Four Areas of Intimacy

So, many married couples get to a point in their marriage when the "fire" has faded and they're wondering if they married the right person.

They think, "Isn't that fire supposed to last 'till death do us part?'"

I say, "Yes, that fire will last 'till death do you part' if you'll continue to add the needed fuel to the fire."

"OK, what's the fuel we're supposed to add to our marriage to keep the fire burning?"

I'm glad you asked.  There are Four Areas of Intimacy that, if they are healthy in your marriage, your marriage has no choice but to be healthy.  Here they are:

Spiritual Intimacy

• Sharing spiritual things: When God grips your heart one morning during your quiet time and you weep because of what God has done, don't keep that to yourself, share it with your spouse!  Imagine walking upstairs after your quiet time while your wife is preparing breakfast and you walk up to her and say, "Tina, I've gotta share with you what God just did in me.  As I read 2 Corinthians 10:13 just now, this is what God told me about myself..."

• Praying with and for each other:  I'm not referring to adding a short blessing for your spouse at the end of prayer over your food at dinner.  I'm talking about sitting on the edge of the bed before retiring for the night, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes and blessing one another like this.  "Father, thank you for my amazing wife.  Please bless her with a restful night's sleep tonight.  Fill her with your Spirit as she sleeps and help her to walk in your will always.  Father, I praise you for blessing me with her.  Amen."

Intellectual Intimacy

• Learn everything there is about your spouse:  This takes time and real conversation.  Ask your spouse questions and then stop and listen to the answers.  You should be the one person on earth who knows the most about your spouse.  You can ask questions like this:

1. If you could store up only one hour's worth of memory in your mind, which house of our marriage would you want to remember?
2. If you could have witnessed any biblical event, which one would you choose and why?
3. What did you dream about being when you were young?
4. What was your childhood?
5. When do you feel most loved?

Emotional Intimacy

• Learn what pushes your spouse's emotional buttons.  You should be the one person on earth who knows when something is going on that is pushing your spouse's emotional button.  This takes time and conversation to learn these things.  Ask questions like this:

1. What makes you feel happy?
2. What makes you feel sad?
3. When people say nice things about our children, how does is make you feel?
4. When people (fill in the blank) how does it make you feel?

Physical Intimacy

• This is not just in the bedroom.  Yes, it's important that your intimate moments in the bedroom are healthy and that both of you are comfortable with them.  You should also be able to talk freely about your physical intimacy moments.  You should also add some variety to your physical intimacy relationship.  
• It's also important that you keep the "fire burning" by ensuring each of you knows that you're physically attracted to the other.  Flirt with each other.  Leave little notes here and there.  Give flowers.  Be sure your spouse knows you're physically attracted to him or her.

That's it!   If you engage in all these areas of intimacy and they are healthy in your marriage, then your marriage has no choice but to be healthy.  

Have fun !

God's Guardrails

"Is God just trying to ruin all my fun?!?"

That's a statement I have heard in my office more than once as I've met with members of the church where I'm an associate pastor.  I'm finding that the overriding thought behind that statement is that God is a big party pooper because he won't let us do the things we want to do.

I must admit, when I first surrendered my life to Christ, I questioned all the "rules" God was laying on me.  There was stuff like "don't commit sexual immorality," "don't steal," "don't lie," "don't commit adultery," etc.

Now please understand, following the rules God gives us does nothing to secure our salvation. Salvation comes through a relationship with Jesus only.

I asked myself, "Have I joined a group of people who are constantly riddled with rules and can't live their own lives?"  Then I began to understand what God is doing.

Here's an illustration I use with people in my office from time to time. 

Imagine you and your spouse are in the kitchen one evening and your four year old child comes into the kitchen.  There's a pot of boiling water on the front burner of the stove and your curious child begins to reach for the handle of that pot.  What do you do next?

Most of you said, "I'd gentle grab my child's hand and keep her from pulling the boiling water onto herself.  This would prevent her from hurting herself terribly. "

I agree with those of you who said that!  And that's exactly what God is doing with us when he gives us these rules to live by.  He's protecting us, like the wonderful parent he is, from certain harm. 

God knows that when we engage in sex before marriage we suffer as a result.  He tells us not to lie because he knows it harms us when we're eventually found out.  He reminds us not to commit adultery because he knows the havoc it causes in our life as well as so many other people's lives.

When I was younger, I was pretty promiscuous.  During my time of "sleeping around" I thought I was having a great time.  But now that I can look back at that time in my life I see that it was actually harmful to me and to the women I slept with. 

It's just like you as the parent in the kitchen.  You know that the boiling water will hurt your child so you tell her not to mess with it.  God knows that sex before marriage hurts us, even when we're "little children" and we want to do what we want!  God gentle says, "Mike, I've lived a lot longer than you and I know what this is going to do to you.  Trust me, you don't want to mess with this."

Thanks God.

What is Formational Prayer?

