church

Some things should remain private but some things that should seem private should be public. 

Purity is a public matter.  Our sex lives have an impact on the community around us

SoS 8:4-8:12

She’s saying again not to stir it up until the appropriate time. She’s concerned for her sister who is not yet mature.  If she’s pure, they will come alongside her and help fortify her.  If she’s “open”, they will put boards up.  It’s a family ordeal.  Siblings can and should step in.

Your goal is to help your kids love Jesus.  Find opportunities to teach Godly principles.  Don’t let the world dictate your morals.  You are your children’s pastor.

Fathers, date your daughters.  Go on regular dates.  Once a year, have a very fancy date.  Show her what a gentleman does…open doors, pushes in chair.  Be physical appropriately.

Youth, treat a woman like you want someone to treat your sister.

Good guys don’t mind community.  They don’t mind meeting parents, hanging out with friends, going to church because they have nothing to hide.  If a guy isolates you from that, get rid of him.

For those that have a past, repent, take responsibility.

Parents, know your children.  Spend time with them.  Know what they know.  Control behaviors.  They are in your home, act like it.

Purity will lead to peace in the home.  You can control yourself.

No, not together!  Although the first does tend to follow the resolution of the second.  I realized I completely forgot to blog last week’s Sunday Highlights about sex.  This week was about conflict.  So here we go!

Week 3 – Sex

Last week Chris went verse by verse through Chapter 3, 4 and 5.  I highly recommend you listen to the podcast.  I’ve read Song of Solomon so many times and never really understood what was actually happening, what was metaphors, etc.  It finally is making sense!

The one thing from last week is “Marriage and sex are to be celebrated.”

A few talking points other than explaining the verses:

• Men use romance to get sex.  Women use sex to get romance.
• She looks perfect to him.  If you (talking to men) are having a hard time with this, starve your mind.  Quit looking at women, pornography, catalogs, etc so you can quit the comparison game.
• Through their courtship, she said over and over don’t awaken love until the appropriate time. v16 she finally says awaken love.
• Men love a responsive wife, both audible and visual (AWKWARD moment)
• “Drink, be intoxicated with love.” God has ordained this.  It should be celebrated.
• Marriage is important to kids, family, neighbors.  The church is at stake.  We create the standard.

1. Confess your sins. He will take your mess and use it for His glory.  Be responsible for you.  Help put your spouse in the best position to succeed.
2. Have next steps
3. Communicate

If you are single acting married, break up or start the relationship over.  Create boundaries.  Sacrifice today for a greater blessing tomorrow.

Week 4 – Conflict

Before marriage we have a heightened sensitivity to our own faults and lowered sensitivity to our partner’s.  After marriage, you have a heightened sensitivity to your spouse’s faults and a lowered sensitivity to your own.

One thing – “If you want to live happily ever after, you will have to work for it.”

Fighting exposes your character.  Healthy couples fight clean.  The hammers – “I hate you” “I wish I never married you” are damaging and speaks to your own issues.

The biggest problem in conflict is the person wants to win the fight.  The question you should ask yourself is do you want to win or are you more interested in reconciling?  Even if you fight until you win, everyone loses.  Your goal should be to reconcile the relationship.  The goal is to live happily ever after but it takes work and sacrifice.

Negativity breeds negativity.  Don’t go to people with issues to help fix your problems.

In chapter 6, we find out Solomon has 140 other women.  The Shulammite woman is jealous because his attention has been diverted.  The relationship is crowded.  Needs can not be met in a crowded relationship.  You may not be married to 140 women, but what else are you married to?  Work? Hobby? Pornography? Children?

Return to where we were at the beginning.  Look at our issues and resolve them.  Have a heightened sensitivity to our own issues.  Have a healthy self-knowledge and then do something about it.  Jesus is the Healer.  He can change you.  Let Him execute justice. Even if your spouse does not deserve your grace, you extend it and let Him execute justice.  Your responsibility is to show your spouse Jesus.

Check out both podcasts here.  If you’re in the area, we’d love to have you as our guest!  Next week’s sermon is on “True Love”.  Can’t wait!

Today’s sermon centered around courtship. What it should like, how many times it doesn’t look like that and what to do about it.  I took so many notes, it’s kind of ridiculous. I’ll try to keep this brief.

It started out with the description of a child finding a cocoon.  When he starts seeing the butterfly trying to come out, he tries to help it along not realizing that hurrying the process hurts the butterfly and turns it into what Chris called a “buttercrawl”.

So often we approach attraction/dating/marriage like this.  We try to hurry the process along and it breaks everything.

Song of Songs Ch.2

• v1 – She’s asking if she’s beautiful (men, you better have the right answer ready!)
• v2 – He says, yes, very
• v3 – She feels protected and secure but also nourished as a person.
• v4 – He professes his love publicly and commits to her
• v5 – She loves the attention
• v6 – He catches her as she swoons
• v7 – She realizes what’s happening and tells her friends not to awaken love before the appointed time
• v14 – She’s protecting herself.  He’s saying I don’t want you just for your body, I want to see and get to know you
• Ch3 She begins to think about what this will look like..she’s daydreaming.  Again in v5 she says not to awaken love before the appointed time.  Even though she wants to take it to the next level, she’s waiting.

One thing – “Love has a proper pace.”

We want to skip the process but here is what it should be:

1. Love Jesus and pursue Him
2. Only look for mates that also pursue  Jesus.  No Plan B!  Dad’s date your daughters.  Invest in them and give them a standard.  If not, they will be willing to try to find it elsewhere.
3. Only date someone you will marry.  It should be the only reason to date someone.
4. Marriage & intimacy – Two people become one verbally and physically.

