From I can't live without you to I can't live with you!

Hebrews 13:4a NLT

4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.

Lately, I've been interacting with a lot of engaged and newly married couples. It is fun to watch the union of two people who want nothing more than to be together. In those stages, individuals seem to feel like they can't breathe without the other. Our focus can be entirely on the other person and during single life, individuals often feel like life will be incomplete if they do not get married to that person who has captured their attention and their heart.

As relationships continue, a transformation in this mindset can occur. Often, you see married couples who want nothing more than to be apart. In those stages, individuals seem to feel like the other person is smothering and suffocating them and impeding their ability to breathe. Focus seems to shift to self and during married life, individuals often feel like life will be incomplete if they do not find a way out of the marriage and away from the person who once captured their complete attention and total heart.

What a drastic change!

So, how do we avoid this transformation from feeling like you can't live without your person to feeling like you can't live with your person? Here are 3 suggestions:

1. Keep your connection. 

• Stay connected spiritually - Pray together, read the bible together, do church life together, build each other up spiritually and encourage your person's spiritual growth. These activities keep Christ as the central focus of your marriage. Chances are much greater with the pursuit of Jesus as a shared goal in your marriage.
• Stay connected emotionally - Share thoughts, share feelings, share reactions, comfort each other, work to bring joy to each other. Communication is essential. Communication kills conflict and communication keeps you connected, so develop strategies to ensure healthy communication in your marriage.
• Stay connected physically - Remember when you couldn't keep your hands off of each other when it was leading to sinful activity? Now it is time to keep your hands on each other. Don't let the bedroom lose its passion; it's up to you to keep the passion in your relationship. Part of the pre-marital intrigue with sex is that you're breaking the rules... and for some reason (mostly, our sinful nature), that can feel exciting. Once you're married, you have to incorporate new ways to bring excitement into your physical connection.  

2. Build in some space.

• Marriage doesn't mean you stop having a life; it actually can, and should, enhance both of your lives. You just have to find ways to make sure that your individual lives are helping fulfill the shared goals of your merged life. You are indeed living for your person, but part of living for that person involves some self-care and progress towards your individual goals as well. Your person won't be happy with you if you aren't happy with yourself. 
• In marriage, you spend a lot of time together. In order to keep that time as something you both look forward to, you have to build in some time apart. Give your person something to look forward to - your person can't ever miss you if you never go away. In fact, if you never go away, your person is going to begin to dread seeing you coming. Develop a hobby - spend some time with the right friends - go after a positive pursuit that your person can support - spend some time with yourself. I always tell people, every now and then you need to take yourself on a date. If you don't like spending time with you, why would anyone else? 

3. Don't stop trying. 

• Whatever it took to get your person, it will take double to keep your person. Make every effort to make your person's life better. If you sent flowers pre-marriage, send more flowers during marriage; if you took each other out on dates pre-marriage, do more dates during marriage; if you kept yourself looking good pre-marriage, don't start looking a mess during marriage. Successful marriages require determined effort.  
• In marriage, there is a new golden rule - Do unto your person as they want you to do unto them! Love your person the way he/she wants to be loved. Love shifts and it takes effort to keep up with the changing demands of your spouse. What your person needs during marriage may be something totally different than what was needed before marriage. Don't get frustrated and stop trying to keep up with new needs - keep trying. You won't always succeed, but you need to always try. Discover, what Chapman calls, your love language - and, the CURRENT love language of your person. Once you discover it, speak that language to your person. Whether words, acts, gifts, time, or touch - speak their language. (For more information on Chapman's love languages and to take the love language assessment, visit http://www.5lovelanguages.com/)

Prayer: Today, I pray for the success of our marriages. Marriage is sometimes challenging and frustrating, but it is also beautiful and rewarding. Lord, help us to experience the best of marriage and to overcome the pitfalls that attempt to steal the joy of our marriages. Give us strategic ideas to make our marriages successful. Empower us to be successful in our pursuit of good and healthy marriages and help us to always glorify You through our care and love for our spouses. We ask for your help; we thank you for our opportunity; and we believe You for our success. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.  

Contributed by: Pastor Razel Jones

The Language of Leaders

The Language of Leaders:

For all leaders going after success, check your progress against these important leadership steps towards actualizing any vision:

1. Know your vision. 

• Where are you going? What are you doing? What problem are you solving? What need are you meeting? 

2. Develop a strategy to accomplish the vision. 

• How are you getting there? How are you doing it? How are you solving it? How are you meeting the need?

3. Get buy-in into vision and strategy.

• Find out who is with you - not just who is there, but who is down for the cause. 
• Who wants to go where you're going - do what you're doing - solve what you're solving and meet the need you're meeting? 

4. Get to know your team.

• What talents, skills, and strengths do the people surrounding your vision bring to the table? What does each individual specialize in? What can you ask her to do that will end in success? What shouldn't you ask him to do so that he does not fail?
• Show them the real you so that they will open up and show you the real them. Authenticity is comfortable around authenticity - realness respects realness. 

