Dear friends, how full of love are you right now?  I am not talking about while you are here in this place, just today.  If there were a gauge on your chest that measured the love inside of you, what might it read?  Is it full?  Has it all been spent?  Is there a limit to how much you can or will love?  To what object do you refer, Pastor John?  Well, I am talking of course about your love for God and your love for others.  But let’s just narrow our focus and consider your spouse, how have you loved him/her this week? How would you describe that love?  Was it out of duty?  Did you love as you first loved?  Was there any measure of love displayed this week for the love of your youth?

Marriage in this country has taken a direct hit in our children’s lifetime.  It seems that we have forgotten what a covenant is.  Our nation redefines God’s institution and we are faced with the question of how to stand up to a small percentage of people who have won the favor of an unbelieving lawmaking body and to exercise both truth and love at the same stroke.  I welcome your disagreement, but I do believe that it is futile to shout and cry for justice from a stance of weakness.  I am speaking of being doers of the word and not hearers only.  When Christians in our generation have spoken down in judgment to the ways of the world and unbelievers in a feeble attempt to gain back lost ground, we are perceived with hypocrisy.  I have been reading Romans 2 over and over each day for several weeks and I recall God’s warning to those who possess the Law.  Are we to judge others by a standard that we do not keep ourselves? Our greatest response to a lost culture is to live as true believers.  Our lives and our marriages have to honor God’s commands.  Our testimony of healthy families and healthy children will create a hunger and thirst in a culture turning to unspeakable impurities.  Paul speaks in Romans one of the approval of a culture’s idolatry.  Consider pornography as just one example.  When a  professing Christian man or woman watches this impure and immoral act, not only have they worshipped the creation instead of the Creator, but they have given hardy and sometimes financial approval to those who practice these impurities.  There are many more instances where even professing Christians have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

Each morning, I look at a framed picture of Tina in her wedding dress.  Oh how beautiful she is!  I am reminded of the covenant made on July 18, 1987.  We are not perfect, but my how we love one another. 

Coach/PJ