Can not rush this process.  If you do, you become warped, messed up buttercrawls.

If you are single and they are not interested in pursuing you personally (nourishing you) then they won’t care later. Lose them!  If you are married, don’t stop dating your spouse.  Still pursue your wife as a person, not just their body.

If you’re a buttercrawl and you are a Christian, you need a Gospel-centered confession.  You have been choosing sex over Jesus.  We’re not animals, we can honor Him with our choices.  There is hope, Jesus makes you new.  Put yourself in a community with accountability.

1 – You may say it is not possible.  Romans 7:24-8:2 It IS possible.  Not for you, but through Him.
2 – You may say it’s too painful.  You have to do what it takes to honor Him. (He also had a great joke about cutting it off if it causes you to sin HA)
3 – You must be diligent.  Romans 13:13-14 Work hard, have accountability.  Make sacrifices,  it’s important.  Your future family matters, not the moment.  We are allowing culture to dictate our morality.  It comes down to Who do you worship?

Take aways

1. If you are married, are you courting your wife?  Plan a date for this week!
2. If you are single, go on group dates, don’t be alone, set boundaries.  End the relationship if need be or start the relationship over, even if it’s with the same person.

Such great, great stuff for single people especially.  Then again, I’m excited about getting a date night!

You can listen to the full sermon here.  Please do, he talked about more than I even have here.

On another note about the church this week, the local paper had a great article about the church’s expansion today and Heather and I made it into one of the pictures.  We remembered the guy taking our picture that morning but had no clue what is was for.

I’ve spent a some of the last week continuing to think about the end of next year.  For those not caught up, my contract is ending at work.  I touched on my worry in this random post a few weeks ago.

In some ways, I’m happy for the opportunity to stay at home.  If you’re one of the ones that has read here for years, you know wanting to stay at home full time is nothing new.  You’d think I’d be excited about it.  By this time next year Lexi will be in Kindergarten and I know after-school care is not the end of the world.  But I’ve done the (in-home) day care thing and I’ve done the at-home (work at home) thing and bottom line is I want to be the one that takes them to school and picks them up.  Not to mention what to do about summers.  I don’t begrudge anyone that does it.    I’m not one to compare.  But for me, I just don’t want to work full-time out of the house.

However, I’m not opposed to the idea of working.  In fact, part of my concern is not having a job.  The security.  The money.  The pride (in a good way).  The health insurance.  The money. The friends.  The time away.  The money.  The coding (HA).  I do like my job.  I like having a job.  So that part of me wants to continue working.  And did I mention the money?

Today’s sermon was about fear and how sometimes fear is an opportunity to have a close encounter with God.  I’ve heard Beth Moore say just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  So I know this transition will be different for me.  And I know we have a lot of decisions to make.  The important thing is to not let the worry in.  Don’t let it take over.  Look for God in the next year.  Realize that this IS an invitation for a close encounter with Him.  I just need to keep my eyes open, my ears listening and remember once again…

Jeremiah 29:11

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Romans 8:28

²⁸And we know that all things work together for good to those who love Him

Words seem to fail me today.  Coherent, flowing words anyway.

I haven’t blogged about it much but we have decided to attend North Rock Hill for the foreseeable future.  Both Scott and I feel so peaceful, just so right about this decision.  I look forward to church every week and just know that God is moving and speaking to me.  I have a list 3 pages long now of all the very specific ways I hear Him speaking lately.  Many at the church, some in books, some in songs.  The amazing thing is all 3 pages boil down to about 5 themes.   God is speaking.  I think I mentioned several posts ago that I’m hearing all these thing but I wasn’t sure how they were tying together.  Well, today, a few of those things came together in the new series at church called “What if”.

The church is basically launching a 10 year plan for the church.  It’s a plan for the church to refocus and become an Acts church again.  To quit talking and do some walking.  To stop looking at number and dollars as a guide and looking in the community and people around us to see if we’re successful as Christians.  It’s all the things that have been so close to my heart and in many of these things God has been speaking to me about.  I couldn’t be more excited about this new series and being a part of this new direction.

And in preparation for this, the pastor has asked everyone to fast for 40 days and do a devotion they have prepared.  Something like Lent.  We’ll be giving up something that takes up our time and attention and replacing it to focus on God.

I’m giving up…

*Big breath*

Twitter and Facebook.

I was just going to do Twitter but I knew I’d just start posting my updates on Facebook and defeat the purpose of refocusing so I’m just doing both.

Now, I am going to continue to check in on my non-personal Twitter accts for the purposes of my other blogs.  It just happens to be the way I get information so I can post those.  I see those blogs as a part-time job and I don’t plan to give those up.  For these 40 days, I’m going to stop sharing of myself and try to share it with God.  I’m going to stop getting affirmation from Twitter and Facebook and get it from God.  For 40 days, I’m just going to stop.  God has already been speaking and I just know if I can give even just a few more minutes a day to concentrate on Him He’ll speak even more.

So that’s that.

It will be a bit of a change for me.  I keep up with many people through those sites.  Many keep up with me.  I foresee many more emails and phone calls but that can and will be good.

So, here we go.

Starting now.

My heart is so full.  The past two weeks of church have been almost overwhelming.  It’s to the point I’m writing things down just trying to make sense of it. I feel like God is weaving together some sort of message to me.  I have a grasp on the threads but not quite the tapestry.  But there is one thing I know to tell you.

He loves you

He loves you

He loves you

He loves you