Is your marriage hurting?  Do you want it to work but it’s just not working right now?  If so, one of the things that you can do to help it is to reset your priorities.  Oftentimes, a few, simple adjustments in our lives can change our marriages forever.

My wife and I have learned a few non-negotiable in our marriage that have really helped us. These adjustments have helped us in more ways they we can ever say.  I offer them to you, hoping they can help you reset your priorities.

1. Have a weekly date night.  Place it on the calendar.  Hire a baby sitter if necessary.  If you can’t afford one, put the kids to bed early and go into another room and just talk.  Make sure it’s one on one; no one else is there.  You are there to enjoy each other’s company—period—and get caught up on all that’s going on in each other’s lives.

2. If possible, try not to be away from home any more than three nights per week.  I understand that travel is a part of many people’s lives.  But absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.  Often it makes it wander!

3. Give your spouse, if possible, veto power over your schedule.  It there is too much time away from home let the other speak honestly into the schedule so it can be adjusted.

It’s amazing what regular, disciplined time together can do to help a hurting marriage.  Try it!  I think it may help.

The second part of Mark 1:15b reads: “…and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.”

The kingdom of God is at hand.  Jesus came to earth to inaugurate the kingdom of God.  His incarnation began the establishment of God’s rule on earth.  Over 2,000 years the message of the Gospel, God’s Good News of the forgiveness of our sins and his love ruling has spread over all the world.  The kingdom’s rule and reign will be completed when Jesus returns, totally eradicates all sin and evil, and reestablishes Eden, as God the Father originally intended.

Until then, people of Jesus’ kingdom are called to repent and believe.  First, we’re called to believe the kingdom of God thru Jesus is true.  We’re called to accept his free gift of forgiveness for our sins by grace thru faith.  We are to believe he is God, ruling this world from heaven and our hearts within.  Once forgiven, then we’re to repent.  The best definition of “repent” I’ve ever heard is “Stop it!”  We desire to stop our sin.  We desire to be holy and live as he desires us to live as his kingdom citizens.  We’re a holy people, a set apart priesthood.  We believe in him and we repent of our sin.  When we do, it is evidence that the kingdom of God is at hand.  It’s now and here in our lives.

Repent and believe: two simple evidences we’ve accepted the kingdom of God.

I love this quote from Denis Waitley about parenting: “What you leave in your children is far more important than what you leave to them.”

Every day, every parent, is depositing truth and life into our kids.  We are molding them to be who they will be in the future.  This daily deposit into our kids’ bank accounts is the major responsibility we have.  It is MUCH more important than the money we are trying to earn that we will leave to them.  In fact, leaving a lot of money to them may be the worst thing we can do for them.  It could produce indolence and a lack of initiative.

Today, remember the just-read quote.  And in case you don’t remember it, let me read it to you again: “What you leave in your children is far more important than what you leave to them.”

It’s a very important truth.

Today, we are going to focus on Mark 1:15a (which means the first part of verse 15): “and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.’  These were John’s words about Jesus’ entrance into the world and God’s kingdom now beginning in a new, fresh way.

“The time is fulfilled.”  Over and over again the Bible affirms there is a time and a season for everything under heaven (see Ecclesiastes 3).  When Paul talks about the birth of Jesus in Galatians 4, he says, “In the fulness of time, Jesus was born of a woman.”

At the right time, according to God’s time and plan, Jesus entered the world, fulfilled the prophecy of all the prophets and inaugurated the kingdom of God.  It was all in God’s time and plan.  At just the right time, as God desired, Jesus began his ministry.  The kingdom of God had come to earth to begin God’s plan of redemption.

When you feel depressed, repeat to yourself over and over again, “The time is fulfilled.”  When you feel like you can’t go on, say, “The time is fulfilled.”  Nothing is beyond God’s care.  Nothing is beyond God’s control.  He will work for you at the right time, according to his plan.  Trust him.  He knows all.  He controls all.  There is a plan he is working out.  We see it in Jesus’ coming.  You’ll see it in your life.

