Excessive and unnecessary words invite mistrust and create loopholes to get out of our commitments. Speaking the simple truth frees us to live in love and build trust with those around us.

The goal of marriage is not to avoid divorce but to learn to love in a way that reflects the love of God. A healthy marriage takes steps to keep moving in that direction. Although the ideal is to be with one person for life, in a broken world the ideal sometimes gets broken, too. It’s only by God’s grace that any of us get married, whether for the first, second or third time.

Our culture has sold us a myth that marriage is the fairy tale ending to our search for romantic love, but Jesus shows us what true love really means. When we remember that we are brothers and sisters in the family of God first, every relationship in our lives is an opportunity to learn what it means to love each other like Jesus loves us.

We all assume that as long as lust stays in our heads it’s not hurting us, God or anyone else. But we cannot imagine someone as a much-loved child of God and a sexual object at the same time. Jesus compels us to live by love in our imaginations as well as our bodies.

Because Jesus’s death and resurrection include everyone, we can choose to see anyone with eyes of hope and not judgment, starting with the person in the mirror. Although we still often live out lies about who we really are, that false self is dead and our true self is now free to live in the newness of life.

Confession is a lifestyle of truth-telling about ourselves. It’s about becoming aware of our whole selves so that we can live as we are, in both our weaknesses and strengths. When we practice this together as a community, we experience healing and the freedom of honest relationships with each other. What a gift!

Reconciliation seems unrealistic and sometimes impossible but must be radically pursued. Our humility with God and openness to his Spirit will result in mutual submission to each other. Then we will enjoy life in the freedom of God’s love and offer others the same.

Reconciliation seems unrealistic and sometimes impossible but must be radically pursued. Our humility with God and openness to his Spirit will result in mutual submission to each other. Then we will enjoy life in the freedom of God’s love and offer others the same.

Cultivating anger, whether acted upon in violence toward others or only imagined in our minds, is playing with fire and ends in destruction. God’s better way of being human transforms us from the inside out by starting with our heart, not our behavior.

Cultivating anger, whether acted upon in violence toward others or only imagined in our minds, is playing with fire and ends in destruction. God’s better way of being human transforms us from the inside out by starting with our heart, not our behavior.