What Happened to Godly Marriages?

Proverbs 30:18-19 (TLV)
"Three things are too amazing for me, four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a maiden."

This verse always makes me chuckle. Written so long ago, yet that last part is still true today. Do you remember how your husband acted before he was your husband? How it was between you those first glorious months of wedded bliss? We can all get a little silly when we first fall in love and all those endorphins and pheromones are zinging around inside of us. They don't call it 'crazy, stupid love' for nothing! But marriage is more than pheromones and romantic walks together. While those things are wonderful, a relationship with the opposite sex has to be founded on more than physical attraction. Yet we see marriages continually ending in divorce, even among Christians. The divorce rate is now 53% even among church-going Christians. What has happened to our marriages?

The Bible tells us a husband will "cleave unto his wife" (Genesis 2:24), and "the two shall become one" (Mark 10:8). A relationship nothing less than death can separate (Matthew 10:9). So how are so many Christians winding up divorced?

Of course there is no one single answer but a good clue is in the world around us - the less important Jesus becomes in our lives, the less we act like Him and the more we act like the world around us. The less important Christ is, the less important our lives and relationships become. The less we come to church, more of the world seeps into every area of our lives. Contrarily, when our focus is fully on our relationship with Jesus the less world we will see in our lives and relationships.

Our marriages were created as a triangle with God at the top point, and spouses at the other two points. Inside the triangle is everything else - home, kids, jobs, finances, friends etc. With spouses at the bottom points, you have no choice but to keep looking up.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

Who Are You?

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua." ~Galatians 3:28 (TLV)

The Who sang, "Who are you? Who? I really wanna know. Who are you?" That is something we tend to to turn inward and question about ourselves from an early age. We spend our younger years trying to 'find' ourselves, acting one way or another, dressing this way or that, trying to belong, to be popular or cool, and hopefully, we figure out we are who we are and don't waste our entire lives being something else.

God made each of us individually for a reason. He has never looked for cookie cutter people, or cookie cutter Christians. He gave each of us a personality different from others, yet complimentary to others. He gave us different talents, likes, dislikes, etc but He intended each of us to use those talents to glorify Him and to help one another. But often, we can see the talents and wonders in others though not ourselves.

1 Peter 4:10 says, "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of the many-sided grace of God."

Your gifts are the talents, abilities, desires to do something in particular. The fact that you may not have the resources to achieve what God has placed inside you to do doesn't mean it's impossible, for "all things are possible with God" (Matthew 19:26). Whatever God has begun within you, He will complete if you don't give up.

I have a friend, Sue, who had the desire to help women who were addicts. She wanted to open a residential facility that not only dealt with the addiction, but also taught women the fullness of the love of Jesus. She had no formal training and no resources to accomplish her goals but she had a vision she wouldn't let go of. Instead of focusing on what she didn't have, she focused on what she knew to be true - God brings to completion whatever He begins (Philippians 1:6).

Sue tackled one thing at a time. First, she enrolled in the local community college to get her degree in addiction studies, then she began seeking those who were like-minded and could help her toward her goal. And she continued in faith and prayer to believe God would complete the task. It didn't happen overnight and it wasn't always easy to get others to see her vision, but Sue persevered. Now, more than 25 years later, she is the founder of Streams of Living Waters in Humboldt County, California and has helped hundreds of women get clean and sober and to become the women of God they were created to be.

No matter your circumstances, there is a higher calling on your life. No matter who says you can't, God says you can. He has made you capable and stronger than you think you can be. He has equipped and empowered you to be a mighty woman of God who can change the lives of others.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

Practice Patience

Ephesians 4:32 (TLV)
"Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other just as God in Messiah also forgave you."

The other day I was listening to my grandchildren having an argument over something and call each other names, and hurt each other's feelings, and then somebody started crying and came running to Nana. I sat them down to have a talk with them about the way they spoke to one another. I told them if I didn't know they were brother and sister and actually loved each other, I would think that they really hated being together. Megan told me that he was just a little brother who bothered her all of the time and she just couldn't stand it. Dax told me that she was a big sister who is always mean to him.

I began explaining to them the way Jesus says we should treat one another and how we should always love one another, and speak kindly, show kindness, and be gentle with one another. I asked if they talk to their friends like that, and they told me they were nice to their friends. I asked them why that was and they said because if they weren't nice to their friends, their friends wouldn't play with them.

And I got to thinking about how sometimes it is easier to be kind towards people we don't know and how it can sometimes be difficult to be kind towards the people we live with every day.