Today, Pastor Jeff Kozyra taught in our Lay-Counseling Sunday school some of the concepts from the book "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.  It was a wonderful teaching.  At the beginning of that class, he reminded the 80 or so student in the class why we are there.  He read this explanation of what Formational Prayer is.  See if this doesn’t make your heart beat a little faster:

Formational Prayer is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, moving through a Christian lay counselor, bringing the Healing Presence of Jesus Christ into the place of pain and brokenness within a wounded person.
A ministry of the Holy Spirit: Formational Prayer is thoroughly dependent upon the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit. He initiates, directs and empowers the entire process. Thus the recipient of healing and the lay counselor must not only understand the work of the Holy Spirit, but be surrendered to His infilling and empowerment each step along the way.
Moving through the Christian lay counselor: Formational Prayer is not a technique controlled by the lay counselor. It is a transformational ministry of the Holy Spirit, with the lay counselor serving as an instrument of His activity. The spiritual vitality and emotional maturity of the lay counselor are important and integrated aspects of this healing process and must be submitted to the Holy Spirit.
Bringing the Healing Presence of Jesus Christ: People need more than solutions to their problems. They need to experience the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ in every aspect of their lives. His Transforming Presence strengthens and satisfies as nothing else, the one true Source of healing for broken people everywhere. Through Formational Prayer, the Holy Spirit uses a lay counselor to position hurting people for what Jesus alone can give.
Into the place of pain and brokenness: Life experiences often leave deep wounds that compromise personal well-being. Left undressed, these hurts give birth to false beliefs, emotional upheaval, and behaviors that are ultimately destructive. During the process of Formational Prayer, both the source and symptoms of core woundings are brought into the light of Jesus Christ, where He alone can set people free.

After the class today, John spoke to me with an excitement in his voice that he couldn’t contain.  “Pastor Mike!  Imagine if every member of New Life Church was walking in health and in Formational Prayer!”  I could only smile widely and affirm, “John, God would be wonderfully glorified!”  He wholeheartedly agreed! !

I’m so excited for what God has planned in the weeks, months and years ahead!

The Good and Beautiful Life

So, I went to class at Denver Seminary this afternoon and started the Spring 2012 Semester with a bang!  When I got home, I realized how much work was going to be involved in this semester's classes so I thought I'd get a head start on some of the reading.  I picked up one of the text books for my "Integrative Seminar in Christian Formation and Soul Care" class and started reading.  The book is called The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.  I came across the following excerpt from the book and just had to share it with you:

In Romans 1:18-32, Paul describes how a human life spirals into ruin.  Written nineteen centuries before the advent of modern psychology, Paul's assessment of the human person remains the most brilliant depiction of soul destruction I have ever read...  I would like to summarize his ideas in what I call "The Six Steps of Ruin: The Process of Becoming Nothing."

1. The turn away : I want to be God.  The first step toward ruin is to refuse to let God be God.  To be more specific, it is refusing to give honor and reverence to God.  Paul writes, "though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him" (Romans 1:21)

2. The mind darkens (contra reality).  Now, if there is a God, as Christians suppose, then that God is the creator of all, the only being that exists without a first cause, a perfect and powerful being.  In short, if there is a God, we ought to honor and give thanks to God.  Therefore, refusing to do that (step 1) is a step away from reality.  It goes against the truth of the universe.  Therefore, our minds, which thrive on truth and reality, become dimmed.  Paul observes: "they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:21-22)

3. Idolatry: We must have a god.  If we reject God, then something must take God's place: "Nature abhors a vacuum."  Someone or something must take the place of God.  We would like a god who would do a lot of good for us and ask very little in return.  The solution: create an idol.  Paul describes the next step downward: they "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles" (Romans 1:23).  Idols do not have to be little images; they can be anything we invest our lives in, in order to gain pleasure, happiness and a false sense of purpose.  Here is the key; the idol serves us by giving us our desires, and we serve it by sacrificing our life energy to it.

4. God leaves us alone: Wrath.  Unless we discover the futility of this existence and turn back to God, we are forced to push forward in our idolatry.  Being rejected, God has no other choice.  Paul delivers what I consider to be one of the most frightening verses in Scripture; "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity" (Romans 1:24).  God simply lets us be.  God's wrath is his righteous stand against sin, which he cannot endorse.

5. Pleasure is pursued at all costs.  Disconnected from reality and on our own, we must find a way to find fulfillment.  Though temporary, the easiest route is through our bodies.  Lust and gluttony are shortcuts to happiness.  But the "high" that comes from our bodies (through drugs, alcohol, food, sexual encounters, pornography) has a constantly diminishing effect.  Each time we engage in these activities, the pleasure decreases, thus requiring greater frequency or greater quantities to match the level of pleasure sought.  Paul puts it this way: "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions" (Romans 1:26).  The initial "lusts of their hearts" has now turned in "degrading passions."

6. Sin reigns.  The final step is the worst and is a natural conclusion to the previous five steps.  Sin and wickedness become normative, automatic behavior.  When we reject God and consequently try to replace God with things that cannot satisfy, we naturally begin to reflect everything that stands against God, namely, sin.  Paul offers a list that, though ancient, is descriptive of many today:

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.  The were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil covetousness, malice.  Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless."  (Romans 1:28-31)

Each day when I pick up the newspaper I see Paul's depiction of the downward spiral lived out in the modern world: politicians using their power improperly, rape, murder, arson, runaways, gangs, drug dealers, prostitution and so on.

It all starts with the fatal first step, the same step by which Adam and Eve fell from God in the Garden: refusing to show respect and thankfulness to God.  That step begins a movement away from a good and beautiful life, and ends in a life of sin and ugliness.

Wow!  As I read this excerpt from The Good and Beautiful Life I couldn't help but think of what I see every day here in Colorful Colorado Springs!  What a testament of our world today!

I'd like to offer a word of encouragement though.  You may identify with this spiral into a ruined life but there's hope.  Jesus Christ and surrendering your ruined life to Him is the only solution for this ruined life. 

I'd be happy to talk to you about a relationship with Jesus if you're tired of your ruined life.  My email address is mpratt@newlifechurch.org.  I look forward to talking with you.

Mike