Relationships

Heath Hatmaker examines the differences between Christlike love and counterfeit love through this study of John 13.

This is an excerpt from Jennie Allen’s book, Untangle Your Emotions.  Have you ever sat down with someone for coffee or lunch and that person started sharing what was really going on in their life, maybe even getting teary about it? How do you feel in that moment? Sure, there might be a moment or two of awkwardness, but beneath the uncertainty of what to say or do, what is it that you feel? I bet you feel compassion. Affection. Grateful, even, that they shared their life with you. You feel connected to them, even if you don’t know them all that well. That’s what emotions are meant to do: connect us to what is most important. And to who is most important. Our emotions have a purpose, and that purpose is to connect us to God and one another. Everything that God has placed inside us is for the purpose of drawing us near to Him, to trust Him. Take away the childlike fear and we lose our childlike inclination to pull close and ask Him for help. Take away excitement at an incredible meal and we lose our awe and wonder at the gifts of God. Take away hope and we never look to heaven. Take away peace and we never rest in God. The truth that sets us free begins with the truth that we are sad or hurting and desperately and urgently need help. There is no hope for health, joy, peace, and salvation apart from Jesus, the One who is all and has done all for us. He died on the cross for our sins. He was raised to new life again. He offers us grace and forgiveness and an eternity spent with Him. That’s it. That’s the gospel. The Bible is clear that the truth of that sets us free:  Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31-32) Certainly, Jesus is speaking of Himself in this verse: the truth of who He is as the means and the way of salvation. The ultimate freedom we need is to be freed from the eternal consequences of our sin. And right now, that is available to you if you trust Jesus as the only means for salvation. But it doesn’t stop there. The Bible is filled with stories of people who worked out that hope and truth and freedom with their emotions, with how they felt. Paul hated Christians, was murdering them, until Christ met him and rescued him. That extreme emotion turned to impassioned grace and fervor to reach the world with the hope of Jesus. (1 Corinthians 2:9-11) King David poured out his guts throughout the book of Psalms. The songs of lament are the most emotive, raw, messy parts of the Bible. He’s mad at God. He’s sad with God. He has given up and lost all hope, and then, in his honesty with God and himself and others who are listening, he comes back to all that he knows to be good and true of God. The beauty of David and the Psalms is the permission to feel it all. David had full confidence that God could handle all his emotions, even the ones that caused him to doubt that God is good and that God still loves him. He sees injustice go unpunished and he’s ticked! He feels safe enough with God to wrestle it all out! Do you? THE TRUTH? It is freeing. It’s freeing when we tell the truth! But we can’t get that done without admitting how we feel, without confessing what our lived experience is. We can confess sin. We can share our pain. We can confide our fears. We can cry through gut-wrenching grief. We get to express what we’re thinking as long as we express what we’re feeling too. Tell God and trusted loved ones all these things so that you can finally live fully free, connected to one another by the rope of emotion. If, as you’re reading these words, you’re feeling paralyzed by sadness, anger, grief, or disappointment, I want you to know something: Given everything we are presented with in this lovely world of ours, its amazing to me that you don’t feel more than what you’re feeling right now. That’s the first thing I would say, were we seated across from each other, face-to-face. We know that emotions are all-encompassing. They make you ecstatic when you see your kids succeed on their own and take their first steps. They make you feel sick to your stomach when you’re nervous and scared. They make you feel your chest get tight when you’re reminded that the future is beyond your control. They make you anxious when you fall in love and aren’t sure the other person feels the same way. They make you cry when you see pain and suffering and can’t fix it in your life or in the world. Something about emotions is connected to our thoughts, but equally true is that they’re also different somehow. Maybe you feel like you are staring at an ocean of emotions, wondering how you could ever get across. It’s too big. All the hope and grief, joy and anxiety, unshakable memories both good and painful. How on earth do you cross? And then closing in behind you is life, the constant reality of the people needing to eat, the assignments that are due, the places you need to be. How am I supposed to deal with this ocean? Do I even want to do this right now? I’m here to remind you that you are not standing on that shore alone. The same God who accompanied the Israelites as they stared at the water in front of them, knowing the Egyptians were closing in from behind, and the same God who split the sea— He split the sea! —that God is near. He’s right there beside you. He can do a miracle here.     Adapted from Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It. Copyright © 2024 by Jennie Allen. Published by WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. To grab your copy of Jennie Allen’s Untangle Your Emotions, click here.

