One on One Ministry

Sometime as a man you may feel defeated but continue to pray to The Most High God seek his understanding his knowledge his wisdom. No matter what's coming against you continue to pray continue to seek his face because what I'm learning is it's only going to get harder and you only can stand with The Most High God.

Strawberry Shortcake Icebox Cake
🥰👉Ingredients :
3 cups heavy cream, very cold
1½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract👇😍

7 Layer Taco Dip - Don't LOSE this recipe .
This is such a great recipe. The whole family loved it 😋😍
Ingredient
1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
Must express something to keep getting my recipes.... Thank you.
Recipe in First (c.o.m.m.e.n.t ).👇

[The following is an excerpt from the transcript of Scott Hahn's audio and video tape presentation, "Christ and the Church: A Model for Marriage" as it appears in the "Catholic Adult Education on Video Program" with Scott and Kimberly Hahn. In this program Scott shows how the relationship between Christ and His Church is the perfect model for all marriages and expands upon St. Paul's teaching on this most Holy Union.]
Christ and the Church: A Model for Marriage
Scott Hahn
Franciscan University of Steubenville

Biblical Perspective on Marriage and the Family

I want to spend some time with you this morning considering a Biblical perspective on marriage and the family and, in particular, I'd like to look at how the Christ-Church relationship provides us with a model for our own marriage. The key texts for this consideration are from Ephesians 5 and also Matthew 19. Those are the texts that you should know as Catholics if people ask you, they approach you and say, "Why do you all regard matrimony as a sacrament? Why do you think that Jesus Christ made marriage absolutely and strictly monogamous with no possibility for divorce and remarriage?" You need to know where to turn. Ephesians 5 beginning with verse 21 and going all the way down into chapter 6, 3 and 4. And then also Matthew 19, 1-12, and we are also going to look at the parallel text to that, the same account as described in Mark 10, 1-12.


Ephesians 5:21-6:4

So write that down. Keep that in mind. Know those texts. In Ephesians 5, verse 21, we read, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, His body, and is himself its savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." That is an unpopular statement by the Apostle Paul. Unpopular in the Church and even more unpopular outside the Church in the world. But it's an inspired statement that we need to understand and come to grips with in our own minds and in our own lives as well.

It's frightening for me to think about the responsibility of women and wives in particular, in light of that verse. "For the husband is the head of the wife and Christ is the head of the Church, His body, and is himself its savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." And husbands, I'll bet, would like to stop there; and just say, "Let's contemplate this for a while." But women are troubled thinking, "I haven't come to this conference to hear some impossible commandment." Well, if you think that's impossible, listen to the next verse: "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her."

If you think it's almost impossible for a mortal woman to submit to a mortal and fallible man in marriage, I would suggest it's actually more impossible, in human terms, for the husband to fulfill the second injunction, "...to love your wife as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her." That is absolute and total self-sacrifice! Christ was not saying, "Grovel, submit, bow down." He was saying, "I love you. I want to show it. I'll die for you." It goes on to say, "...gave himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word." In other words, Christ sanctifies the Church as spiritual leader. He provides husbands with the model of how they are to live out their own love for their wives as husbands imitating Christ.

One of the problems we're going to address in this weekend conference is the crisis of masculinity and spirituality, because in America today, to be religious and male is to be effeminate. That's a fact. You look at most churches, you look at most religious organizations and meetings and the majority of people are women. And the majority of people in leadership positions are usually women. Ann Marshall wrote a book recently, about fifteen years ago, entitled, The Feminization of American Culture, and she focuses particularly upon American church life to show how religion is commonly perceived as being the woman's province.

Not so for St. Paul! He tells us that the husband, in imitation of Christ, is to sanctify the wife. That doesn't mean bossing around, telling her what to do. It means leadership by servanthood and by example and it means that he is responsible in his own household to provide spiritual leadership.

We could just stop with that and ponder it for a few minutes and have more than enough to take home and be challenged to live out. It goes on, "... that He might present the Church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself for no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh."

Verse 32 is the all-important verse: "This mystery is a profound one." That word in Greek, mysterion, is where we get the word mystery. But the Latin rendering of that is the word, "sacramentum." It's a magnum sacramentum, a great sacramental mystery. "This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." The Christ-Church relationship is the model for every one of our marriages, and I think it's especially challenging for men to ponder Christ's role in that marital covenant.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Remember, the Bible Never Mentions a Building Called ‘Church’
The Church was never meant to be a place.
POSTED ONJUNE 24, 20196 MINUTE READJOHN PAVLOVITZ

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Recently, I wrote this piece, encouraging people who love God but who for any number of reasons find themselves outside of a traditional church.

A number of Fundamentalist Christians objected. So I thought I’d take a few moments to share why the Church as a building was never the point to Jesus and the early Church:
ADVERTISING

Jesus teaches Kingdom, not building. The Gospel biographies are filled with evocative, vivid parables, all about the Kingdom of God. They were Jesus’ central teaching. But this kingdom He speaks about is not a where but a when.

It is the state of the world when people acknowledge God; when God is honored and worshipped and respected—the Kingdom is present.

Throughout the Gospels, you can find Jesus teaching on the characteristics of His Kingdom people as they reflect the character of God in the world. The Church was never about brick and mortar. It was always greater than that. It was about a way of being in the world.

