The movie Kate and Leopold:
Kate: I'm not very good with men.
Leopold: Perhaps you haven't found the right one.
Kate: Maybe. Or, uh... maybe that whole love thing is just a grown-up version of
Santa Claus; just a myth we've been fed since childhood. So, we keep
buying magazines, joining clubs, and doing therapy and watching movies
with hit pop songs played over love montages all in a pathetic attempt
to explain why our love Santa keeps getting caught in the chimney.
After two divorces, I finally got my love Santa out of the chimney for a good relationship for 14 years. I spoke to a widow last night who married at 19 years old and had a good marriage for 45 years. What is at the heart of a relationship?...trust and fellowship.
Many of us were lied to first by our parents – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I refused to lie to my children, because when I was six years old and found out these were fictional characters, is when I quit praying to God. I don’t know why, but I deduced that God was a fairy tale from then on like Santa Claus. I believed he was made up too. It hurt my fellowship or my trust in my parents.
For some children, if their parents went through a divorce, or if you went through a divorce, you may feel lied to by your spouse because of a broken promise/ commitment to love you “in sickness and in health” ---to death do us part. It hurts our trust in another person.
They refuse to understand, break their promises (covenant breakers), are heartless, and have no mercy. Romans 1:31
I remember going to Florida on vacation with my friend, my parents, and brother at 13 years old, and when I came back my sunburn had turned into a tan, and then it all peeled off in the car. I looked like I had leprosy. On a torture scale of 1-10, my brother was a ten about teasing me all the way home. Growing up with my brother, he had this spirit of meanness at times. But, because I had a long history with my brother, his continual torture of making fun of me, I could tolerate him knowing that we had an established relationship.
What I did not do well with is a spirit of meanness that comes in a spouse. I’ve spoken to men who have told me that their wife said and did cruel things to them. There is a difference between teasing and a bitter sarcasm, and I believe I’ve learned the difference over a period of time and the Lord has dealt with me about sarcasm. It goes along with a spirit of disrespect.
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33
Love is kind 1 Cor. 13
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness Proverbs 31:26
What is at the heart of every relationship on earth and the heart of the relationship with our union with Christ? It is fellowship. When fellowship is at the richest, the intimacy of sex in marriage is at full tide. It’s the same way with Jesus in my life.
When the things of this world are not blocking my fellowship with God, it’s like Adam walking with God and talking to him in the garden of Eden. God is interested in fellowship. Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. (Genesis 5:24). I become unfruitful by letting the below take over my life. Adam and Eve’s sin made them shrink from the presence of God (made them afraid of God.)
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
Through the restoration of what Jesus did, we can come boldly into the holy of holies/the presence of God.
Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence. Ephesians 3:12
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, Hebrews 10:19
God loves to give good gifts to his children (Luke 11:13), but like our parents, the gifts do not replace the giver. If we don’t spend time with our children in fellowship, giving things is not a replacement for love and quality time. Jesus Christ restored our fellowship with God.
But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7
I go to many churches and I hear what I am not doing right. It sort of reminds me of a marriage where a husband or wife become a continual dripping or leaky faucet (Proverbs 27:15) about a person’s faults, and how they never are going to measure up to please a person. I know that I am never going to measure up to please God, because that is legalism.
It’s this long “to do list” of Christianity. It can be the same with marriage. Paul warned how that the early church were going back under the law with circumcision or following religious days and ceremonies. In modern day society, it’s this don’t do list in Christian churches. As believers are we so quick to get under legalism? We have this big tally in our minds of what we think a relationship is, and what pleases God and can we meet that tally or do we fall short of the glory of God?
Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? Galatians 3:5
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Galatians 6:15
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. Galatians 4:10
Getting back to I am in “union” with Christ so I am in a relationship and relationship with Christ means fellowship and learning to know God. Like dating or being in a relationship with a spouse, “I am getting to know” God.
Now this is eternal life: that they may know (intimately acquainted) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, Philip 3:10
A husband and wife who have broken fellowship with one another, and are too prideful to work it out, it’s a very sad affair. It can be an unkind deed that started with an unkind thought. When I read my Bible, I am fellowshipping with Jesus, when I go talk to a widow, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I give to the poor or to church, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I am kind to my children and my husband, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I pray and sing to God, I am fellowshipping Jesus. Go visit the sick, in prison, and a number of things, I am fellowshipping Jesus.
There are things that can break my fellowship and that is walking out of love. That is why God hates divorce, it breaks fellowship. Sin breaks fellowship. Our sin nailed Jesus to the cross. I choose to let him take that sin each day by appropriation of my sins were laid upon Jesus.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
Restoring fellowship in marriage is the same as restoring my fellowship with God, it’s through confession. Forgiveness is in the present. When we extend forgiveness, we are a type of Christ and we put ourselves on the equal level of God. A daily prayer is, “Forgive us our trespasses (offenses) as we forgive those who trespass against us.” So as an act of will we can forgive a person from our heart, but does not mean that we trust that person.
Our fellowship with God can be robbed through others with bitterness and strife if we decide to “let it.” As long as I “forgive” a person I know that I may not reconcile every relationship in life., although the goal of God is to reconcile “every” relationship like Joseph.
