Walking with Jesus

  This is a video of the sermon I preached and posted yesterday. 

 This morning we are going to continue the sermon we began last week related to why marriage is sometimes hard. If you will recall, we were reading in the first chapters of Genesis, and even before the Fall we made some observations that helped shed some light on the difficulties of relationships in general and in particular male/female relationships like marriage.   Our goal is to look at some of the foundational reasons marriage takes so much work. In doing so we are trying to build a foundation upon which to investigate all the particular issues and questions which arise in our relationships and make marriage what it is. We aren’t going to address everything about why our marriages can be difficult, simply start down a path to understanding what causes some of the dynamics we often find so confusing, even frustrating, in a particular member of the opposite sex.   Beginning in Genesis One , we talked about GOD and how we are both created equally and perhaps compositely in ...

"Be still, and know that I am God."     Sometimes it's difficult to just stop, isn't it? I know, for myself, I like to keep going, keep moving, keep working, keep pressing my life for all it's worth. Why do I do this? How has silence become so ominous to me? Why is stillness so hard? I don't mean inactivity. I can do that! I mean the sort of stillness that waits upon the LORD.    It hasn't always been that way. There were season when I could just relax and let go, not worry about bills or schedules or making other people happy. I could just be. I could just listen and wait.   I remember walking along a wall atop an ocean cliff as a child. I had no schedule, no concerns. All I had was time, the wall, and the ocean. It was a beautiful day, the sort of day that makes you believe in God. I could see the ocean bottom below the surface. It looked shallow, but it wasn't. I remember seeing two giant Sting Rays gliding above the coral reefs with their fins gent...

  Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.   James 1:17-18

  This morning I am going to preach on a topic I must tell you I am not an expert on: Marriage . Specifically, I am going to focus on some of the reasons marriage can be hard.   I’m not going to teach you how to have a good marriage, because I’m sure many of you know that better than I do. I’m not going to tell you all of the ways a marriage can be wonderful, though it certainly can be. And, I’m absolutely not going to tell you who should do what in your marriage. Your bills are your bills. Your jobs are your jobs. Your children are your children. I’m not even going to suggest to you that being married is better than not being married. That really depends on two factors I have no influence over: 1) who you are married to, & 2) who your spouse is married to.   Instead, we’re going to look at some of the foundational reasons marriage takes so much work. And, I believe that in doing so we will be building a foundation upon which to investigate all of those other issue...