Some wise advice for a marriage.

Some wise advice for a marriage.

This is worth reading regularly. Print it and frame it up and hang it behind the main door. Read one point out loud each time you use the main door.

May God bless each marriage richly
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𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗗𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥

👩‍❤️‍👨Choose to love each other even in those moments when you struggle to like each other. Love is a commitment, not a feeling.

👩‍❤️‍👨Always answer the phone when your husband/wife is calling and when possible, try to keep your phone off when you’re together with your spouse.

👩‍❤️‍👨Make time together a priority. Budget for a consistent date night. Time is the “currency of relationships” so consistently invest time into your marriage.

👩‍❤️‍👨Surround yourself with friends who will strengthen your marriage and remove yourself from people who may tempt you to compromise your character.

👩‍❤️‍👨Make laughter the soundtrack of your marriage. Share moments of joy, and even in the hard times, find reasons to laugh.

👩‍❤️‍👨In every argument, remember that there won’t be a “winner” and a “loser.” You are partners in everything so you’ll either win together or lose together. Work together to find a solution.

👩‍❤️‍👨Remember that a strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. It’s usually a husband and wife taking turns being strong for each other in the moments when the other feels weak. Prioritize what happens in the bedroom. It takes more than sex to build a strong marriage, but it’s nearly impossible to build a strong marriage without it!

👩‍❤️‍👨Remember that marriage isn’t 50-50, divorce is 50-50. Marriage has to be 100-100. It’s not splitting everything in half, but both partners giving everything they’ve got!

👩‍❤️‍👨Give your best to each other, not your leftovers after you’ve given your best to everyone else.

👩‍❤️‍👨Learn from other people, but don’t feel the need to compare your life or your marriage to anyone else’s. God’s plan for your life is masterfully unique!

👩‍❤️‍👨Don’t put your marriage on hold while you’re raising your kids or else you’ll end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage.

👩‍❤️‍👨Never keep secrets from each other. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy.

👩‍❤️‍👨Never lie to each other. Lies break trust and trust is the foundation of a strong marriage.

👩‍❤️‍👨When you’ve made a mistake, admit it and humbly seek forgiveness. You should be quick to say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

👩‍❤️‍👨When your husband/wife breaks your trust, give them your forgiveness instantly which will promote healing and create the opportunity for trust to be rebuilt. You should be quick to say, “I love you. I forgive you. Let’s move forward.”

👩‍❤️‍👨Be patient with each other. Your spouse is always more important that your schedule.

👩‍❤️‍👨Model the kind of marriage that will make your sons want to grow up to be good husbands and your daughters want to grow up to be good wives.

👩‍❤️‍👨Never talk badly about your spouse to other people or vent about them online. Protect your spouse at all times and in all places.

👩‍❤️‍👨Always wear your wedding ring. It will remind you that you’re always connected to your spouse and it will remind the rest of the world that you’re off limits!

👩‍❤️‍👨Connect into a community of faith. A good church can make a world of difference in your marriage and family.

👩‍❤️‍👨Pray together. Every marriage is stronger with God in the middle of it.

👩‍❤️‍👨When you have to choose between saying nothing or saying something mean to your spouse, say nothing every time!

👩‍❤️‍👨Never consider annulment as an option. Remember that a “perfect marriage” is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other. See less

The just shall live by faith - the biblical fact versus the popular fable

 The just shall live by faith - the biblical fact versus the popular fable

Ro 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Ga 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith.

Heb 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

It is the just who shall live by faith, i.e. those whom God has justified that shall live by faith. Justification by God is the CAUSE, and believing and living by faith is the EFFECT.

But the sola fideists - those who teach and believe that a man is justified before God by his faith alone - insist the very opposite, that the unjustified who live by faith are justified by God.

That's putting the cart before the horse, perverting the truth, 'the just shall live by faith' into a fable, 'the unjustified who believe are justified.' Putting the cart before the horse is as stupid (lacking common sense) as can be.

The just shall live by faith.

The just shall live by faith.

The just shall live by faith.

These words are a DESCRIPTION of the just, those freely justified by God.

But many read these words as a PRESCRIPTION for justification, i.e. HOW a condemned, unjustified man is justified by God!!

The just (justified by God) WERE in their native state of condemnation and death. How did they become justified and live? It can't possibly be by their act of believing; for faith is IMPOSSIBLE when a man is STILL in his unjustified state, his native state of condemnation and death.

But first, how did a man get into that native state of condemnation and death? Here is the plain answer:

Read carefully, please:

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned... 17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

Here is stated in the plainest and simplest form THE GROUND and THE MANNER a man in his native state of condemnation of death is transferred into that gracious state of justification of life.

The sole ground is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE... the legal basis of the justification of life is the righteousness of One, Jesus Christ (not your faith!!!). This is LEGAL imputation of Christ's righteousness took place at the cross... just as the legal imputation of Adam's sin at the fall.

The sole manner is the free grace of God... God freely applies the righteousness to an individual elect personally at the effectual calling unto grace and salvation. This is VITAL application of Christ's righteousness to an elect personally... just as the vital application of condemnation is applied to a man at conception.

Only when the righteousness of Christ has been APPLIED to an elect personally, i.e. when God HAS JUSTIFIED him, that he is capable of believing. His act of believing EVIDENCES his justified state by the free grace of God based wholly and solely upon the righteousness of Christ.

But the Calvinists and their first cousins, the Arminians, INSIST that they are justified by God WHEN they believe in Christ... their justification by God is conditioned upon their faith! They repudiate justification freely by the grace of God.

