It was so great to see so many new faces last Sunday morning! We are in for a great semester…..

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR NOTES…

Ephesians 5:21-35

31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

Dr Val Farmer: Clinical Psychologist says here are 10 things that destroy a marriage…….. see what you think….

10. Dishonesty, laziness and other CHARACTER DEFECTS. Basic trust and respect underlie love and form the basis of relationships. Lies, deceit, disloyalty, secret habits, or emotional dishonesty about thoughts or feelings destroy trust and respect.

9. DESTRUCTIVE HABITS and addictions. Addictions have great power to be placed in front of the needs and happiness of a partner. Betrayal, hurt, anger and pain follow the wake of addictive behavior.

8. COMMUNICATION that is a painful process. A marriage with too much conflict, hostility, blame, criticism, defensiveness, and belligerent verbal attacks seems like life with an enemy instead of a friend. Marriage needs to be a place of safety, a haven, a place of love and refuge, not a war zone…

7. Leading separate lives. Relationships also suffer when couples don’t mesh their lives through shared activities, recreational companionship or spending enough time together…

6. Lack of affection and sexual fulfillment. When needs for sex and affection are not met, problems mushroom. Without affectionate gestures and words, love seems hollow and not as believable. People don’t marry to get a roommate. They expect to have an active and fulfilling sexual life with their spouse.

5. Lack of emotional intimacy.  The lack of sharing one feelings, goals, hurts, struggles, joys and emotional details of one’s life lead to loneliness and sadness.

4. Explosive, angry outbursts or rages. Anger can either create more anger or withdrawal, both of which interfere with effective communications.
Unbridled and unpredictable tempers interfere with emotional safety and trust when spouses need to engage each other on emotional issues.

3. Disrespectful judgments. Marriage needs acceptance, admiration, appreciation and emotional safety. It is disrespectful to try to change a spouse’s thinking by lecture, ridicule, threats, brainwashing, or negative aspersions. These perceived attacks on personality, character, intelligence or values undermine the mutual respect that forms the basis of love. T

2. Poor boundaries. Engaging in intimate conversations with members of the opposite sex leads to emotional experiences that cloud judgment, trigger fantasy life, and progress toward physical intimacies outside of marriage.

But almost all counselors agree that #1 Self-centeredness or selfishness is the foundational problem in most marriages. Most of us, when we get married, part of our joy is that is we have someone else besides us, who will spend most of their time thinking about us…its true!

Before we are married, almost all of our time is taken up meeting our own needs.
We entertain ourselves according to our preferences.
We buy the things we want to buy, cording to our preferences.
The money that we earn is ours to use according to our preferences.
Everything in our lives meets our needs. When we live like that before we are married we are setting ourselves up for a very difficult marriage.

Why?
Because marriage demands un unyielding focus on someone else…
Both Husband and wife must have, as a first priority, Jesus Christ. When each spouse focuses on Jesus some very practical things start to happen…

• Each lives out their faith in an overt and obvious manner.
• They extend forgiveness and grace towards one another
• They speak truth but fill it with gentleness and love
• Begin making decisions based on truth not emotions

HUSBANDS:

Biblically You carry the weight of leadership in the home…
Ephesians 5: 21-32

“Husband: Love Your Wife”
“Wife: Obey your husband”

The misunderstanding of these two phrases has caused a lot of unnecessary harm over the years. Lets look at this passage together….

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Here is how that will look….

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

• Church submits to Christ…
• Not in some flaky, power trip.
• Authoritative through His word.
• Doesn’t change haphazardly or break his promise
• Does what he says he will do…
• Has very clear boundaries but extends grace

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Husbands love your wife in a

• sacrificial – death on the cross
• strong – all authority given to Jesus
• gentle – let the children come to me
• protective – looked at crowds with compassion
• honoring – honor dad and mom, honor God
• pure – avoid sin
• humble – “did not regard equality w God…”

MOST MEN:
Never learned how to lead a family spiritually. We grew up with dad’s who may have loved us but rarely lead the family other than possibly making church a priority (and that is a good thing) but so much more to it than that.

MOST WOMEN: Never learned how to follow a man who leads in a clunky and imperfect way…

SEE YA THIS SUNDAY!!!

HYDE PARK Campus @ 9:45am

Coffee, Donuts, Bagels and a whole lotta fun!

BRING SOMEONE WITH YA!

Margie and Hixon