A Good Marriage Begins with God. It is our natural tendency to seek personal happiness and satisfaction in marriage. We often give our own needs, wants, and goals first priority. But what is God's design for our marriages? With clarity and conviction, Christopher Ash turns us away from marriage for ourselves and toward marriage in the service of God. With practical applications for everyday life, Ash shows us God's purposes and patterns for every part of the marriage relationship. By realigning our hopes, expectations, and goals for marriage according to the Bible, we will discover the deep joy and lasting fulfillment that comes from a God-centered marriage.
Life Is Never Mainly About Love and Marriage. So Learn to Live and Date for More. Many of you grew up assuming that marriage would meet all of your needs and unlock God's purposes for you. But God has far more planned for you than your future marriage. Not Yet Married is not about waiting quietly in the corner of the world for God to bring you "the one," but about inspiring you to live and date for more now. If you follow Jesus, the search for a spouse is no longer a pursuit of the perfect person, but a pursuit of more of God. He will likely write a love story for you different than the one you would write for yourself, but that's because he loves you and knows how to write a better story. This book was written to help you find real hope, happiness, and purpose in your not-yet-married life.
Laurie and Matt Krieg are in a mixed-orientation marriage: Laurie is primarily attracted to women—and so is Matt. With vulnerability and wisdom, they tell the story of how they met and got married, the challenges and breakthroughs of their journey, and what they've learned about how marriage is meant to point us to the love and grace of Jesus.
Are you a single person who has been longing to be married? Were you formally married and now find it difficult living without a spouse? Perhaps you are a single parent who has been praying for a godly husband to assist in the rearing of your children. You are not alone. Recent statistics reveal that an unprecedented number of Americans are single and seeking to be married. God has not forgotten you. He hears your prayers and feels your pain. However, it is His desire that you experience a marriage that is guaranteed to last a lifetime. This requires that you prepare for marriage according to His plan and based on His Word. Following Gods plan allows Him to lead you to the spouse that He has ordained for you and only you! His plan guarantees that you can absolutely know who your spouse is! You can become the bride or groom to the one who God has ordained to become your mate for a lifetime.
Describes what marriage should be according to the Bible, arguing that marriage is a tool to bring individuals closer to God, and provides meaningful instruction on how to have a successful marriage.
Apply God’s Wisdom to Your Marriage God designed the unique covenant between a man and a woman to be a lifelong partnership that brings joy, support, and stability to both their lives. You can experience this fulfillment for yourself when you follow His plan as the foundation for the relationship between you and your loved one. This companion to Your Marriage God’s Way invites you to work together with your spouse to take a closer look at the biblical principles for this precious contract and make them an active part of your own marriage. You will build a stronger relationship and deeper faith as you understand the unique roles God has given each of you identify ways you can better help, encourage, and support each other make serving God the focal point of your marriage No matter how long you’ve been married, there is always room to grow in your relationship by placing Christ at its center. With the help of the Your Marriage God’s Way Workbook, bring your hearts closer together and experience the fullness God has in store for both of you.
Everyone longs to love and be loved. Being single and waiting on the person who God has for you can, at times, be somewhat frustrating. We might wonder if there is something wrong with us or if maybe God has forgotten about that deep prayer of our heart. Have you found yourself looking for the right one with no luck? How can you improve your confidence in taking the next step after so many relationship challenges? God, When Will I Get Married? Will open up your understanding of how important it is to trust in God, so you can use your waiting period as a time to prepare for that special one. You will also learn to be confident enough to watch out for red flags, discern relationship patterns and know when you have met someone who is worth you taking a risk.
The way of a man with a maiden was too wonderful for the writer of Proverbs to understand. Preoccupying so many thoughts and dreams, the subject of countless songs, films and fairy tales, the love between a man and a woman has always been a profound and perplexing mystery. And yet we do not live happily ever after. Four out of ten marriages will end in divorce. Couples now choose to live together rather than marry, and those relationships are even less likely to last. People are having fewer children, later, and with a succession of partners. Ironically, just when so much is expected of love, Western societies are witnessing lower levels of public commitment in sexual relationships than ever before. The scale of this change amounts to a revolution, a major historical paradigm shift. The statistics mask a depth of pain that every pastor and counsellor knows only too well. We must face the inevitable questions: if faithfulness is no longer esteemed, why get married at all? What is marriage? What did God intend when he gave us marriage? Christopher Ash argues that our modern idolization of the sexual relationship contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. To begin to rebuild a biblical confidence in marriage, we need to understand that the primary blessing and purpose of marriage is not sexual intimacy, but rather serving God in partnership. This in turn leads to the blessings of love, friendship, children, and order in society, and will help us to rediscover that faithfulness which is the heart of marriage. One of those precious rarities - a major piece of biblical scholarship which addresses an issue in todays headlines directly and warmly. One to own, not to borrow. -- David Field Deeply scholarly, extraordinarily thorough and biblically faithful, as well as courageously fresh in rethinking the role of marriage in Gods intention for human life. -- David Wright Christopher Ash studied at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and then joined the staff at St. Andrew the Great, Cambridge. From there he headed to a church plant and is now Rector of All Saints, Little Shelford. He is married to Carolyn and they have four children.
Ministry is hard. And every ministry wife needs—and deserves—encouragement. A woman marries a man, not his ministry. But all too often her husband's calling complicates their life together. What if ministry life isn't what she bargained for? What happens when her children make mistakes? How does she deal with church gossip, or even slander? As a pastor's wife of almost fifty years, Jani Ortlund addresses these questions, along with many others, as she offers encouragement and guidance to ministry wives. Jani reminds readers that God works out his delightfully good purposes in and through their sacrifices.
Profound reflections on the cross that help you to meditate on and marvel at the sacrificial love of Jesus. This book can be used as a devotional, especially during Lent and Easter. These profound reflections on the cross from David Mathis, author of The Christmas We Didn’t Expect, will help you to meditate on and marvel at Jesus’ life, sacrificial death, and spectacular resurrection-enabling you to treasure anew who Jesus is and what he has done. Many of us are so familiar with the Easter story that it becomes easy to miss subtle details and difficult to really enjoy its meaning. This book will help you to pause and marvel at Jesus, whose now-glorified wounds are a sign of his unfailing love and the decisive victory that he has won: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) This book can be used as a devotional. The chapters on Holy Week make it especially helpful during the Lent season and at Easter.