In our final week of this collection, Ben Stuart tackles how to tactfully handle conflict in a way that honors God, gives dignity to the other, and allows you to be honest. We are going to have to speak, but we are given a blueprint on how to speak the truth in love.

Things have gotten more complicated since Adam and Eve and the book of Genesis. The rules of courtship have dissolved and have been replaced by ambiguity and uncertainty. Social media and texting have given people access to hundreds of friends but have increased fluidity, drama, and anxiety; the process of dating more often being described as stressful and depressing.  The desire to pair off is good, and Ben Stuart reminds us that this longing has existed since the beginning of creation. But more than we desire to be in a relationship, we should desire the right relationship. Deciding who to spend the rest of your life with is arguably one of the biggest decisions in your life, and we must not treat it as a flippant decision.  As we delve deeper into the dating and evaluation process, we hone in on what should be our ultimate desire: God’s plans and purposes for our lives.

The culture around us and our upbringing can offset how we view marriage entirely. Many of us grew up with divorced parents or were at least witnesses to failed relationships and family brokenness. After all, romance is powerful and can either be life-giving or disastrous. Our cynicism, rightfully so, may lead many of us to feel as if this covenant isn’t really treated as a covenant at all. In this track, Ben Stuart works to restore this perception, focusing on God’s design for marriage instead of on what culture has to say about it.  The marriages around you don’t have to be your current or potential future reality. There is hope to be found in a union between two people who love the Lord and keep His commandments, loving each other as Christ loved the Church and displaying God’s glory. Join us on this 4-day journey, unpacking the true mission of marriage and resetting our beliefs in its purpose. We must first see God’s original design if we want beautiful marriages.

Dating is not a status we sit in—it is a process we walk through. This process exists to help you evaluate one of the biggest decisions you may ever make in your life: whether or not someone is a good fit to commit your life to. Ben Stuart challenges us to start with finding the right person in the right way.  In this 4-day track, Ben explores how to meet the right person, shift from a consumer mindset to realistic dating expectations, align values through allegiance, and identify key qualities in a partner. We hope that at the conclusion of these four days together, you will feel more comfortable and confident in your decision-making in the dating process and that you will gain wisdom about the kind of person you choose to spend your life with.

Have you ever struggled with finding purpose in your singleness? In a world dominated by relationship status, it’s only natural that we are constantly focused on the next thing and, therefore, lose focus on what is right in front of us. But what if your singleness isn’t a problem to solve or a hurdle to clear? What if this time in your life could be purposeful and profound? In this four-day track, we will gain insight from Ben Stuart on how to not only navigate this season well but thrive in it as we focus on: Seeing singleness as a gift.Changing the headline of our stories from singleness to purposeful.Learning to give undistracted devotion to God.Learning to trust God.