Jesus tells Peter he is the rock of the Church. He affirms His disciple Peter’s faith and character, and says that he will be the foundation of the Kingdom community as it grows.

Jesus isn’t hiring Peter—a fisherman by trade—as a subcontractor to erect a building with a steeple. He only notes Peter’s devotion, and tells him to continue the Kingdom work he’d already begun. He is to steward the people of God: no building campaign, no weekly services.

HOW THE CHURCH IS BUILT
People are the building blocks.

Jesus feeds the 5,000. A crowd has been listening to Jesus teach on a remote hillside, and the nearest Chick-Fil-A is still 2,000 years away. The gathering there is a mix of the invested, the curious and the skeptical. No sanctuary or liturgy; only Jesus speaking about God in real-time and then sharing a meal with those gathered on the hillside.

That would be the model throughout the New Testament: Gather. Eat. Share. Remember me. Live.

The book of Hebrews says that we don’t need a middle man. Writing to Jewish believers in Jesus, the author makes it clear that a human high priest is no longer needed as a liaison between ourselves and God—that God was not encountered only in the temple.

Jesus gives us each direct access to Divinity.

I grew up Catholic, believing the priest was an intermediary for me and that a variety of saints gave me special connection to God. This isn’t what the New Testament teaches. The priest, rabbi, minister or pastor is not magic. They can be helpful, but they’re not essential and they’re not supernatural. And yes, because of this, you can have access to God wherever you are—no matter how modest or ordinary the surroundings might be.

The Church grows without a building campaign. The early believers were essentially in-house churches, where immediate family, extended family and friends were already living in deep, meaningful community together. They didn’t have to rent out space and a sound system and start service planning.

They were already living life together organically and so they didn’t need to create a destination to foster community. These groups absorbed the new converts, but there is no evidence of the healthy evolution of these communities into organized churches. The only mention we have is in the book of Revelation, where large, opulent churches are being chastised for their corruption and apathy.

GOD WITH US
Jesus says where two or three are gathered He is present. Two or three—not 40 or 150 or 6,000. Not an auditorium with a speaker, a band and dozens of rows of chairs.

This is Emmanuel “God with us.” Jesus never promises that with size or organization that there would be more of His presence. He didn’t leave building instructions or establish an organizational structure or provide liturgical templates. He affirmed that his people and his presence were the only necessary ingredients. They would come to the table together, and He would take a seat there with them. Your kitchen table, a bar in a tap-room, a bench at the park, a coffee shop. He is present there.

He said so.

The Apostle Paul tells us we are the Temple. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes to tell Christians in that city that God’s presence is not just above and around them but within them. They are the very “Body of Christ” on earth, they are the “temple of the Holy Spirit”—living, breathing sanctuaries.

The idea of them needing to visit a specific place to have proximity to God was now ludicrous. They were the place. They needed only to go inward. This is the heart of the Church then. It still is; not where they gather, but as they gather.

Jesus tells the disciples to remember Him. At their final meal before His death, Jesus offers bread and wine as a symbol of his coming sacrifice. He then asks them to remember him when they break bread together in the future.

He is not telling them to establish a weekly worship service or to create a rigid liturgy or to institute a sacrament. He is commanding them not to forget Him; to live together and to eat and to remember. No sanctuary is necessary for this. This is a fully portable experience.

The truth is Jesus was teaching something very different from what the word “church” means to us today. We’ve grown up in the building and the system and the tradition, so we believe that this is the Church. But the Church as a place you visit for an hour on Sunday where God shows up, or where community can solely be found—simply isn’t Biblical.

Jesus’ ministry was about de-centralizing religion, so that the people carried it, not the synagogue or temple or the sanctuary.

Again, you may find that building comforting or edifying, and you may find inspiration and wisdom there. That may be spiritual community for you. But don’t assume that this building has the market cornered on any of those things, and don’t cheapen the spiritual journey of those outside of the building, by acting as if everything found there cannot also be found beyond it. It can. Over and over the Bible makes this clear.

JESUS AND REST
This week, a Christian guy sarcastically called out a quote from my previous piece saying, “Oh, I get to grow closer to God, just by taking a nap? Cool!”

I reminded him of the disciples finding Jesus asleep in the back of the boat in the middle of the storm, about the many times he withdrew to the solitary places to rest, about Peter hearing from God in a dream, and of the words of the 23rd Psalm where the writer describes God’s provision:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.

In other words, “What I most need is God to tell me to trust and take a nap.” I think that’s a holy directive.

So yes, this Sunday, you might be in a building somewhere in a traditional worship service.

You might be talking faith and life with a group of friends in your home.

You might be taking a nap alone on a grassy field by a steam.

You might be with a couple of people, breaking bread and remembering that God’s presence is promised there, and living life with reverence and gratitude.

All equally sacred. All equally holy. All you being the Biblical Church.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so cavalier or so quick to debate people’s understanding or experience of Church—especially when it so closely matches Jesus’.

To all the children of Isreal that is on all the four corners of the earth. It is time to take a stand on the true meaning of the word of God.

Isaiah 43 King James Version (KJV)
43 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

4 Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.

5 Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.

9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.

10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

11 I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.

12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.

13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?

14 Thus saith the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

15 I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.

16 Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;

17 Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.

18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.

22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.

23 Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

26 Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.

27 Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me.

28 Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.