More little Foxes

Song of Solomon 2:15
"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom."

Now I would like to mention a few more little foxes and highlight a thing or to about them.

 Entertainment- Do you enjoy entertainment together or does it replace her? Do you share dates and fun times out and watching tv and movies together or has the tv replaced her in your life? Do you communicate together and talk or do you just sit in front of the iphone, computer, or tv? These are important questions that can shine the light on this little fox hiding in the bushes.

 Friends- Do you have mutual friends that strengthen, grow, and nurture your covenant? Or does she have her friends and you have your friends? What do your friends do for you marriage or how do they ruin it and affect it? Think about that.

Health- So when she gets sick do you take care of her? Who takes care of the kids when they are sick? If she was to get injured or have a terminal illness would your covenant stand the test? If any of these questions are a problem you have a little fox chewing on your marriage and love root.

Goals- Do you have goals together? Or are the goals you have in life all about you? We should be striving together to grow and succeed in life and the joy that God can bring. We should be looking forward to achieving the goals that we desire together and not allow our lives to separate and grow apart in any way. 

Security- This little fox can be a big challenge because we desire security and comfort in life. We chase after this feeling and emotion so this little fox can not only come from an external force outside of ourselves but this little fox can also be an internal force from within us as we chase and find security in this life. We should be only finding our peace in our covenant and getting the only security we need in our beloved. Stomp on this tempting little fox before he bites. 

Here are some little foxes and problems that can creep up and destroy our marriage covenant and love. What other foxes did I miss? Tomorrow I want to spend a few words on some internal foxes that we have to stop from inside of ourselves.

Only Sunday?

I have been thinking lately about how and when we connect with God. Is Sunday the only time, through the teaching and worship service we connect and expect to grow in our relationship with God? I believe it is idolatry to demand that one teacher give us everything we need to grow in our faith. As a Pastor I do not want to be the only source for spiritual food. A Pastor is frequently given the charge to teach a multitude of individuals, all whom are different in their stages of life, vacation, journey, and even their level of faith. It is also questionable to assume that a full life of worship can be developed in just 90 minutes a week of corporate worship time. If all our worship needs can be met in that Sunday setting, our worship is far too small!

Little Foxes

Song of Solomon 2:15
"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom."

Is your love and marriage covenant in beautiful full bloom? If it is not I bet you have the little foxes that are chewing away the root and killing your love and covenant. Last night I started to take a look at some little foxes that are on the outside of the covenant that can kill and destroy love and marriage. Gentlemen, even though many of these foxes from last night and more tonight are always not about us, it is our job as men after God to look out for and kill the little foxes before they take affect. Tonight I want to take a look at 8 more little foxes that can kill our covenants before we even know it. Tomorrow I will look at some internal little foxes. So here is the list I have been convicted about

Little Fox #1-Parents/Family- Genesis reminds us that we are to leave our father and mother and cleave to our wives. This means that your wife had better be first in your life in all choices, decisions, and actions. Yes, we are to honor our father and mother but this does not mean that they take precedence over our wives. When we disagree with and even fight with our wives do we run to mommy and daddy? If so that is wrong. We are then putting them before our wives and before our covenants. We need to make it a priority that we place our wives first and foremost in our lives and that she know she comes before our parents and other family so she knows her most important place.

Little Fox #2- Money- This little fox can be a big time killer. Money is all around our lives and money is like a spider web in the fact it is connected to so much. Money comes and goes but the covenant we made with our wives is forever. We should love our wives when there is no money and when there is a ton of money. When money is short, she can comfort and support us and then when money is a lot she can enjoy it with you. If money is a problem we are then called to figure out ways to take the importance off of money and put the importance back into the covenant. Men we need to take the focus off of this little fox and put our eyes back on God and our beloveds.

Little Fox #3-Church- This little fox can be tricky in that we are called to serve and love God but that the church must also have its own place in our lives. We are to love the church but our true love first in this world should be our wives. God created marriage and the covenant before He designed and called the church. That should be the guide for us in the order of importance in our lives. We should partner with our wives in serving in the church together and enjoy the church with them and not place the church before them. The church must come after our wives not before them. Let God bless your service in His church because you first loved His beautiful gift and creation, also known as your wife.

Romance

Do we know what romance is? Romance is important for the marriage covenant and our relationship with our beloved. Here is the dictionary definition of romance; to court or woo romantically; treat with ardor or chivalrousness. So is that a verb and action that is part of your every day life for your spouse? Here is a good Biblical picture of romance from the the 6th chapter of Song of Solomon.

You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah,

lovely as Jerusalem,

majestic as troops with banners.