No one can aggravate me more than my husband. Sometimes I think he enjoys aggravating me and
does it on purpose!  We can get on one another's nerves once in awhile and sometimes we say harsh things that we don't really mean. In our frustration, the people closest to us are often the ones that see the worst side of us.

It's a terrible thing to think that we are kinder to strangers because we don't want them to see our bad side, the side we don't mind showing to our family every single day. But that isn't how God wants us to treat anyone especially not our families. Jesus was an example to each and everyone of us to be patient, kind, loving, generous, patient, patient, patient...

I get very impatient when I'm driving - people in other cars just seem to do that to me. So thinking about the verse above, I began this little habit of saying, 'practice patience, practice patience, practice patience,' until it makes me laugh and I can continue without feeling frustrated. So I started doing that when I feel frustrated with other people at home or wherever I might be. I want to practice patience in all things, but especially with the ones I love.

Be A Josiah

"Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses."
~2 Kings 23:25

Josiah's father was an evil king, as were most of his predecessors. They had ignored the word of God, they had allowed the people to build altars to false gods, and they had allowed the sacrificing of children to Molek to continue, as well as the worship of idols. Not only were the people doing this but the temple priests followed the same path. However, when Josiah read the Book of the Lord, he realized the sin going on in the country and put a stop to it. Josiah followed the Lord in a way no king since David had, and he led his people back to the Lord.

We are all like the children of Israel who turn our backs on the one true God, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the one who created all things, and we follow the false gods of this world. Whatever Idols we follow whether it be money, our jobs, fame, success, or any of the other things that do not glorify God, the one true God, we are following false gods. That can also include our spouses and our children. Our families can become our Idols as well. Anything that we put before the Lord of the universe is a false god.

Getting our priorities straight is something we hear a lot about. But in a worldly way, getting our priorities straight is still not a Biblical view of priorities. Our priorities have to begin with Jesus Christ. He has to be first in our lives for everything else to fall into place. When Jesus Christ comes first in our lives and we put away all of our idols, then our lives begin to make sense in a way they never have before.

There are many things in this world that are upside down. Everything from religion to politics to personal lives to world views, are upside down. We look at the things going on in the world and shake our heads wondering how it came to this, but the truth is, it's always been like this. The only reason it seems worse now is because we have a wider view of the world than we ever had before. We have the technology that gives us a view completely around the world and that was something we never saw before. In the past,  we only heard the Nightly News that reported just the top points but glossed over the true tragedies of the world. The world today is quite literally the same way that it was when Josiah was king, we just have more toys.

The other thing that has not changed is God is still God. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever and He is still looking for the Josiahs of this world who will stand up for what is right, for what is true, who are willing to knock down the idols of this world, and proclaim the Living God, Jesus Christ is the only one worthy of our worship.

Purity & Modesty

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age ~Titus 2:11-12

Purity and modesty seem irrelevant in today's society. Both men & women wear less clothes in public than what was once worn in private. Appearing scantily clad or even nude in magazines and on TV is the norm for models & actors these days. And what performers are doing on stage these days would've gotten them arrested 50 years ago!

Our lives are inundated with a perverted idea of 'sexy', and our children are exposed to it from a very early age. But this idea of dressing and behaving in a way that entices and invites is not part of God's plan.

As people of God, we are to model decency, modesty, and purity in our lives, in dress and in actions. From the way we dress to the way we speak, we are to model Jesus for the world to see. After all, if we look like the world and talk like the world and act like the world, how will the world see Christianity as anything different than everything else in the world?

Unless there is true conversion of the heart, there cannot be conversion of life. We cannot be Christians by words only; Christianity involves our entire being. It is a complete change from our old lives into a brand new being, much like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

1 Peter 1:14 tells us "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance..."

What message about Jesus does your life send to others? Does your speech glorify Him? Does your way of dress respect Him? Do your actions emulate Him?

The Sin of Cover-up

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
~Hebrews 4:13

Recently, on 60 Second Scripture, I read from 2 Corinthians 5:10, "we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ so that everyone may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or evil."

This got me to thinking about our current passage in Hebrews. Everything we say, everything we do, everything in our hearts, every thought in our heads, is known to God; there is nothing that He does not see no matter how well we think we hide it.

Our nature is to hide from the truth. From the time we are small children if we are asked what we have done wrong, we will say 'nothing' and look guilty while trying to look at the ground or anywhere but up at our parents. We are the same way with God. We try to pretend that everything is alright in our life, but we cannot look at God and say we have done nothing wrong. We continue to try to hide things from childhood on through adulthood, either because we know what we have done is wrong, or because we are ashamed of what we have done, and because we really don't want others to see us for who we really are.