5. Learn what motivates yourself and your team and provide the motivation.

• What is it that makes you want to keep moving forward? Feed that to yourself. 
• What is it that makes your individual team members want to keep moving forward? Feed that to your team.

6. Strategically align your team's individual talents with your corporate strategy. 

• How can what your team members specialize in help get your vision where it is trying to go? 

7. Celebrate small victories.

• What went well? 
• When a piece of the vision takes shape, make it a big deal. 
• When an individual successfully applies their talents to the strategy, make it a big deal.

8. Measure progress and give feedback balanced with grace & truth. 

• What should we start doing?
• What should we keep doing?
• What should we stop doing?

9. Correct issues and keep it moving. 

• What is the poison trying to attack your strategy? Remove it.
• What is the bottleneck? What's making progress come slowly? Open it up. 
• Have tough conversations. 
• Make sure that leaders are leading - if they're not, correct them or remove them.
• Find the root cause of the issue - ask "why" repeatedly to get to the root cause of the issue.

10. Never give up - actualize your vision!  

• Success isn't easy or everyone would have it. 
• Work hard, then put in hard work. 
• When you want to stop, start.
• Quit quitting - stop stopping - give up on giving up - do not not do!
• Keep going until you see in your reality what you saw in your mind. 

Contributed by: Pastor Razel Jones

Stop sinking and start floating.

I am enjoying the summer. In addition to trips to the beach, a lot of grilled food, and sun on a regular basis, one of the highlights of my summer has been taking my one and a half year old daughter to her weekly swimming lessons.

Disclaimer: I am a preacher and EVERYTHING becomes a potential sermon. 

So, while in the water, her teacher gave her the first water toy to play with and it floated on top of the water. Her assignment was to put her face towards the toy and blow bubbles while getting the toy. Then, the second water toy was distributed - it was about the same size, but this one did not float on top of the water - it sank towards the bottom of the water and her assignment was to submerge her whole face in and try to go get the sinking toy. 

It made me think - why do some of the toys float and some of the toys sink? 

Weight: The simple assumption to make involves the weight of the toys.The heavier the toy, the more likely it is to sink - seems logical, right? But, the weight alone can't be the only factor. After all, I weigh much more than the rubber shark my daughter was playing with, and I am able to float in the water instead of sinking like the toy. So, the answer is not weight. So, there have to be other factors.  

Design: The way the objects are made has to affect the flotation ability. Density is absolutely a factor affecting the ability to float. Science teaches us that if objects have dense, closely-packed together molecules they tend to sink, while loosely packed molecules have less density and tend to float. Another design consideration is if there is air inside the object, it is more likely to float. Upon further thought though, if it were only a matter of design, there would be no need to have my daughter in lessons - she would just float and swim based on design alone. I have seen a lot of people in the water who are full of air and have the same design that I have, but they tend to sink rather than float. Therefore, design affects the ability, but the answer has to be more than just design.  

Faith: It's not weight and it's more than design. I've been told that any human is designed to be able to swim, but what keeps us from swimming is fear. In order to float, a person must believe that they can and get rid of their fear of drowning. Once relaxed, we're less dense and we naturally float; but, in order to relax, we must believe in our ability to float.

Matthew 14:28-31New King James Version 

28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Today, someone reading this is facing some situations that look intimidating. You have to make a decision - will I jump into it or will I run from it - will I have fear or will I have faith - will I sink or will I float? You are designed by the Master craftsman; you are designed to float - not to sink. Psalm 139:14 declares that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. We serve a God who always causes us to triumph. Even when it looks like we're losing, there's some winning that's going to come out of it. So, I say to you today: 

1. Trust your designer - God crafted you. 

2. Trust your design - you have skills talents and abilities that are unstoppable.

3. Relax - enjoy the float. 

Floating is relaxing, but in order to enjoy the relaxing, you have to relax. Today, I challenge you to let go of your doubt; let go of your worry; let go of situations that are beyond your control. All of those things cause you to feel like you're sinking and even drowning. Let it go and enjoy the float!

Pastor Razel Jones

Take the test!

Multiple choice: Select the answer that best describes your reality.

A. Things will never get better.
B. It could be worse.

A. You might as well give up.

B. You have no choice but to keep going.

A. God will never remember you.

B. God will never leave you. 

A. My way always works.
B. God's way always works.

A. I do all things well. 

B. God does all things well. 

A. It's all about me. 

B. It's all about Jesus.  

A. I treat myself better than anyone else treats me.

B. He treats me better than I treat myself. 

A. I should complain. 

B. I should praise. 

This is the simplest test you could take - all the answers are the same. Yet and still, we often choose the wrong answer. Today, I want to challenge you to choose to B who God says you are - victorious, more than a conquerer - an overcomer! Hold on to what you know - don't let go!

Contributed by: Pastor Razel Jones