Dr. Neil T. Anderson – Restored Hope – Overcoming Addiction

Having Conflict in your Marriage?

Over the years I have seen far too many Christian Marriages and other marriages  come to a sad end.
In some my wife and I have counselled with couples and some have got things together and their marriage has endured and grown.

Others sadly not.

Here are some things to consider for anyone contemplating ending their Christian marriage.

1. It is never God's will that a Christian marriage fails. If it is not His will you can expect He will provide the necessary tools to strengthen and grow your marriage.
He does.

2. You will see a link attached  here to a short video clip by Dr. Charles Solomon of Grace Fellowship International. He points out that the marriage is not the problem but the people in it.
That first the people need to know who they are in Christ and then to know and experience the freedom that being crucified with Christ brings. Dying to self.
Jesus living in you.
Do not be put off by Dr. Solomon's dead pan  delivery. He is an old man in his 90's but this is the wisdom of Solomon in more ways than one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB2uE6gnFx4

3. Another thing that people don't understand is that they are not "wrestling with flesh and blood".
   The devil wants to destroy their Christian home and marriage. He is very happy when they fight with each other and are blinded to what he is doing.
He often uses Christian people to give ungodly advice that is not centered in the Cross of Jesus and all that is available through the Cross.
The wisdom of man that is called "common sense" often prevails.
Common sense is often just that Common!
There are two persons wanting to control our lives.
One is God ,The Holy Spirit, one is the devil.
We have the choice as to who we let take control.
Sadly some Christians don't even realise there  is a devil.

4. It is not too late to save your marriage, sometimes even after separation and divorce.
    Seek Godly counsel and read Christian Literature that is about saving your marriage.
Talk to people who want to help you work it out not those who have already failed in their own marriages or given up.
Many of those if they were honest would tell you that plan B or C or D is not all that it is cracked up to be.
Go to Jesus the Counsellor.
http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/his-name-is-counsellor.html
It can be better than it ever was even after years of bickering and fighting.

5. Learn how to Walk in the Spirit, Abide in Christ . Learn and then practice your faith.
No one is a fully mature, fully developed Christian at their new birth. It is a lifetime growth experience.

You don't have to be perfect to know your freedom in Christ.

6. Do not listen to the lies we have come into our heads such as

"I cannot change how I am, I was born like this."

" I would never give up my beliefs  about  how things should be."

"I can't see that person ever changing and I'm not going to"

"That's not how I was brought up."

7. Realise, if we are Carnal Christians, that we are always trying to justify our sin and poor behaviour by blaming someone else and not looking at ourselves.

We won't let go of our pride.

Lastly listen to this sermon on the link below about the Cross of Christ.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/the-cross-of-christ.html

If you listen to it you will see that you will desperately want to forgive all those you have wronged you including the one you are divorcing or separating from.
I qualify that statement by saying to you let the Holy Spirit speak to you through it and you should never be the same again.
Listen to at at least once a week until you get the message of the Cross.

If you are not moved by it then you are being blinded by the enemy.

Read the transcript as you listen to the audio.


your Christian Servant

Geoff Thompson

Ps I am not making light of the struggles and hurt people experience in their marriages.
Where violence is being experienced and ongoing then there is a case for separation.
Personal safety of yourself and loved ones is paramount.

Whether you stay married or not Jesus is the only one who can give you the desires of your heart, not another person, another mate who you might think is compatible. That person also has all the same human failings as your current partner and yourself.

Mutual Ministries-Gifts of the Spirit and other studies

Back in the 1970's my wife and I received excellent teaching from our pastors on the Gifts of The Holy Spirit and indeed on the Holy Spirit's role in our Christian lives.
We had study guides presented on
1. Mutual  Ministries-Using and discovering our gift or gifts in the Church
2. The Young Church in Action-Studies in the book of Acts.
3.The Holy Spirit
4.Spiritual Warfare
5. The Battlefield-in depth study on spiritual warfare.
6.The School of Prayer
7. Establishing and keeping a Quiet Time
8.Studies in the Gospel of John
9. Baptism
10.The men Jesus won, the men He did not win.(A guide to effective evangelism)
11. Miscellaneous truths from the Bible
12. Emotions and feelings.
13. After decision, then what?

In addition there were many audio tapes produced on topics such as
The New Man
Renewal
The Second Coming of Christ
Love

Some of these studies have already been posted on this blog and my Christian sermons blog. and on youtube(pembridge house) as audio tapes.

The New Man tape 3 by Frank Hunting is one of the most telling studies you could listen to if you suffer from rejection,are introverted, feel defeated, have low self esteem and many other things crippling you as a Christian.
Below is the link to it on my youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY4VbTYMveE

Before listening to this audio you should determine that you will perservere to hear God speak to you.Blot out any judgements about the topic,the speaker or the audio quality.
I welcome any discussion or email about this message from genuine enquirers.

I am prepared to scan and make pdfs of some of the material mentioned above as an aid to you fully becoming a new creation in Christ.

Please note I am not a "qualified" academic type Christian. I am a layperson who understands well the battles we have as Christians from personal experience and know that my acceptance  of who I am rests entirely on the sacrifice Jesus has made for me on the Cross.
His acceptance means I can accept myself.
.

My Life Changing Christian Sermons Blog

To people who read this blog on a regular basis or also casually please note I have other blogs.
I am now going to be posting my own sermons on my Christian Sermons  site as well as this one.
I am speaking more regularly now in Christian Churches and it may be easier to locate all my Christian content in one place.
I will continue to post such messages on both blogs.
Note there are audio messages and written ones.

http://geoffthompsonstapelibrary.blogspot.com.au/

Sermons given at Parkrose Nursing Home and Renmark Uniting Church will be posted here and on that blog.

