Treasured Truth

As we continue to look at the criteria we need to consider when dating someone, Pastor Ford will remind us that God always wants us to be equally yoked in marriage. So one of the first things to consider about a person who is potentially a mate is whether or not they are a believer.  God does not want us to practice missionary dating—when we date someone with the intention of helping them become a believer.

Today Pastor Ford begins a message from John 4, encouraging us to meet the felt needs of the people in our communities, so that we can more easily introduce them to Who they really need—Jesus Himself.

We need a list of criteria for dating and mating.  We have to be more concerned about a person’s character than we are about their clothes.  But while we’re worried about what they’re wearing, we ought to be worried about what’s wearing them.  Because, as Pastor Ford will point out today, they could have expensive clothes and a raggedy character.

If we encounter problems in our marriage, we will often blame God for allowing us to marry the wrong person.  But Pastor Ford will counter that today by reminding us that we came up with the idea of marrying that person.  It was our choice to proceed in the relationship.  But now we say, “Why did God allow it?” God didn’t do anything!  We did it.  We made the decision and the choice.  Why are we blaming God?

According to Pastor Ford, you have to get a divorce from yourself, before you get into a relationship with a potential spouse.  There has to be two funerals before there’s one marriage.  You have to die to self.  Because marriage is not a 50/50 venture.  It requires 100 percent from each person.

Pastor Ford has this question for us today—what makes us want to get out of so quickly what we wanted to get into so desperately?  As we continue to discuss issues that may arise in a marriage, we’ll explore why so many people today easily seek a divorce, after desparately wanting to be married to their spouse in the beginning.

Pastor Ford will remind us today that Jesus died for our salvation and to give us the ability to be able to have a better marriage.  He did all that for all of us and for the sins of the world.  Pastor Ford will also ask us—since Jesus died for us, then why is it that in our marriages, we can’t seem live for Him?

Believers can have confidence that the tragedy of death has been overcome.  And in His resurrection, Christ is the “first fruits” of those who will be raised from the dead.  Pastor Ford explains that although death can seem tragic, for the believer, it’s really just transportation from this life to the next.

If you married in search of happiness, then you didn’t really understand what marriage is all about.  The goal of marriage is oneness.  The Bible says, “Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife and the two of them will become one flesh.”  Oneness is the goal of marriage.  Happiness is a by-product.  Join us today as we look further at the what happens when a marriage has a case of the “toos”.

When a marriage has a case of the “Toos,” one thing that happens is there are too many unmet expectations.  And often married people will focus on the “what ifs” of life instead of on the “what is.”  And when the “what ifs” takes precedent over the “what is,” then it often leads to disappointment and disillusionment.  We’ll begin to look at how to deal with expectations  in your marriage on today’s Treasured Truth.