Romans 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

What was accounted to Abraham?

 

What was accounted to him - his act of believing or the righteousness of Christ?

“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.”

Sin, the transgression of God’s law, brought condemnation and death.

Righteousness, the obedience to God’s law, is a prerequisite for justification and life.

Sin brought death; righteousness is a prerequisite for life.

Justification is justification of life, read Romans 5:18.

This prerequisite righteousness must either be by your own perfect obedience to the law of God or by the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ to the law of God in your stead.

A man's believing, i.e. his faith, plays absolutely no role in his justification before God.

“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” What was accounted unto him for righteousness? His act of believing was accounted to him for righteousness. This is tragically mistaken by so many as the righteousness of Christ being accounted to him for his justification before God.

The Protestants’ sola fidei centres on the believing act of man in his justification before God.

The Scriptures’ sola fidei is centred on the faith of Christ in man’s justification before God; it is Christ's faithfulness in rendering perfect obedience to the law of God in His work of redemption, thus securing the necessary righteousness for the justification of condemned men by God.

The devil has hijacked this Christ-centred truth and substituted it with a cheap man-centred lie.

The sola fideists stubbornly insist that Abraham was justified by God only in Gen 15; this necessarily implies that Abraham was still a man in his native, unjustified state of condemnation in Gen 12-14. They just ignore or are oblivious to this monumental problem.

In Gen 15, Abraham's faith was blessed unto him to experience the blessedness of his righteousness before God; his justification of life, by God's free grace, had already taken place way back when he was in the Ur of the Chaldean.

It is a monumental doctrinal disaster to confound the justification of life by the free grace of God and the experience of that justification through one's faith.

p/s - "If the doctrine of justification is indeed the article of the standing or falling church", then countless churches that hold to the fable of "sola fidei", whether the reformed or non-reformed, were never standing churches to begin with.

Is it "freely by grace" or "conditionally by faith"?

Romans 3:24 KJT
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:"

God, by His grace, freely [that means, even faith is EXCLUDED] justifying the elect when in their native state of condemnation and death IS THE CAUSE.

They, the justified ones, receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness by faith, IS THE EFFECT.

The CAUSE is distinct, separate, and PRIOR to the EFFECT.

Unless and until one gets these basic and fundamental points into his head, he remains in error.

It is kind of weird... You hear people declaring their justification by the FREE grace of God alone... but in the same breath, they also say that their justification (in the same sense as before) is ALSO by their faith alone.

Their idea of 'free' is obviously not free, as the Scriptures intended it; theirs is free, but it is ALSO conditioned on their faith alone... and they are talking about the one and the same thing!

What nonsense and confusion.

NO ONE ever find eternal life by their activities.

 

I watched this fire-and-brimstone audio-visual sermon and found that the presupposition of the preacher is so different from that of Apostle Paul. Listen to it and draw your own conclusion.
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It seems so obvious that the preacher thinks he can frighten his hearers whom he considers as hell-bound dead sinners to decide for Christ and get salvation What a terrible delusion about one's ministry!!

I am saddened by such widespread delusion. I notice that Apostle Paul's ministry was guided by an entirely different set of presuppositions.

Martin raves with the hope of persuading those dead in sins to turn from their sins and choose life. Apostle Paul says the preaching of the gospel to such people is perceived by them as complete foolishness! Apostle Paul sees his ministry as reaching out to God's children (the elect ALREADY regenerated), informing and reasoning with them, and persuading to believe the truth as it is in Jesus Christ!

When Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, those to whom he urgently and earnestly desire to preach the gospel (because they have NOT heard or known the gospel), he addressed them as "saints and beloved of God." Yes, they are saints and beloved of God ALREADY, and were in need of hearing the gospel from Apostle Paul.

And he patiently reasoned and demonstrated and persuade them of the gospel truth... none of that hellfire brimstone stuff!

TWO entirely different set of presuppositions and understanding of the gospel ministry.

The preacher, Albert N Martin, a revered Reformed Baptist, declares,
"The truth is that the way is truly narrow, and few people will find eternal life. (Matthew 7:21, Luke 13:24)"

Eternal life is a free gift to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, who by nature were rebels and in enmity against God. 

NO ONE ever find eternal life by their activities. 
Those WITHOUT eternal life are dead in trespasses and sins.
Such have no ability to find eternal life. 
"Except a man be born again, he CANNOT..." John 3:3,6

The abundance of life in the life here and now is found by our daily taking the strait gate and walking the narrow way. That's discipleship, a fruit and product of the eternal life that was given by God's free grace.

The ministry of John the Baptist was described like this: "for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

To give knowledge of salvation unto His people: the Lord's people, saved by Him, are there first. John the Baptist was sent to instruct His saved people the truth concerning their salvation by the free grace of God. His ministry wasn't to turn the hell bound people to heaven!

To give light to them (His people) that sit in darkness: His people saved by His free grace are still in the darkness of ignorance concerning the truth of their salvation by God's free grace. John's ministry is to instruct and educate and inform them, to give enlighten them with the truth of the gospel, to dispel their ignorance concerning the truth of the gospel of free and sovereign grace.

To guide our feet into the way of peace: to guide His people into the way of peace, to know that they have been reconciled to God by the righteousness of Christ freely APPLIED to them at their effectual calling out of their state of sin and death to that of grace and salvation.

There isn't the slightest hint of John the Baptist trying to scare people out of their state of death and hell!

He was send to minister to the LORD'S people - those whom He has made His own, His redeemed.