New Marriage, Same Spouse: Mark Driscoll

Wonderful message about God, marriage, and forgiveness by Mark Driscoll.  

Check it out: http://marshill.com/media/real-marriage/new-marriage-same-spouse

Relationships with Mr. Creflo Dollar

Alright, today's post is an amazing video about singleness, marriage, and everything in between by Creflo Dollar. I know if you're anything like me it's hard for you to just sit and watch a 10 minute video, but if you'll just play this video on your computer while your putting on your makeup, cooking, or searching Facebook, I feel like it will bless you. Creflo has some amazing points and some great reminders for our relationships. Besides who couldn't improve on their relationships a little? :)

Secrets and Regrets

Your secrets and regrets

Are keeping you from going very far

And you can't let all this get you down

And keep you living in the dark

I don't know if any of you have heard this song by Pillar, but it has so much truth to it. You can apply this to so many different areas in life--the lesson here is transparency. God has been teaching me about this all semester--it just keeps coming up. I feel like Christians have lost the raw truth of Christ and are stuck in the rut of trying to master a holy outward appearance while neglecting the inside.

James 5:16 says "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Colossians 3:13 says "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

1 Thessalonians 5:11-"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are

doing."

1 Peter 1:22- "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart."

How can we expect to find healing, true friendship love, and encouragement when we never share the truth with anyone. Sisters that's what best friends are for. We are all weak. We all sin (Romans 3:23.) We all need help, truth, and encouragement. But if you don't open up you will never find that freedom and peace.

Be careful to understand that I am not advocating sharing your deepest secrets with all of Times Square. I am however recommending that you have at least one or two strong Christian women in your life whom you can pour into and receive godly wisdom from.

Do you have a dark past? One of pain, guilt, and shame? Does that thing you did way back when haunt you every day of your life? Does the devil play mind games with you over this sin still? Perhaps it's your family life. Maybe it's a sickness you are embarrassed about. Or maybe it is sexual sin that you are too ashamed to share with other Christians.

Whatever it is, you need to find a confidant and share that with them. But why would you go through this humility?

1. Because it's biblical! The list of verses above should have already pointed that out to you. We are social creatures created to interact and love one another (Gen 2:18.) By being fake who are your friends and family actually loving? A nobody? True friends and true family are going to love you know matter what you have done. So come clean and confess your secrets to them.
2. Prayer changes things! The power of prayer is obvious, amazing, and supernatural. Prayer can heal! When my friends pray over me and for me I can instantly feel a peace come over my soul. God wants us to pray for one another! This is one of the ways he works! But girl, how can you receive the awesome blessings of heartfelt prayer from other people if you don't tell them what's going on?
3. Encouragement. When my friends come to me with a problem I immediately try to offer them some encouragement, a relevant bible verse, and prayer. Often times when I am doing my quiet time in the following week I will find other verses that apply to their situation. When I send these to my friends, more often than not, it is exactly what they needed to hear from God. I say this because if my friends didn't open up to me I couldn't encourage them and give them the messages from God they needed to hear.

I know it's super hard and super humiliating to open up and share dissapointments, pain, and failures with the people you love. But you must defeat these lies from the devil and hold tightly to God's promises of freedom, courage, and healing. By doing this you will also see your relationships become stronger and deeper between you and your friends.

Love you and praying for you,

Haley Marie

Erasing Soul Ties Part 2

After you have confessed your sins to God specificaly and asked him to restore your spirit, heart, and body, the next step is to believe that it is done. Again, 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Therefore he has already forgiven you immediately after you repent. This is God's promise to us so we know that it is true and never changing.

Pslams 103:12 says, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." This verse can reassure that after you confess once, your sins are erased and forgotten completely. These verses should give us complete confidence in our cleansed heart and the renewal of our pure spirit, however because we are human, the hardest part is often forgiving ourselves. For some reason we cannot comprehend why a loving and just God would choose to cover our sins with the blood of his son and accept our faults with open arms. However, it is true.

