We Make Each Other Holy

What is the purpose of marriage?  A single person might tell you that it is meant to be the cure for loneliness.  A newly engaged person might tell you it is for the joy and fulfillment of spending the rest your life with your best friend.  But a married person will tell you the truth: the purpose of marriage is sanctification.

This sounds remarkably unromantic and brings to mind images of suffering and discipline rather than long walks on the beach, but it is one of the first lessons any married person will learn.  All illusions of "marital bliss" will be shattered within days once you realize that you are a sinner, your spouse is a sinner, and that putting two sinners in an intimate, lifelong relationship is an incredibly messy business.

But this journey toward making each other holy is also a journey of discovering the beauty and joy of this God-designed marriage covenant.  Yes, you will fight; you will hurt each other and judge each other.  Your deepest insecurities will be exposed, as will all your idols and your best-hidden flaws.  It is in this place of vulnerability, however, that you will give and receive grace like you never have before.  You will be challenged to throw away your vices and grow in the virtues of patience, forgiveness, and selflessness.  No, it will never be perfect.  But it will always be a testimony of how God used this one person - this fellow sinner - to draw you closer to Himself.

[Extracted from LIVING Life October 2016]

Dinner at Tsuruya Japanese Restaurant at E-Gate, Penang

Spent dinner at Tsuruya Japanese Restaurant at E-Gate before adjourning to Queensbay Mall for desserts at Haagen Dazs.

Blesser not the Blessing

In the Old Testament, riches were considered tangible evidence of God blessing.  Prosperity was seen as a proof of right living.  In ideal conditions, people prosper when God runs their lives, but prosperity is not guaranteed.  Wealth does not prove that a person is living right before God, and poverty does not indicate sin.
I believed when God blesses us, He wants to use us as a channel to bless others.

In fact, 1 Samuel 2:7 states  "The Lord sent poverty and wealth, He humbles and He exalts."  In other words, God is the sources of all blessing - He gives and He takes away because He is God.