The Point

Jesse Birkey's picture

Excert from, Marriage What's the Point? One Couple Finds Meaning in a Crazy Mess 

by Jesse and Kara Birkey

available at www.reflectministry.com and amazon.

 

...Where are we supposed to get our validation from? Who is supposed to be the one giving us our sense of self-worth? Where does our love come from? Who is the one who is supposed to make us feel good about ourselves? Ultimately all of those things are supposed to come from God. He is our source of love. God is the one who tells us who we are. God provides our sense of self-worth. Basically, everything that we tend to look for our spouse or significant other to provide we are supposed to be getting from God. Does that mean as a husband or wife we don’t have to tell our spouses that we love them? Does it mean that we should not show them how much we love and care about them? Absolutely not! However, what it does mean is that we should not allow those compliments and acts of love to become the foundation of our identity.

It had been a couple of weeks since that awful Wednesday night and I was replaying a question that I had been asking myself and sort of asking God: “If we are supposed to be getting everything that we need from God as far as love, self-worth, and validation, then why did He create marriage at all?” If a healthy and healed person gets all of that stuff from God, then why should he/she have to subject himself/herself to marriage where there is pain and suffering? What is the point?

As I began to ask God that question, I began to yell at Him a little. It was at that point that He interrupted my spewing, as He often does, and gave me the answer: There are many benefits of marriage. God is able to use it in many ways that are beneficial to His kingdom and to us. But in that moment God pressed one reason on my heart in particular. God showed me that His intention and desire for marriage was to be a covenant relationship in which we could experience the intimate character and love of His heart. His intention is for us to be able to experience Him as we reflect who He is to each other. He wants to use the most intimate human relationship we can have to show us who He is....

Our ability to really know and understand who God is was so important to God that He created a covenant relationship that could go deeper than other relationships. A covenant where our hearts could be laid bare. A covenant in which our spirits are so intertwined with another that we feel what the other feels. It is a covenant that we can pour our hearts and souls into. We experience what the other experiences. We hurt when they hurt, and we feel joy when they feel joy. It was this covenant relationship in which God chose to reveal to us on a tangible level exactly who He is. The depth of His love and His mountains of grace and for- giveness. And how does He reveal this? Through us! 

Jesse and Kara Birkey

Sid Roth on Life Resurrected

“This next, greatest, and perhaps last move of God’s Spirit before His return will use nobodies to operate in a level of miracles that the world has never seen! This book will supernaturally release your faith to do the same works as Jesus and even greater.” -Sid Roth,
Host, It’s Supernatural!

www.reflectministry.com

jbirkey@reflectministry.com

twitter.com/JesseBirkey

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http://www.amazon.com/author/jessebirkey

We are excited to announce a new teaching series called, Life Resurrected, The Normal Christian Life.  It’s a 4 CD set.  Check it out at http://www.reflectministry.com/store.html

View the Trailer for our new book, Life Resurrected, Extraordinary Miracles through Ordinary People Here!

To find information on an exciting new documentary called DeadRaiser go to www.deadraiser.com

 

 

  

 

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Intimacy With God Through Journaling [Kindle Edition]

by Janet Gilham

It is a joy to celebrate the release of another new ebook of two-way journaling by one of our students, Janet Gilham! It was an honor to write the forward to this book, which contains 28 days of journaling. This makes it ideal to use for a month of your daily devotions. Each journal entry reveals the heart of God toward you and thus brings warmth and healing to our wounded hearts.

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Intimacy with the Holy Spirit eBook

Intimacy with the Holy Spirit eBook

by Mark and Patti Virkler | 223 Pages

This book leads you in meditating on and journaling about several hundred verses that discuss the Holy Spirit. You will grow in intimacy with the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the anointing within you will increase! You will exclaim as the disciples did on the Emmaus Road: “Did not our heart burn within us…while He opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32)! In addition to being led to journal through these verses, you will read numerous two-way journal entries from Mark Virkler, as well as a powerful five-page prayer at the conclusion of the book.

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Journaling Questions e-booklet

100's of journaling questions arranged in categories

Jumpstart your two-way journaling! People often ask me, do you have good journaling questions I can use in my dialogue with Jesus? The answer is yes! Predicting the date of His return is not going to work out well. So how about hundreds of GREAT two-way journaling questions you can ask the Lord!

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Lamad Faculty Handbook eBook

Lamad Faculty Handbook eBook

by Mark and Patti Virkler | 78 pages

This book presents lamad (revelation-based learning) standards  for teachers and curriculum writers. Lamad is a Hebrew word found in the Old Testament and it is translated "to teach" or "to learn."  It is a kind of learning that involves the Holy Spirit granting divine revelation to the heart of man. Thus it goes beyond western rationalism as a learning methodology.

Price: $7.96

Meditation: How to Study the Bible in the Presence of God ebook

Click here for Kindle version.

This book is our more academic version of this topic, designed more for the theologian.

Our practical, hands-on, user-friendly version for personal or group use is Hearing God Through Biblical Meditation.

Price: $2.99
Naturally Supernatural eBook

Naturally Supernatural eBook

by Mark and Patti Virkler | 161 Pages

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On Things Above ebook

by Murray Dueck | 232 Pages

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Operations Manual eBook

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Overflow of the Spirit - PDF eBook Cover

Overflow of the Spirit PDF eBook

284 Pages | Instant Download & Pay No Shipping! | by Mark Virkler and Charity Kayembe

Mark and Charity have teamed up again to write a book on how to easily manifest the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. It took us several years to break through all the confusion and present a clear, simple understanding of how to release the nine-fold manifestation of the Holy Spirit everywhere you go and with everyone you touch. It is not hard! It can’t be since these are gifts of the Holy Spirit, not things you have to work for.

Price: $15.99

Playtime with Jesus eBook

Helping Kids Know God | Jessica De Krijger

The goal of this little booklet by Jessica De Krijger is to help young children, ages 3 and up, learn how to start hearing God's voice for themselves. It is never too early to teach your children that they can hear from God. They are primed to do this. God's Spirit is urging them to come to Him. So reinforce this call with this beautiful full-color booklet which you can read to your children. Discover more at the Playtime With Jesus Website.

Price: $3.20

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