.org/Ralphs_Book.html), and you can also get it at bookstores and all of the usual online locations in either regular or eBook format.

That’s it for now.  See you later.

(This is a transcript of yesterday’s video, “We’ve Got To Change Marriage,” and is for those who might rather read than watch.  You’ll find the video a bit down my wall, or click on the following link: http://youtu.be/L4tri2WGvBg)

We've Got To Change Marriage

What’s happened to the joy and ease of marriage? If Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden light, then doesn’t that apply to marriage? It does. Take a few minutes and see if this short video doesn’t explain a lot.

A Different Kind of Smack-Down

If the end of one Godly Administration and the beginning of another could be called a “WWF Smack-Down,” Jesus wins. (A little fun for the wrestling fans among us.☺)

Hebrews 8:6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.

No Easter Discount

Do you have some thoughts about Easter?  Let me ask you a question:

When Jesus was on the cross, where were you? 

If we think of Jesus as going to the cross by Himself, we have a discounted Easter.  It’s no bargain.  We don’t have everything, and we need to.

While enduring the awful human torment of carrying a shameful cross through the streets of Jerusalem and out to Calvary on the edge of the city, Jesus—God Himself—knew what was before Him.  Through the pain, He was overjoyed!

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  (Hebrews 12:2, italics mine.)

Seemingly all alone in His tortured trek through town and the many people lining the streets, Jesus held a fantastic secret:  He was taking them with Him.  They thought they were onlookers to a tragedy; He knew they were participants, not just in the cause, but in the act.

An incredible, miraculous, retroactive and future fact of Easter is that Jesus’ faithfulness to the cross was the initial act of bringing to an end one creation—darkened, stumbling, sin frustrated mankind—and of making another—a glory-sharing, innocent and holy new race.  That was His joy, and now it’s ours!

On the cross and knowing what was coming in three days, Jesus reached for you in the crowd—the crowd in the past, the crowd right in front of Him, and the crowd in the future—and accomplished God’s timeless desire; union with His people.  He didn’t simply hold you close; He brought you in.  Jesus removed what hindered us and brought us into Himself, where there can be no distance, no transgression and no fault, making us safe and secure with Him, who loves us perfectly.

Romans 6:6  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—

Ephesians 2:6  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

When Jesus rose and fairly strutted out of the tomb, as I picture it, He was full and full of joy!  We were in Him, and He was joyously satisfied, just as He planned.

Happy Easter!

(See Romans 6:1-7; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:6-7)

No Easter Discount

When Jesus died on the cross and rose again three days later, where were you?  The answer to this is an invaluable aspect of God’s plan to make you a perfect fit with Himself.  Have a look at this 4 minute video, and see if the death and resurrection of Jesus isn’t worth at least a little leap or shout for joy.  Maybe even a big one.

A Receiver of Love

God is love, and genuine love comes from Him.  Relationship with God is the only relationship that can 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. 
It seems like that might be a plan, right?  I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow.

Words Count

Some people take the words of Jesus and Paul and James and Peter, et al, and use them as bricks and whips to bruise, cut and prosecute, while others make them into pillowy platitudes and positive pleasantries, stripped of meaning, power and effect. Their words (and ours) are not letter only, which profits little, but Spirit, which brings life. With that in mind, use them carefully.

2 Corinthians 3:6 “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

What To Do?

"Suppose for a moment that in a flash of insight you discovered that all your motives for ministry were essentially ego-centric, or suppose that last night you got drunk and committed adultery, or suppose that you failed to respond to a cry for help and the person committed suicide. What would you do?"

"Would guilt, self-condemnation, and self-hatred consume you, or would you jump into the water and swim a hundred yards at breakneck speed toward Jesus? Haunted by feelings of unworthiness, would you allow the darkness to overcome you, or would you let Jesus be who he is—a Savior of boundless compassion and infinite patience, a Lover who keeps no score of wrongs?"

~Brennan Manning

Jesus' Success Is Mine

God remembers my track record no more. While the world obsesses upon how I’m doing and how I’ve done, He doesn't ever point to it and say, "See?! This is why you're such a success. Pat yourself on the back!” or “This is why you’re such a mess. Pull it together, man!" Instead, He points to Jesus and says, "I've given you His record, and it is perfect. His success is yours. Get used to that. It will change your life."

If God Is Moody, You're In Trouble

Is God moody? Can you put Him in a generous mood or make Him stingy? Can you do something to move Him close, or something to move Him away? Can you do something to get into His presence, or do something to get out of it? Is He fickle? Does He leave you?