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son SO THAT whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life."

Romans 5:8

"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

God sent his son to die for you SO THAT he can forgive you and restore your life to the fullest! (John 10:10) So trust him in spite of your doubts. Claim one of these verses as your own and quote it over and over again until it becomes real to you. When you doubt, listen to the promises of God. He wants you to live in freedom, not bondage forever! (Galatians 5:13)

Perhaps this song could help you too. When I have trouble understanding God's forgiveness I play this on repeat over and over again until my heart believes. The lyrics are shown true in scripture, so this is God's promise to you. Be set free my dear sister.

Erasing Soul Ties

This blog talks a lot about saving yourself for your husband, waiting for him, and holding on to purity. While this is the ultimate goal, what happens if you have already lost your purity? What if you lived in recklessness before you turned to God? Will he forgive you? Will you still enjoy your wedding night?

The answer is yes.

God has the power to do anything. He can restore the prostitute to a new virgin, he can take away the guilt of premarital sex, he can take away the grief and pain of rape. All we have to do is wholeheartedly ask for it, and believe he will answer us. 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

When two people have sex the bible says that "the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh." (Mark 10:8) Therefore, any person you have previously slept with has a piece of your heart, flesh, and spirit. This can cause extreme pain, guilt, and insecurity, not only now but also in a marriage later on. The only way to truly be healed and set free is to admit your sins to God specifically, admit the hurt, confess everything, and ask for forgiveness. Then trust God to keep his promise and restore your spirit.

Here is a prayer my friend recently showed me. It is called the "Soul Ties Prayer" because it is meant to break the soul ties between to sexual partners who were not married. I am sharing it with you below:

Lord I confess I have practiced (fornication, adultery or homosexuality). I choose to repent for my sinful

practices and ask that you break this sin with the power of your cross and cover my sin with Your Blood.

I confess all my ungodly spirit, soul, and body ties as sin. I thank you for forgiving me and cleansing me!

In Jesus name, I ask you to loose me from all soulish ties in past sex partners and ungodly relationships.

Lord, I pray that You take the Sword of Truth and separate my spirit from _________(name) so that I can be free

to be wholly given and presented to my mate. Return my spirit to me, and ________’s(name) spirit to them.

In Jesus name, please uproot all the tentacles of sexual bondage, of emotional longings and dependencies,

and enslaving thoughts. I bind, renounce, and resist any evil spirits that have reinforced those soul ties or

may have been transferred between me through evil associations.

I direct my personal spirit in the name of Jesus to forget this union and remember it no longer.

Lord, I confess that I have feelings of guilt and shame, I take my feelings of guilt and shame arising from

this relationship to your cross. In Jesus name I break these feelings off me.

Lord, I pray blessings over __________. (Pray blessings as the Holy Spirit directs you)

Please cleanse my soul and help me to forget all illicit unions so that I am free to give my soul to you and

to my mate. Father, I receive your forgiveness. I believe I am totally forgiven.

Pray this over each person you have messed around with/had sex with. It is really helpful and freeing! Trust the holy spirit to do his work with this.

True Love Doesn't Just Wait...

"True love doesn't just wait...it plans."

This is a quote taken from Joshua Harris' Boy Meets Girl. The theme in this chapter talks about how to plan for the best night of your life: your wedding night. In all reality, you don't just say you're going to remain sexually pure until marriage and expect it to happen. The devil is smarter than that and our hormones are trickier than that. When put in the right situation any vow will fail.

So how do you keep your purity if you really do want to

save it for your husband? You must plan out the details! You don't just go on a date with your boyfriend one night and randomly decide to have sex that instant, it is built up

tension. Chances are you two have probably been holding hands for a while, kissing a couple weeks or so, and maybe even other things that led you a little farther than you wanted to be physically. If you both decided to go that far, how do you keep the line drawn at no intercourse? Honestly, it's going to be very hard, if not impossible.