If we are single, we need to be married. If we are married, we need to have kids. If we have financial stability, we need financial flexibility. If we are leading people, we need more responsibility. If we have a master’s degree, we need a PhD. If we have a gift, we need influence. You get the gist.   The underlying message is clear: we always need more, and this constant craving for what’s next takes a toll on our present life. The more fixated we are with the future, the more bitter we become with the present, eroding gratitude and faithfulness. Our problem? Fixation on a changing future. Consider Luke 15. Jesus describes two brothers torn between their future dreams and their father. The younger son blatantly demands of the father, “Give me mine…” in hopes that future dreams would be delivered in a distant country. The older brother is bitterly dissatisfied with his father, “I have served you…I never disobeyed…yet you never gave me…that I might celebrate with my friends,” revealing his dreams were for a party, earned by his morality, for himself and his friends.  Both were devoted to a future dream, to getting something. The younger’s path looked like reckless indulgence. The older’s path looked like religious manipulation. Neither were satisfied with the present love of their father. Their fixation on a better future led them away from faithfulness. Now, think of what you want (or would even say you need), whether it’s a platform, position, spouse, etc.  Often—like the younger son—we forsake obedience to obtain it. We’re impatient, rushing past the calls for humility, honesty, integrity, purity, and charity to pursue what we crave.  At other times, we resemble the older brother, using our obedience to attempt to manipulate God into granting our desires. We live virtuous lives, read our Bibles, attend small groups, and do all the ‘right’ things, feeling God owes us what we want.  In both scenarios, we throw faithfulness out the window. Just like the sons in the parable, we forsake faithfulness by fixating on a future dream.  C.S. Lewis, in his satirical masterpiece Screwtape Letters, says, “It is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it, we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.… Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.…”¹  Nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Lewis says that nearly all of our insecurity, greed, and lust are due to an over-fixation of future potential realities. On the contrary, Jesus commands, “Do not worry about tomorrow” (Matthew 6:34). In other words, Jesus says to us: Don’t fixate on the future. Tend to today. Today is enough to focus on! Our solution? Faithfulness to an unchanging Christ. Is C.S. Lewis, and more importantly, Jesus, suggesting that we simply immerse ourselves in the present, forget our dreams, and toil away? Not entirely. Notice what Lewis says about the present: “It is all lit up with eternal rays.” What is he saying? He is describing what both brothers missed in Jesus’ parable. Their ultimate satisfaction could not be found in a season to come but in the present love of their father. A love that lights up every moment. Some religious and philosophical frameworks advocate shedding your deep longings and dreams as the path to contentment. However, the Gospel presents a different perspective. It suggests that contentment comes from shifting your ultimate desire to be in Jesus Christ and pursuing complete satisfaction in Him.  The love, affirmation, honor, and power you are seeking in your next season can ultimately be found right now in Jesus Christ. He is the eternal ray that lights up your present. As St. Augustine put it, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him, the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement.”² This is the kind of love and honor that frees you up from fixating on what lies ahead.  The key to faithfulness in every season doesn’t involve intensifying your religious duties. The key to remaining faithful in every season is a fixation on an unchanging God. The strength of your faith is always dependent upon its object. Imagine you’re falling. You reach for a twig, you’ll keep falling. But if you grab a rock, you’re secure. If your marbles are on what the next season holds—spouse, salary, significance—then you will never be satisfied. You will constantly be let down. Tim Keller writes in his book on marriage, “We should be neither overly elated by getting married nor overly disappointed by not being so—because Christ is the only spouse that can truly fulfill us and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us.”³ If your marbles are on Christ—his eternal love—then you have all you need every season. When you start to see the faithfulness of Christ, you will start to be faithful in every season. Not because you have a strong and constant faith, but rather because He is strong and constant. If He did not abandon you when you needed him most—when your hell was crashing on him at Calvary— what makes you think he will abandon you now? It’s the hope that makes Edward Mote’s timeless hymn still sweet:   “His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.”   Paul writes of this learned revelation to the Philippians,  I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need Philippians 4:11 Jeremiah Burrough, a 1600s English Puritan preacher, wrote of it in his book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. It is “that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”⁴ This friends, is the secret to staying faithful in every season: a gentle, serene, and gracious disposition to confront whatever life throws at us, all while knowing it passes through the hands of our benevolent King.  You and I don’t need to yearn for what lies ahead. Everything we long for in the future is already within our grasp. What the father tells his two sons in the parable holds true for us right now, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31).  ¹ Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. William Collins, 2009. ² St. Augustine. The Confessions. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1998. ³ Keller, Tim. Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. Dutton, 2014. ⁴ Burrough, Jeremiah. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. ‎The Banner of Truth Trust; 1st Edition Thus, 1648.

This devotional will help you chart a course through four relational stages: singleness, dating, engagement, and marriage. Learn to embrace God’s design for each stage and invest your life in what matters most.

Our lives are filled with relationships, and we were created to be in close community with others. This five-day journey helps us understand that as we depend on Christ to do within us that which we cannot do on our own, we (and our relationships) will be strengthened and filled with the fruit of the Spirit.

