Living in Faith
The Tallest Order
Stephen Lau
The Tallest Order
Stephen Lau
Faith in Marriage
by
Stephen Lau
by
Stephen Lau
CopyrightŠ by Stephen Lau
The content of this site cannot be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's permission.
The content of this site cannot be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's permission.
So, take the leap of faith to marry someone who is prepared to walk with you in this journey of faith. Remember, God gives each of us the capacity to love and to choose. Your choice should not be based on physical appearance: all that glitters is not gold.
"Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain." (Proverbs 31:30)
Nor should it be based on wealth, which is fleeting.
Your choice of marriage partner should be founded on the individual's character (beliefs and values), heart (compassion and forgiveness), learning (a humble heart with a teachable spirit), and love (unconditional love of others).
Living in faith, marry your sweetheart, and let God guide you through thick and thin.
"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man separate." (Matthew 19:6)
"Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain." (Proverbs 31:30)
Nor should it be based on wealth, which is fleeting.
Your choice of marriage partner should be founded on the individual's character (beliefs and values), heart (compassion and forgiveness), learning (a humble heart with a teachable spirit), and love (unconditional love of others).
Living in faith, marry your sweetheart, and let God guide you through thick and thin.
"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man separate." (Matthew 19:6)
| ˇ | Marriage commitment means marriage life is never plain sailing: there will be storms along the voyage. "And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Hush, be still." And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" (Mark 4:39-40) |
| ˇ | Marriage commitment means you listen to God's voices for answers to your marriage problems. God always want to talk to you. "My sheep hears my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27) If you are His sheep, He will point the way ahead of you. "Your ears will hear a word behind you, 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right or to the left." (Isaiah 30:21) |
| ˇ | Marriage commitment means you humbly surrender yourself to God. You acknowledge your own weaknesses and problems in your marriage, but you choose not to go your own willful way to deal with them. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6) When you have humbly surrendered yourself, God will speak, and you will hear His voice - not your own voice, nor that of the devil. |
| ˇ | Marriage commitment means you make yourself and your partner spiritual through worship, prayer, the Word of God, and service to others in His name. Above all, you make yourself open to forgiveness, and cherish togetherness through acceptance and respect for each other |
300 Creative Dates - to enhance your romance & rekindle love relationship
1000 Questions
to enhance compatibility & to improve love relationship!
to enhance compatibility & to improve love relationship!
In CNN - Living (Aug 14, 2009), there was an article entitled "Is it OK to live together before marriage?"
In that article, the writer Ami Angelowicz says she prefers living together prior to getting married because she wants to be "as sure as I can possibly, possible be" before she would tie the knot with someone. In addition, she cites "living together is a two-way street" which can give her "a more realistic perspective of marriage and relationships." In that article, she also expresses her skepticism of a recent study by the University of Denver, saying that "couples who live together before marriage have a way better chance of getting divorced" because couples who are cohabiting may be "entering into marriage for the wrong reasons."
Nowadays, according to the University of Denver study, about 70 percent of couples cohabit before marriage.
Nowadays, many are afraid of getting married because they do not have sufficient faith either in themselves or in God.
Faith in marriage and living in faith hold the key to a good marriage.
Lack of Faith in Self
Self-esteem is an important factor in a healthy love relationship. You must believe that you are "good enough" for your partner. True self-esteem stems from who you are, not from what you do. If self-esteem were based on success, then many would indeed have low self-esteem because they would not be able to overcome the many hurdles of failures in their lives.
From the Christian point of view, self-esteem comes from the fact that you are made in the image of God.
"and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of of the one Who created him." (Colossians 3:10)
Therefore, God loves you, and you are as good as you can be.
From the Zen's point of view (Zen is an Eastern philosophy - not a religion, although it has been closely associated with Buddhism; learn More About Zen.), self-esteem means loving yourself completely for who you are, irrespective of what you like or dislike about yourself - or else you cannot love another person. According to Zen, if you cannot accept something unpleasant or incomplete in yourself, you cannot accept something that you think is unpleasant or incomplete in another person. It is just that simple! If you reject that person, you are in fact rejecting a part of yourself that you do not like. In a love relationship, you often begin to "mask" what you do not like about yourself, hiding from the person you love. You are afraid of opening yourself completely, and accepting yourself just as who you really are. If you don't take off that mask, you will only make that love relationship difficult to last.
