Redeeming the time...

     So a week with no activities at church leaves me a week at home to get ready for Sunday sermon and some extra reading.  I got a couple of books I asked for this Christmas.  Paul David Tripp's "What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage" and Timothy Keller's "The Meaning of Marriage - Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God."  I am hoping to take some of the material in these books to help with my marital and pre-marital counseling along with a possible marriage retreat this spring.  A great quote from the Keller book, 

"In so many cases, when one person says to another, 'I love you, but let's not ruin it by getting married,' that person really means, 'I don't love you enough to close off all my options.  I don't love you enough to give myself to you that thoroughly.'  To say, 'I don't need a piece of paper to love you' is basically to say, 'My love for you has not reached the marriage level.'"

     The Tripp book runs off of these 6 commitments:

Commitment 1:  We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.

Commitment 2:  We will make growth and change our daily agenda.

Commitment 3:  We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.

Commitment 4:  We will commit to building a relationship of love.

Commitment 5:  We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.

Commitment 6:  We will work to protect our marriage.

     I am going to preach a stand-alone message on resolutions this Sunday.  I will be using a passages in Philippians and Romans and Daniel.  Of course, these will be spiritual or Biblical resolutions we are talking about.  Paul states that the "mature" are to be continuing in their growth and Daniel gives us an example of our faithfulness in the "little" things before we get to the "big" things.  I am curious that the "little" thing for Daniel to be faithful in first was something to do with food or selection of what to eat and that one of the resolutions picked year after year in our top ten resolutions deals with food and fitness and health.  I have been thinking a lot about how we as a church not make our brother stumble when it comes to what we offer at the church.  We get hyper-sensitive when it comes to alcohol but don't even think about bringing in things that have just as much damaging effects on the body.  I am still in the thinking stages on this.  The dangers of alcohol and smoking and drugs are very apparent and maybe now with time the dangers of man-made additives to our food is emerging enough to make us make better choices.  Back to the sermon prep:  What is the "little" thing that God has put before me that I need to be faithful - resolute to obey Him in?

Adam