The Christians at Corinth wondered about those things and they had good reason. Their behavior was awful—headline news. Epic. While Corinth was well known as a city where people took cruel advantage of each other, non-Christians were especially repulsed by the behavior of some who called themselves believers. Many in the church there knew they were a mess, so it caused them a lot of stress concerning the security of their relationship with God. The Christians at Corinth had to have been worry-warts.

Naturally, they were aware that their spiritual daddy, the apostle Paul, knew all about their sloppiness and their ugly failures, and they were afraid that he wouldn’t come to be with them because they were so often so bad. “Will Paul,” they might have asked, “who loves us so deeply, draw away from us to punish us, or as a way of teaching us a lesson? Will he go somewhere else, to people who are better than us? Why would he want to come here?”

Knowing their fears, Paul wrote a second letter to the worried Corinthians, and said essentially this:

“Are you kidding? I brag about you! Every time I think of you, even just a little bit, God fills me with love for you! How can I help but want to be with you in the same way that He does? I’m crazy about you! Did I not make that clear by my first letter? I know it’s been awhile since I’ve visited—it simply hasn’t been the right time. But my heart for you is exactly like God’s heart—everything is ‘Yes!’ Yes, I will never leave you. Yes, I have given you all things. Yes, I have secured you in Christ for always. And, Yes, my love and grace for you is unchanged—it is and will always be “Yes!” Can I get a Corinthian ‘Amen’?” (2 Cor 1:12-2:11)

Paul did what so many of you do: he answered their questions and vanquished their fears by telling them about God’s love in him for them.

The Corinthian Christians were the perfect people by which to make the point: no matter how things look, no matter how WE look, God’s affection and grace are never at risk, never threatened. In fact, they are even more in view. That’s the perfect relationship God has given to us already. You don’t have to go get it, you don’t have to earn it, you don’t have to work on it. It has been given to you. It’s His gift—yours to enjoy.

God has plenty of motivation to be with us and to do for us; He doesn’t need more. He doesn’t run out of motivation or have a shortage one day, and He doesn’t need convincing. You’ll never need to woo God, and you’ll never need to do anything right in order to attract Him to you. There’s no class on successful flirting with God! He’s the One who loves and behaves perfectly—remember? Believing that slips away sometimes, I know, but that’s the gospel that the devil keeps trying to move you and me away from. So if you’ve wandered, as I sometimes do, wander back.

You and God are tight and secure. You’re together! He made it happen. And He will never be moody with you. He’s not like that. I can tell you.

(This is taken from yesterday’s video, “If God Is Moody, You’re In Trouble,” and is for those who might rather read than watch. If you’d like to see the video simply scroll down, and/or to subscribe to them, click http://youtu.be/v4WTvaRtTJw.)

If God Is Moody, You're In Trouble

Many of us are worried about life because we think that God determines His behavior always upon ours; like He’s making this all up as we go along, or as if we are leading, and He is following.  Watch this 4.5 minute video to see if your worries are valid. . .or not. 

A Fight Worth Having

Do you like arguments?  You know, a discussion seasoned with some passion?  There’s an important one going on right now about what Jesus did for us all at the cross.  That’s important, and I’ve been a part of it at times.  And I will be.  But I want to say that the risk, and maybe the cost of prosecuting our particular side of the argument is often that we lose the wonder of knowing Jesus Himself; you know, Christ in you.  Him.

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul writes that the primary battle—the big fight!—for the Christian, is this:  demolish, wipe out, fight off, throw away ANYTHING that threatens you from knowing God.  That is the prize that is threatened by other “stuff” or arguments.  Demolish them!

This doesn’t mean, “Trash your television!  Don’t watch March Madness or Downton Abbey or American Idol.”  It doesn’t mean, “Throw away your iPhone or Samsung.”  It doesn’t mean, “Stop talking about ‘Big Oil’ or ‘Big Government.’”  Neither does it mean, “Come to a conclusion right now!  Choose a team and fight concerning exactly what Jesus did at the cross.  WE MUST WIN THE ARGUMENT NOW!  Prosecute with us!” 

For you and for me, it means, “Don’t get lost!  Don’t get so caught up in debate, even over important things (maybe especially over important things), that knowing and enjoying Jesus in you, with you and for you, becomes and remains less of an anticipated thrill and solution and hope and joy than those other things.” 

We write and talk about the gospel, which is the very power of God, not simply so people can be smarter and well armed in a debate.  We, who love the gospel, offer it to people because it enables and promotes in them what it does in us:  the knowing and the loving of God Himself.  That’s the prize.