"Go to Jesus" by Frank Hunting

This is a podcast from a taped address by Frank Hunting given in the 1970's. See other titles by Frank on this blog and the post about Frank Hunting.
In this sermon Frank mentions the booklet "Looking Unto Jesus" by Theodore Monod.
There is a link below to the text of this booklet.
http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/about-fank-hunting.html

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/looking-unto-jesus.html

Christian Counselling by Frank Hunting

Below  is an extract from a Churches of Christ provocative pamphlet from 1955 by Frank Hunting.Over the length of his lifetime and ministry Frank counselled and helped hundreds of people including myself.
The Church desparately needs people doing what Frank has suggested here.
If Frank were alive today he would also be endorsing that not Just Christian "Ministers" have the responsibility to counsel but also appropriately equipped lay people.
There are organisations which have developed programmes for equipping lay people.
Two that I recommend are Grace Fellowship International(Charles Solomon is the founder) and Freedom in Christ Ministries(Founded by Neil Anderson)

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"Spiritual Counselling.
      Spiritual counselling is not being seriously undertaken in our churches. It is still regarded as the work of specially trained or specially gifted men. It ought to be the normal thing in every congregation. For this work spiritual insight is more important than psychological training. Every minister, if he follows the practice of his Master, would give hours of his time every week to this important work, but the average minister is so overtaxed by the demands of organising a modern congregation that he completely throws out any suggestion that he may need five or six hours in any week to sit at leisure to give spiritual counselling to people who need it. Nor, do the deacons and members realise how important it is that their pastor should do this work.
      Homes are breaking or are in trouble, individuals carry, crushing personal problems, nervous breakdowns crop up here and there, good Christian people are developing neurotic tendencies, and all these should be receiving special spiritual counselling. There is need for guidance and counsel on all aspects of living which the minister out of his growing store of wisdom and experience should be giving, and in any church where the work of the Holy Spirit is in evidence there should be individuals becoming dissatisfied with their Christian experience who want to grow spiritually--these and other aspects of living demand that churches should see to it that their minister has adequate time to give all the spiritual counselling needed. People, whose problems have a spiritual origin are going to doctors and psychiatrists; they should be going to Christian ministers skilled in spiritual counselling.

The Equipment
      God can train a man in spiritual counselling and the following personal equipment is essential. A man must himself quite obviously have an increasingly growing experience living Saviour, He must know from first-hand personal experience the power of Christ to change men. To undertake spiritual counselling should be to enter into a secret compact with God to pray in faith for Christ's cleansing and delivering power in the life of the one we are counselling.
      The basic requirements of the spiritual counsellor are:
      * The counsellor must have faced all his own sin, failures, defeats and share these with another.
      * He should live in the open with others about his pride, sin, victories, prejudices, self--all that the Holy Spirit is showing him to be when measured against the life of Jesus.
      * He must obviously be finding Christ to be the answer to his own life, circumstances and situations.
      * He must be willing to share any part of his life with another as God directs him.
      * He must be practising God's guidance and leading in his own life and affairs. Only as God leads will some unravel the tangle of their lives. The spiritual counsellor to help such people must have complete confidence in the Holy Spirit's guidance and leadership in such matters.
      * He must have unbounded confidence in Christ's power to meet and solve the problems and needs in any person's life. There are no exceptions to this.
      * He must never take sides either for or against people, but always take God's side, God's part in every situation.
      * He must be an unfailing channel of love and patience.
      * He must give all the time needed even if this extends over years.
      * He must see more than the situation as presented to him; he must see origins, causes, reasons.
      * For this he will need deep penetration into motives and the self-deceptions we all deal in. This demands constant reliance upon the Holy Spirit for the insights which liberate.
      * We must learn not only to detect the causes of trouble and upset, we must also learn to help people build into their lives the positive power that lies in faith in God,
      This word from Oswald Chambers must be the conviction of the counsellor: "The Lord seems to come to us in every individual case we meet--'Believest thou that I am able to do this?' Whether it be a case of demon possession, bodily upset, mental twist, backsliding, indifference, difference of nationality and thought--the challenge is to me: Do I know my risen Lord? Am I wise enough in God's sight to bank on what Jesus told me? Am I foolish enough according to the wisdom of the world to do it? or am I abandoning the supernatural position, which is the only one for a missionary (or Christian), of boundless confidence in Jesus?"
      Let us not try to be psychologists. We come to offer men and women Christ. His cleansing for their sin. His all sufficient grace for their defeats and failures. His never failing presence for their confusion and frustration. His guidance and solution on all matters. Christ is Himself the answer and He alone has the answer. Many people want help but they don't want it in the only way they will ever get it. Till they want help in the way He can give, we may need to stand aside watching them try all the approved failures until they are willing to believe that Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life.

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F. C. HUNTING--
      Graduated from the Federal College of the Bible in 1933. After graduating, he served the churches at Blackburn and Prahran, Victoria, then followed three years as Youth Director for our New South Wales churches. On the expiration of that term he served the church at Ann St., Brisbane, for a period, and has been with the Dawson St. church, Ballarat, Victoria, for the past six and a half years."

My footnote.
 In semi retirement Frank came to the Church of Christ at Grote Street in Adelaide as a colleaugue of Pastor Harold Long.They were in tandem ministry for 5 years.
He then moved to Noarlunga Centre Church of Christ in 1980 where he finished his official ministry.
Frank also gave considerable assistance to the Murray Bridge Church of Christ while in Aelaide.
He was a counsellor to many in Adelaide and Victoria and beyond in his lifetime.

See also the link below to an extract from Frank's booklet on Christmas about Jesus as Counsellor.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/his-name-is-counsellor.html

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