But God knows who we really are, after all, He created us. He knew us before we were formed in our mother's womb, He knows the beginning from the end, and whatever we are going to do in life, He has already seen.

Even in our Christian walk there are things that we like to hide from others, and from God. We don't want people to know how we act at home with our spouses, that we get angry and yell at them sometimes, or say things we shouldn't, or say hurtful things to our children. We don't want anyone to know those dirty parts of our lives that we try to pretend don't really exist. The problem with hiding those things is that eventually, they come to light for everyone to see. But mostly, God sees them as they occur, and in fact, God knows they're going to happen before we even open our mouths.

We see many accounts of this in the Bible from Jonah and the incident with the whale to King David when he had Bathsheba's husband sent into battle to die so he could cover up the affair he had with her.

We are a deceitful people. We want to run from God, we want to hide the truth, we like doing things in the dark so that no one knows or sees what we are doing; we like to whisper so no one can hear us; we like to say things behind people's backs; there truly is nothing good within us. At least not on our own.

If we go down a few verses in Hebrews, 5:16 says, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need."

There's a lot of sin in this world & we see it all around us. Every day on the news we see sin abounding, but I don't think there's a greater sin than the sin of cover up. We're trying to hide something that can't be hidden, at least not from God, and not even from others because eventually, our sin finds us out. So I ask you today to examine your heart to see if there's anything that you're trying to hide from God, and from others. If there is, confess your sin to God, confess the cover-up, ask Him to forgive you because He is gracious and full of mercy, and He will answer that prayer. He will forgive us anything. No matter how dark the deed may seem to us, it's already been seen by God and there's no reason not to ask Him to forgive us.

Don't let sin, or the sin of cover-up, rob you of your salvation because that's what it can do. Sin is like a sore, it festers up. It's like that flesh-eating disease, once it starts, it just multiplies and drags us farther from God.

God loves you so much. It's one of those kind of loves that here on Earth we think we can imagine it by thinking of how much we love our own children, but our love for our children doesn't even come close to the love that God has for us. So don't let yourself be separated from the love of God because you're caught up in the sin of cover-up. I pray in Jesus'' name that each and every one of us will bring all of our deeds to light, ask God to forgive us, and to continue forward, walking in the light and the love Jesus Christ, Amen.

At Just the Right Age

In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah king of Judah began to reign. He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years.  ~2 Kings 15:1-2a

Age has nothing to do with your ability to serve God. Whether you are a kid or in your golden years, you can serve God. God is no respecter of persons, and He doesn't care what the calendar says. God only cares about your heart. God only cares if you have accepted His Son Jesus, and if you are willing to go where He leads you. You are never unable to serve God no matter your age. From the youngest child to the oldest person, there is still something living within you that can further the Kingdom of God.

At my church in Oklahoma there is the sweetest lady in the world who I love dearly, who came to the Lord and was baptized when she was 89 years old. What an amazing testament to the saving grace of God.

You are never too old to serve God, and you are never too young. God can use you wherever you are, no matter your age, no matter your physical abilities, those things mean nothing to the God we serve. All He is looking for is a willing heart, someone He can use, someone who will step out and speak the words given by the Holy Spirit.

God is not forceful. He will never make you do anything you don't want to do. God is looking for those of us who are willing, no matter what our backgrounds are, no matter our education, no matter our circumstances, God is able to use each and every one of us. But it is up to us.

One of my favorite verses is from Isaiah 6:8: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

In 1994 the Lord ask me that question and I said, "Yes Lord, send me." And He did and I've never regretted it. I continue to this day to go where the Lord sends me, to say what He wants me to say, and do what He wants me to do. And over those years I have suffered a lot of physical problems. I've had three hip surgeries, I've had a hysterectomy, I've had neck surgery and the list goes on with cataracts, arthritis... you name it, I seem to have it. But my physical being is of no consequence because all that matters to me is the Kingdom of God, and getting the word about Jesus Christ and salvation out because this world as we know it is coming to an end very soon. Jesus is coming back and people need to know what lies beyond that. Even if Jesus wasn't physically coming back, we are all going to die, we are all going to stand before our Lord and Maker. Everyone of us are going to have to answer for what we did on Earth, for the words of our mouth, for our actions, for everything that we have done. We are going to have to answer for that. But if we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we don't have to worry about those things because they are forgiven, because the devil has no power over us, and even though he is our accuser before God, Jesus is our Victor. He is our advocate, the One who is on our side, and He is the One who is going to tell Satan to shut up and leave us alone. He's the One who's going to tell the Father that we belong to Him.

You are not too old. You're not too young. You are just right. And now is the right time to stand up and say, "Yes Lord, whatever you want, I will go for you."