As Christians, we are called to a higher standard. You should know by now that God has called us to be PURE. 1 Thessalonians 4:8 says we should AVOID sexual immorality. Not tempt it, not play with it and try it out, but AVOID it all together completely. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 6:18 says FLEE from sexual immorality--that means run as fast as you can in the other direct

ion!

So think about the following situations, which ones are following God's Avoid & Flee policy and which ones are following the world's tempt & try strategy?

• Hanging out alone with your significant other in your bedroom.
• Side hugs only
• Hanging out at the mall with lots of friends
• Make-out sessions..
• Having a mentor regularly check up on your relationship with your man
• Sitting alone in a parked car
• Talking on the phone late at night

Some of these sound extreme, some of them make per

fect sense, but you should stop and think about how one thing leads to another. Even if you haven't had the chance to be in that type of situation yet, we all know you watch movies and the way sex progresses in the movies is the exact same way it progresses in real life. Your sitting in the car just having a nice chat, when the next thing you know...well, you know how the story goes.

The point is, you can never be too careful! The more you deny yourselves now, the more pleasure and enjoyment you will get to have on your wedding day! If you try all the crazy stuff now you will have fun, but you will also suffer long-term consequences afterwards. Stuff they don't tell you about in the movies or in the heat of the moment. Here are just a few examples of real women I have talked too:

• Of course, the obvious- STDS. not fun at all.
• pregnancy
• abortion-talk about a heartbreaking story.
• Regret- this one's the killer.
• Shame- And this one trumps them all. How are you supposed to go into a marriage knowing you can't even show yourself faithful before? (Don't worry, I will cover this issue soon.)

On top of these issues, there is also the horrible effect that sex has on your relationship. After sex couples are more likely to break up. Trust issues start to take shape, and the relationship tends to become mostly physical, throwing all the talking and really getting to know you stuff out the window.

Take it from someone who has heard all the stories and cried with all the friends. It's not worth it. Plan ahead and write out a list of boundaries for you and your boyfriend, or if your single, write it out for your next relationship. You know what tempts you, what causes your mind to wander and hormones to surge, nip sin in the bud and take yourself out of the dangerous situations. 1 Corinthians 6:18-FLEE FROM IT GIRL!!

Plan it out. Tomorrow I will give you some more ideas on boundaries.

Lady Adulterer?

So the time I normally spend blogging, I have been using to study for midterms, and when I haven't been studying for midterms, I have been deeply studying Proverbs 7-9. Read this and see what you think...

At the window of my house
I looked down through the lattice.
I saw among the simple,
I noticed among the young men,
a youth who had no sense.
He was going down the street near her corner,
walking along in the direction of her house
at twilight, as the day was fading,
as the dark of night set in.

Then out came a woman to meet him,
dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.
(She is unruly and defiant,
her feet never stay at home;
now in the street, now in the squares,
at every corner she lurks.)
She took hold of him and kissed him
and with a brazen face she said:

“Today I fulfilled my vows,
and I have food from my fellowship offering at home.
So I came out to meet you;
I looked for you and have found you!
I have covered my bed
with colored linens from Egypt.
I have perfumed my bed
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!
My husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.

He took his purse filled with money

and will not be home till full moon.”

With persuasive words she led him astray;
she seduced him with her smooth talk.
All at once he followed her
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer^{a]" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 0.5em; ">[a]} stepping into a noose^{b]" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 0.5em; ">[b]}
till an arrow pierces his liver,
like a bird darting into a snare,
little knowing it will cost him his life.

Now then, my sons, listen to me;
pay attention to what I say.
Do not let your heart turn to her ways
or stray into her paths.
Many are the victims she has brought down;
her slain are a mighty throng.
Her house is a highway to the grave,
leading down to the chambers of death.

--Proverbs Chapter 7