Some of the arguments we’re having go toward knowing Jesus.  I know.  That’s good!  But there are an awful lot where that’s lost.  So in your mind, in your writing and conversation, be careful to hold to the prize, to the real treasure above all treasure:  knowing Jesus in you and with you and for you. 

This is the God we get to know, the mystery hidden from the ages, but now revealed to us and received by us.  Christ in you means life for the first time; what He does and how He is from there (in you) reveals and directs life.  That’s the prize and that’s where the wonder is!  Right?  You should have it.  Fight for it.  It’s worth it.

(This is a transcript of yesterday’s video, “A Fight Worth Having,” and is for those who’d rather read than watch. . .or maybe you’d like both.  If you’d like to see the video, simply scroll down, or click http://youtu.be/5BHk5TNXn5Q.)

A Fight Worth Having

Have you been in some verbal scraps about the Bible?  Have you ever fought or witnessed a fight about God, and felt like you got beaten up?  Take four minutes, and see what you think.

Stupid Days Stuck In-Between

Do you ever feel like you’re caught between what you want to do and what you have to do instead? Do you ever struggle between some kinds of business principles or workplace rules and those of the Kingdom? And does it ever get so frustrating that you have a blow up or a break down? You know, really lose it?

I simply thought from Jesus this morning that He knows we’re prone to frustration and anxiety and outbursts of temper: “I can’t handle this!” And He has not one iota of condemnation for us—not one. I think He wants you to know that.

You and I are living life caught between two worlds—the temporal and the eternal. The one we can see, and the one we can’t. The one that passes away, and the one that lasts forever. Just as the world in which we fit and belong begins to get into focus—“I can see it! I can taste it!”—the other one comes barging in. I can be enjoying the day, knowing Jesus and trusting in Him, when suddenly something worldly knocks me over. . .or knocks me mad or regretful. I remember a bill I forgot to pay (and now, because of the interest added, I don’t have enough to pay it), I get a phone call from my daughter, telling me I forgot to pick her up at school. (Great! Don’t I care?!), or my health shows signs of getting bad, and I’m uncomfortable about how the future looks. And then some clown in the parking lot cuts me off, and one of those, “I’m saving the planet” electric cars silently (and arrogantly, I’m sure) zooms into my parking space before I can. And, I can tell you, it all starts adding up and boiling over.

It’s like I’m happily flirting with spiritual maturity, and then it rudely breaks up with me. “Not happening, baby breath! Change your diaper!” I don’t like it at all.

Or maybe I read someone’s facebook post that’s supposed to encourage me, but it’s got so much, you know, over-the-top, “everything and everyone is beautiful, life is good, butterflies for everyone!” junk that I want to throw up on their post.

But the truth is that I’m no less of an attractive target for the life and love and grace of God Himself than I was yesterday. Maybe I’m a bigger target. “Hooray for me!” I can imagine my picture on a big billboard alongside the freeway with the title: “God’s most needy!” Frankly, we’re all in competition for that title; I just think I’m winning.

I know that none of us really wants to be the most needy place for God’s work today. But, if it’s true, He doesn’t mind! He doesn’t have something better to do. When you consider how He moved to get to the most needy during His days among us, do you think He’ll stop before getting to you, repulsed by your neediness? No way. He’s really good with that.

And He doesn’t have far to go in order to get to you, right?

Romans 5:5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. (Where’s the glory or evidence of God going to show up best? In me! In you!) 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Parenthesis mine.)

So, if you’re having one of those sloppy, stuck-in-between days, take a moment to breathe. There is such purpose to this life, and through it all, God holds us securely in Christ, holy and righteous, priests of the earth.

While this life is a mess, the next one won’t be. But in the next one there won’t be any chance to live by faith in what we cannot see, no opportunity to grow and succeed in the battle against temptation, no one to lead to Jesus, no friend we need to pray for, no groceries to buy for a down-and-outer, and no forgetfulness that means we need to apologize to our daughter. Nothing will be in-between anymore. Everything will be exactly—no, way beyond exactly—as our hearts long for it to be.

That will be such a good day! Just not today.

(By the way, this is a transcript of yesterday's video, "Stupid Days Stuck In-Between," and is for those who would rather read than watch.)

Stupid Days Stuck In-Between

This little video is for the frustrated and ready-to-pop, “Why can’t this stupid life work the way it’s supposed to work?!” among us.  You know, people like me, and maybe like you.  Have fun watching.