This is an excerpt from Ben Stuart’s book Single, Dating, Engaged, Married. — We first see God’s design for marriage in Genesis 2. As God fashioned all of creation, he declared seven times that “it is good.” But, then, in verse 18 we get our first “not good.” God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” The animals were already there with Adam, but let’s be honest, there is a big difference between watching a sunset with a beautiful woman and watching it with a cocker spaniel. More than that, God did not intend for man to simply be a cul-de-sac for God’s love and grace. Man is meant to be a conduit of love and grace flowing into relationships. God fashioned from the side of Adam what Genesis calls “a helper suitable for him” (2:18 NASB). One that was a good fit. What 1 Peter calls “a fellow heir of the grace of life” (3:7 NASB). Different from each other, yet made to fit together. Physically (obviously), but also spiritually and emotionally. God designs husbands and wives to complement each other—to fit together in a way that brings joy to them both. God designed marriage for our delight. As God walked Eve to Adam, the man spontaneously broke out in rhyme. And the curtain closes on Genesis 2 with a man and woman completely vulnerable with each other and completely at peace. This is the design of marriage. It is a good gift from God. When we engage marriage in accordance with God’s design, there is safety and delight, and we flourish. Some may ask, “Wait, don’t Christians get divorced as often as non-Christians do? Why would I take the ‘Christian’ way of marrying seriously if it does not seem to work?” W. Bradford Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and the director of the National Marriage Project, created a separate category in his research for those he refers to as “Active Conservative Protestants.” Active meaning that they are involved in a local church. Conservative does not mean politically, but theologically. In short, they believe the Bible is the Word of God. Protestants meaning that they believe we are saved from our sin by the grace of God available in Jesus Christ. His research indicates that Active Conservative Protestants are 35 percent less likely to divorce than their counterparts. In short, those who depend upon the grace of God and take his Word seriously have considerably stronger marriages. It is wise to listen to the Creator’s intent for marriage. People who walk through marriage in accordance with God’s design find that his ways work. What is even more exciting is that God designed this institution with a great end goal in mind. Marriage is not just designed by God; it is meant to display something about God. When Paul quoted the passage in Genesis 2 about God taking the two, male and female, and making them into one flesh, he called it a mystery. By this, he did not mean it was something confusing or hard to understand. He meant that something was previously hidden and it has now been revealed. What is revealed is that this unity of diversity of male and female is meant to be a testimony to the world about God. It is showing people the nature of how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, wants to unite with his people, the church. Marriage is not just for our joy but it is also a metaphor, parable, or symbol of something great and universal and eternal—the union of Christ with his bride. As we step into this marriage bond we become a living picture of God’s wonderful union with his people. Our unity tells a bigger story. God is saying something to the world about his love for humanity in the way a husband and wife relate to each other. The love of a husband for his wife displays to the world the love Christ has for his church. The love of a wife for her husband communicates to the world how the people of God respond to Jesus. This is an excerpt from Ben Stuart’s book, Single, Dating, Engaged, Married. Click here to grab a copy of this special resource.