God has given us the ministry of reconciliation and that that is that God was in Christ reconciling man to God.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Cor. 5:18-19
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, eave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24
Getting to Know You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Zqw7--fuU
After two divorces, I finally got my love Santa out of the chimney for a good relationship for 14 years. I spoke to a widow last night who married at 19 years old and had a good marriage for 45 years. What is at the heart of a relationship?...trust and fellowship.
Many of us were lied to first by our parents – Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I refused to lie to my children, because when I was six years old and found out these were fictional characters, is when I quit praying to God. I don’t know why, but I deduced that God was a fairy tale from then on like Santa Claus. I believed he was made up too. It hurt my fellowship or my trust in my parents.
For some children, if their parents went through a divorce, or if you went through a divorce, you may feel lied to by your spouse because of a broken promise/ commitment to love you “in sickness and in health” ---to death do us part. It hurts our trust in another person.
They refuse to understand, break their promises (covenant breakers), are heartless, and have no mercy. Romans 1:31
I remember going to Florida on vacation with my friend, my parents, and brother at 13 years old, and when I came back my sunburn had turned into a tan, and then it all peeled off in the car. I looked like I had leprosy. On a torture scale of 1-10, my brother was a ten about teasing me all the way home. Growing up with my brother, he had this spirit of meanness at times. But, because I had a long history with my brother, his continual torture of making fun of me, I could tolerate him knowing that we had an established relationship.
What I did not do well with is a spirit of meanness that comes in a spouse. I’ve spoken to men who have told me that their wife said and did cruel things to them. There is a difference between teasing and a bitter sarcasm, and I believe I’ve learned the difference over a period of time and the Lord has dealt with me about sarcasm. It goes along with a spirit of disrespect.
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33
Love is kind 1 Cor. 13
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness Proverbs 31:26
What is at the heart of every relationship on earth and the heart of the relationship with our union with Christ? It is fellowship. When fellowship is at the richest, the intimacy of sex in marriage is at full tide. It’s the same way with Jesus in my life.
When the things of this world are not blocking my fellowship with God, it’s like Adam walking with God and talking to him in the garden of Eden. God is interested in fellowship. Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. (Genesis 5:24). I become unfruitful by letting the below take over my life. Adam and Eve’s sin made them shrink from the presence of God (made them afraid of God.)
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
Through the restoration of what Jesus did, we can come boldly into the holy of holies/the presence of God.
Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence. Ephesians 3:12
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, Hebrews 10:19
God loves to give good gifts to his children (Luke 11:13), but like our parents, the gifts do not replace the giver. If we don’t spend time with our children in fellowship, giving things is not a replacement for love and quality time. Jesus Christ restored our fellowship with God.
But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7
I go to many churches and I hear what I am not doing right. It sort of reminds me of a marriage where a husband or wife become a continual dripping or leaky faucet (Proverbs 27:15) about a person’s faults, and how they never are going to measure up to please a person. I know that I am never going to measure up to please God, because that is legalism.
It’s this long “to do list” of Christianity. It can be the same with marriage. Paul warned how that the early church were going back under the law with circumcision or following religious days and ceremonies. In modern day society, it’s this don’t do list in Christian churches. As believers are we so quick to get under legalism? We have this big tally in our minds of what we think a relationship is, and what pleases God and can we meet that tally or do we fall short of the glory of God?
Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? Galatians 3:5
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Galatians 6:15
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. Galatians 4:10
Getting back to I am in “union” with Christ so I am in a relationship and relationship with Christ means fellowship and learning to know God. Like dating or being in a relationship with a spouse, “I am getting to know” God.
Now this is eternal life: that they may know (intimately acquainted) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, Philip 3:10
A husband and wife who have broken fellowship with one another, and are too prideful to work it out, it’s a very sad affair. It can be an unkind deed that started with an unkind thought. When I read my Bible, I am fellowshipping with Jesus, when I go talk to a widow, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I give to the poor or to church, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I am kind to my children and my husband, I am fellowshipping Jesus, when I pray and sing to God, I am fellowshipping Jesus. Go visit the sick, in prison, and a number of things, I am fellowshipping Jesus.
There are things that can break my fellowship and that is walking out of love. That is why God hates divorce, it breaks fellowship. Sin breaks fellowship. Our sin nailed Jesus to the cross. I choose to let him take that sin each day by appropriation of my sins were laid upon Jesus.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
Restoring fellowship in marriage is the same as restoring my fellowship with God, it’s through confession. Forgiveness is in the present. When we extend forgiveness, we are a type of Christ and we put ourselves on the equal level of God. A daily prayer is, “Forgive us our trespasses (offenses) as we forgive those who trespass against us.” So as an act of will we can forgive a person from our heart, but does not mean that we trust that person.
Our fellowship with God can be robbed through others with bitterness and strife if we decide to “let it.” As long as I “forgive” a person I know that I may not reconcile every relationship in life., although the goal of God is to reconcile “every” relationship like Joseph.
God has given us the ministry of reconciliation and that that is that God was in Christ reconciling man to God.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Cor. 5:18-19
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, eave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24
Getting to Know You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Zqw7--fuU
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