Lack of self-esteem leads to fear of rejection - fear that the love relationship may not last. Subconsciously, you "anticipate" the inevitable rejection, picking fights and testing the other person constantly in fits of anger and jealousy, even though deep down you want the love relationship to last. Ironically, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But true love always risks rejection. When God created men, He hoped for a loving relationship. However, love is only real if it is unconditional and freely offered. So, God made human beings capable of both loving and choosing. Only living in faith can you love and choose in spite of our innate fear of rejection.
Living in Faith
Any relationship is not easy, because it involves people. However, living in faith will make all things possible. Jesus said: "With people, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
However, marriage success is not a short-term option: it is for life. Faith is the first step. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, once said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Taking the first step is a tall order, but take it anyway.
But faith alone, without works, is not enough.
"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:24)
Living in faith is the tallest order because you need work, which is marriage commitment. Marriage is a contract, requiring you to honor it "for better or for worse."
In that article, the writer Ami Angelowicz says she prefers living together prior to getting married because she wants to be "as sure as I can possibly, possible be" before she would tie the knot with someone. In addition, she cites "living together is a two-way street" which can give her "a more realistic perspective of marriage and relationships." In that article, she also expresses her skepticism of a recent study by the University of Denver, saying that "couples who live together before marriage have a way better chance of getting divorced" because couples who are cohabiting may be "entering into marriage for the wrong reasons."
Nowadays, according to the University of Denver study, about 70 percent of couples cohabit before marriage.
Nowadays, many are afraid of getting married because they do not have sufficient faith either in themselves or in God.
Faith in marriage and living in faith hold the key to a good marriage.
Lack of Faith in Self
Self-esteem is an important factor in a healthy love relationship. You must believe that you are "good enough" for your partner. True self-esteem stems from who you are, not from what you do. If self-esteem were based on success, then many would indeed have low self-esteem because they would not be able to overcome the many hurdles of failures in their lives.
From the Christian point of view, self-esteem comes from the fact that you are made in the image of God.
"and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of of the one Who created him." (Colossians 3:10)
Therefore, God loves you, and you are as good as you can be.
From the Zen's point of view (Zen is an Eastern philosophy - not a religion, although it has been closely associated with Buddhism; learn More About Zen.), self-esteem means loving yourself completely for who you are, irrespective of what you like or dislike about yourself - or else you cannot love another person. According to Zen, if you cannot accept something unpleasant or incomplete in yourself, you cannot accept something that you think is unpleasant or incomplete in another person. It is just that simple! If you reject that person, you are in fact rejecting a part of yourself that you do not like. In a love relationship, you often begin to "mask" what you do not like about yourself, hiding from the person you love. You are afraid of opening yourself completely, and accepting yourself just as who you really are. If you don't take off that mask, you will only make that love relationship difficult to last.
Lack of self-esteem leads to fear of rejection - fear that the love relationship may not last. Subconsciously, you "anticipate" the inevitable rejection, picking fights and testing the other person constantly in fits of anger and jealousy, even though deep down you want the love relationship to last. Ironically, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But true love always risks rejection. When God created men, He hoped for a loving relationship. However, love is only real if it is unconditional and freely offered. So, God made human beings capable of both loving and choosing. Only living in faith can you love and choose in spite of our innate fear of rejection.
Living in Faith
Any relationship is not easy, because it involves people. However, living in faith will make all things possible. Jesus said: "With people, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
However, marriage success is not a short-term option: it is for life. Faith is the first step. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, once said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Taking the first step is a tall order, but take it anyway.
But faith alone, without works, is not enough.
"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:24)
Living in faith is the tallest order because you need work, which is marriage commitment. Marriage is a contract, requiring you to honor it "for better or for worse."