This is an excerpt from Ben Stuart’s book Single, Dating, Engaged, Married. How do you know you are ready to marry someone? An initial indicator is excitement! In the beginning of Song of Solomon, the two lovers’ excitement leaps from the page. The book begins with her provocative exclamation, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” (1:2). When we meet this girl, we already know she desires this man. She essentially shouts to the world, “I want his mouth on my mouth!” Is it wrong to desire someone? NO! God designed attraction and this woman is unashamedly infatuated. She declares that his love is better than wine (v. 2). Wine was the drink of celebration. In the ancient world it was one of the most enjoyable things they could taste. It could make your insides feel warm and your head feel light. The way this man treats her elicits a similar response. Now a natural question to ask at this point would be: What has this man done to get this girl so dialed up? She declares in the next verse, “Your anointing oils are fragrant” (v. 3). She could just be saying that his cologne game is working for her. The Middle East is hot. People get sweaty. And back then they did not have frequent showers. So men would wear aromatic oils. But as the verse continues, you realize there is more going on here than his scent. She explains, “Your name is oil poured out” (v. 3). What does that mean? The poetry of the statement is brilliant. Scent is our sense most tied to memory. It also provokes a response. If you love the scent of something, you move closer. You breathe out, “Mmm.” You respond. Likewise, if something stinks, you pull away. You might even wrinkle up your nose as an attempt to retreat from the odor. You don’t map out these responses. They are just instinctive and undeniable. The names of people are the same way. When someone’s name is spoken, you have an instinctual response. What are you responding to? What instantly comes to mind for you is not even so much the memory of that person, but a feeling you get as you consider that person’s attributes. When I say, “Hitler,” you are very likely to recoil. Do you think about any of his speeches? No. You are just reacting to a general impression you have based on his character. When the Shulammite hears this man’s name, she thinks of his reputation; she sees his character. Images flash into her mind of his kindness. His presence is pleasant. Ladies, what should draw you to a man? His character. His looks will fade. His hairline will recede. His nose and earlobes will continue to grow. His rear will oddly shrivel up. Don’t base your romantic relationships on looks. That is the area that will the most assuredly fade. Is the guy you are attracted to impatient? Is he a bad listener? Is he selfish with his money? Do you think he will suddenly become a scent of sweetness when you get older? That is unlikely. Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold” (NIV). Marry character. Let that be what turns you on. Are you unsure of how to identify character? Then get some quality voices around you. In the Song of Solomon, four voices speak: God, the man, the woman, and the woman’s friends. Why? Because that is how it always is, boys. If you want to win the girl, you’ve got to win the stamp of approval from her squad. The first time I asked my future wife, Donna, on a date, she asked me to pick her up at her church. When I arrived, I was greeted by no less than one hundred people. She worked with the youth and they had been leading an event for high school students. Over the next hour I met every man and woman, young and old, that worked on staff or as a volunteer at that church. I discovered later this was by design. Before she ever got in a car with me, even though we had talked several times before, she wanted her community to have an opportunity to evaluate me. Wise woman. The Shulammite from Song of Solomon does the same. She wants her friends to evaluate this man. They concur with her assessment of him in the following verse: “We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you” (1:4). What they are essentially saying to their friend is, “He is a worthy person upon which to set your affections. Your affections are rightly placed.” Godly love has excitement, but it is excitement stirred by character. Thank God Donna did not just marry me because she thought I was attractive. A few years into our marriage I injured my back. During recovery from surgery I gained more than thirty pounds, and not a single pound of it was muscle! Later, when I reinjured my back, I lost fifty pounds and became sickly thin. If she was only into looks, I would have been in trouble. We are happily married because she was drawn to character, and because she possesses character as well. Don’t settle for less. But character alone is not enough. The couple in Song of Solomon is also stirred by one another’s kindness. In chapter 2 we see the man’s excitement. The Shulammite​ declares, “Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice” (Song of Solomon 2: 8–9). Notice: he is not walking to her house. He is bounding like a gazelle and radiating masculinity like a young stag. No mountain can obstruct him. Nothing will deter him from reaching his beloved! And when he arrives he searches anxiously to get a glimpse of her. Why is he so fired up? In verse 10 he speaks, saying to her, “Arise, my love, my beautiful one.” The Hebrew word we translate “love” from here is the word rayahti. Used throughout the Old Testament, the word is variously translated, “neighbor”, “companion,” or “friend.” Yes, he is attracted to her physically, referring to her as a beautiful one. But nine times throughout this short book he chooses to call her “friend.” She refers to him throughout the text as dodi, translated here as “beloved.” It carries a similar idea of someone cherished. What this means is that they are drawn to one another’s character, but they are also knit closer and closer together by their continued kindness and friendship. They simply enjoy being with one another. I have sat through several meals with couples where both the man and woman were physically attractive, and at least one of them wealthy. But within minutes it became painfully apparent they did not seem to connect at a relational level very well. They talked over one another, misunderstood each other, or annoyed and simply tolerated one another. I have even sat with couples who outwardly criticize each other. I can’t imagine continuing down the road toward marriage with someone I did not feel a sense of kinship and goodwill. Putting on a ring will not suddenly make a person kind, sensitive, or interesting. But the years will take his or her looks. How do you know you’re meant to be with an engagement case study someone? There is an ease to it, you want to be together, and communication does not feel like an obligation. The other person is your friend. But it is not only about enjoying your beloved’s company, it is also about being improved by his or her company. This is an excerpt from Ben Stuart’s book, Single, Dating, Engaged, Married. Click here to grab a copy of this special resource.