⁵     Turn your eyes from me;

they overwhelm me.

Your hair is like a flock of goats

descending from Gilead.

⁶     Your teeth are like a flock of sheep

coming up from the washing.

Each has its twin,

not one of them is alone.

⁷     Your temples behind your veil

are like the halves of a pomegranate.

⁸     Sixty queens there may be,

and eighty concubines,

and virgins beyond number;

⁹     but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,

the only daughter of her mother,

the favorite of the one who bore her.

The maidens saw her and called her blessed;

the queens and concubines praised her.

We need to let our spouse know they are special and not just because they make us feel good. We need to make sure they know they are a gift from God. They need to hear from us the awesome things they do. They need to know verbally and by our actions that they are important to us and our lives. Look how much attention to detail we see in these verses. He makes sure she knows he is blessed because of her and that she means the world to him. So do we show our spouses by our actions and words that they are the world to us and not just another person?
 

We need to make sure that romance is not just a word we know but an action that we do for our spouses. We can appreciate them, help them, desire them, keep the external foxes and the internal faxes out but if we do not romance our spouses then it does not  matter. We need to spend time with them. We need to spend money on them, even if it is a little. We need to encourage them and praise them. We need to serve them through our actions. And we need to physically touch them with only a romantic desire in mind not just sex. We need to shower our spouses with love and truly, deeply, romance them. Why? Becasue God calls us to it from the text in the Song of Solomon. And because if we love them in the covenant of love, we need to love them in all the ways they know and desire. 

Quotable friday

So I am currently reading a book for school, "The Critical Journey". This book outlines 6 stages in our faith journey. The last stage is called life of love and one line in particular caught my eye in the chapter. Here is the line for my quotable Friday.

"In constant dialogue with God, our lives are permeated with unconditional love".

I Want To Know You - by Sonicflood

I have been singing this all week.

Can I present the good news?

I believe there are many qualities of a good minister of the gospel, too many in fact to list and make this a short answer rather than a book. But I also think there are 5 key qualities that not only make a good minister of the gospel but also impact the gospel that is being ministered. They are as follows.

Humility- The gospel is not about us and not designed for out glory. The gospel is about God and His plan which was carried out through Jesus, His son, with the serviced of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So a minister of the gospel must not have pride and must have a humble realization that they are serving a sovereign and holy God. Jesus is the greatest example of a minister of the gospel and the gospel is because of Him and Jesus was the most humble and gracious person on earth. The minister of the gospel must be humble enough to direct others to Jesus and show them His power that changes lives. They must also be humble enough to realize it is about Jesus and not about them and be full of all ever time God uses them to save or care for someone else with the gospel. The minister of the gospel cannot do anything until they are humble enough to let God use them to spread His message of Jesus and the cross. Humility must be the foundation and cornerstone of the minister caring out the gospel in action and deed for God.

Courage- 1 Peter reminds us that Jesus was rejected by the world. This means fro those who stand with Jesus and tell others about this amazing man and story (the gospel) the world will reject us also. That means it takes courage to go into the world and make disciples and tell others what Jesus and God have and do for us. A minister of the gospel will be rejected and persecuted continually in the world, so courage is needed. A minister of the gospel inside the church will have to stand against sin and Satan as they equip and live around other fallen but saved humans. This stand for truth and living in a world of sin, even with brothers and sister in Christ, must take courage. 

Hope- The gospel changes us as people into a people of hope. The gospel itself gives us hope in the future in that there is a place of perfection and eternal bliss that when this life is over we have hope in God. But hope is also give in the moment in that now God is for us and showers grace and mercy on us each day in every moment and circumstance. When we have hope because of the gospel it affects our heart and is an outward sign of the gospel in action. To be a minister of the gospel than one must have hope that the gospel will change and impact others the same it impacted us.

Joy- Jesus in the midst of suffering was still filled with joy. Paul commands us to rejoice in the Lord through all circumstances in life. So joy must be a part of gospel ministry. If the person ministering the gospel does not have joy, no one he is ministering to will first want any part the that gospel and secondly those around his ministry will not want to be around a person not full of joy. Joy is another outward sign of a heart for the gospel.

Love- The gospel is a love story between God and mankind through His Son Jesus. So how can the person ministering and living out the gospel not have love also? Not only must a gospel minister have love in his life he must minister through and with love. Love must flow from his lips not only to those inside the church but also outside of the church. Love must flow from his actions with what he is doing in ministry for the church but also to the world. Love is a quality that when the world see, they see Jesus and the gospel in action. Love must be a foundation of not only the gospel but also the works of the gospel.