I will never leave you, nor forsake you

The title of this message comes from the Word of God.

“The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)

The author of the book of Hebrews uses this quote in his message about the sufficiency of Christ as the Redeemer of all mankind.

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,” (Hebrews 13:5)

Jesus on Divorce

Over past 2 weeks, I have had an opportunity to teach Matthew 19 several different times. I wanted to share some of the insights with you here. Many people have questions about divorce. Many others have their own opinions on the subject of divorce. In order to find answers, we need to go to the source of wisdom, Jesus Christ, Himself. Jesus teaches on the subject of divorce in Matthew 19. I would like to examine this teaching here in this article.

Choosing a marriage partner

Last night, I was blessed to listen to a sermon preached by my mentor, Vasile Filat. I first heard this message about 11 years ago when I was living in Moldova, learning how to be a missionary. He preached it again a few days ago at a church in Bucharest Romania. Someone was gracious enough to film it and put it online. As I listened last night, I was blessed once again by the message and I was also blessed with memories from my time in Moldova. I would like to share the message with you here and I hope that you will be as blessed as I was.

Choosing a marriage partner is one of the major choices that we all want to make in this life. We generally go through years of schooling to get trained for life yet, this aspect is often neglected. Is there a plan laid out in the Word of God for choosing a marriage partner? Do I just need to hope that I get “lucky” and pick the right one? Am I at the whims and desires of my deceitfully, wicked heart? We say things like, “the heart wants what it wants and I cannot stop it. Besides, you cannot control who you fall in love with”. Let’s take a look at a love story in Genesis 24, the story of Isaac and Rebecka. There are 10 principles that we can learn from this passage about choosing a marriage partner.

All ya need is LOVE!

I am sure that you have heard the song before, the one with the lyrics of “all ya need is love, love is all ya need”. I am not sure what the artists had in mind when writing that but they hit very close to a genuine Biblical truth. Love really is all that we need. The problem that we have in our world is that, although we understand this profound truth, we do not realize that “love” has to be given to us before we can demonstrate it to others. Tonight I am teaching a class on “True Love”. The lesson is to help us prepare to celebrate Valentine’s Day correctly. Unfortunately, in our world today, Valentine’s Day has become a big success for all the wrong reasons. Many think that Valentine’s Day is a celebration of lovers. According to the history of the holiday, it is a celebration of married lovers. There is a huge difference between the two mindsets. Love is something that we all want and need yet for some reason, we cannot seem to love one another. There is a reason why this is. The problem that we have is that we are not born with selfless, unconditional love. Since we are all selfish by nature, the love that we show to others is not unconditional. The only way that we can share unconditional, selfless love to others is if we have first experienced it and received it from God. True love, genuine love, Biblical love is not the warm mushy feelings that we get when we are around someone of the opposite sex. God’s love is foreign to us until we experience it. Let’s take a look at the Scriptures to see what God’s love is like, how He manifests it to us, and how we can manifest it to others.

Marriage without Regrets Lesson 4; the role of man

Tonight I have the opportunity to teach on the role of man from the Bible study course “Marriage without Regrets“. I have been married for over 11 years and could not imagine being married a day without first having done the Bible study several times in preparation. Marriage is the most rewarding relationship on this earth, other than a genuine relationship with God. Unfortunately, too many people have the marriage and the regrets because they were not properly prepared for this awesome journey.

Marriage without Regrets L1

I am excited to be able to teach the PUP (Precept upon Precept) Bible study, Marriage without Regrets. We met 2 weeks ago and began filling out the first lesson. After a 2 week pause for our Missions Conference, we will meet tonight to discuss lesson 1. We have a great class of people who want to learn how to serve God with their marriages. God has blessed us so far and we pray for his blessings to continue as we diligently study His Word and seek to apply what He teaches us.

Moses’ family

During the month of March, Big City Clubhouse is focusing on families. We want to encourage all of the children that God knows their situation, that He created the family to be a positive influence in society, and that He can intervene in any familial situation and use it for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. During the month of February, we focused on knowing God and how that impacts our daily lives, especially the way that we treat others. Here are some of the lessons that we covered.

Mentoring your own children

Today, I am preparing to teach my staff the last lesson on mentoring. It has been a great ride. We have learned how to be mentored, the need for it, and how to mentor others. This final lesson covers the most important mentor/disciple relationship, parents and children. The number one influences and teachers in a child’s life are his parents. This is God’s design. The good thing about our God is that when He asks us to do something, He always teaches us how to do it in His Word. Our job is to discover those teachings, learn them, live by them, and apply them. Here are the passages where these teachings come from.

A little premarital counseling

I have been asked to lead a wedding ceremony for a member of our church, Good News and today I have our first premarital counseling session. I would like to share some of the information here in this article as resource for those of you who are planning on getting married one day.

I have been married for almost 11 years and most of the stuff that I will write about has come from my own personal experiences. Before doing anything else, you must study the Bible study course “Marriage without Regrets” written by Kay Arthur. Secondly, you must buy the book that accompanies the study. These must be read and studied constantly before you get married and during your married life.

Advice on getting married

The other night, we were blessed at the youth group to have our Senior pastor, Vasile Filat, come and join us and teach us the Biblical perspective on how young people are to act while waiting to get married and what are the proper steps to take in order to get married. It was an interesting and helpful lesson so I decided to share it via an article, especially for those who do not speak Romanian. So, here are the 9 simple steps to the process of marrying according to God’s will.