Everything in life is according to God’s time and plan.

Here are some great parenting tips from different folks who have lived thru the ages:

-”Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naïve” from Ogden Nash…Believe me: kids aren’t naïve.  They are watching everything we do!

-”If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money on them” from Abigail Van Buren…Believe me: kids spell love T-I-M-E!

-”Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in a different time” from a Hebrew Proverb…we parents need to understand the world in which our kids are living.  Believe me: it’s a different world than the world in which we were born.

-”Parents are the first teachers of the children” from a Burmese Proverb…our kids are watching and listening from day one to us parents on how to live life.  We are their first teachers.

Mark 1:14 is the verse upon which we are meditating today.  Please focus with me on these words: “Now after John was arrested.”  John was arrested by Herod because he challenged him publicly for putting aside his wife and marrying his brother’s wife.  He saw it for what it was: rank adultery.  He called it sin.  Herod and his new wife didn’t like this public, verbal flogging one bit.  So they had him arrested and eventually beheaded.

It was an act of moral courage on John’s part.  Courage.  How it’s lacking in so many people today!  Too many of us take the safe path of silence when we see wrongs around us.  Not John.  And it cost him his life.

In America, no one, most likely, will lose his life for boldly speaking out against sin.  Why then don’t we?  Where are the voices among followers of Jesus, like John, to speak against the rank sins of adultery, pre-marital sex and the continual denigration of marriage as God intended?  Nor do we speak against injustice, racism and violence around us?  Why are we silent?

I can only offer one answer: we lack moral courage.  More of us need the example of John to remind us that to follow Jesus, as he did, is not simply to place a layer of “niceness” on our already comfortable lives.  It’s a call to follow him, even if it means the cross.

May John’s example of moral courage prick all our hearts today to more faithfulness in following Jesus.

As a parent, I’ve learned that kids are constantly asking two questions, over and over again.  They are:

Do you love me?

Can I have my own way?

Over and over again, in different ways, they are asking these two questions.  How should we parents answer these questions?  With great consistency, I think we need to answer:

Yes, I love you very, very much.

No, you can’t have your own way.

Kids ask: “Do you love me?  Can I have my own way?”  And we parents need constantly answer, “Yes” and “No” to both these questions.  Amazingly, you’re producing a very healthy child!

Mark 1:13b is the verse to focus on today: “And he (Jesus) was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.”

Jesus is in the wilderness, driven there by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the evil one.  As we saw yesterday, temptation is all the devil can do.  He can’t force us to choose anything.  All he can do is to place evil before us, tempt us, then we choose evil.  When we do, we’re entrapped by him, following his ways, under condemnation, unable to follow God’s purposes.  Jesus faced all temptations just as we do, but without sin.

Here, in the wilderness, he was also surrounded by wild animals.  Mark wants us to know that this situation was dangerous.  He was alone, in the wilderness, surrounded by vicious, wild animals who wanted his life.  For forty days and nights, Jesus was in this precarious position.

What aided him? Greatly, I think, God’s angels aided him.  Angels are God’s creatures who have two primary works: to worship God and to work for God.  Psalm 90 says God gives his angels charge over his children.  Here, they were sent by the Father to his Son to protect him from all enemies, the evil one and the wild animals.  They ministered to him, caring for him, nurturing him, supporting him, encouraging him.  Simply stated, they helped him through this crisis.

I think when we arrive in heaven all of us who love God with all our hearts are going to find times when God sent his angels to help us, care for us and minister to us.  We may not have even been aware of it, but they were there.

Today, praise God for his angels!  Thank him for creating them to help care for us.

Who knows?  One may be surrounding you right now as you read this!

God bless you all.  This is the day the Lord has made.  Rejoice!  Be glad in it.

Mark 1:13a is our verse today.  It simply reads, “And he (Jesus) was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.”

Jesus was in the wilderness, having been led there by the Holy Spirit.  So it was God who placed him in the wilderness.  There he was to be tempted by the devil.  Note God is not the author of temptation.  The devil is.  But God allows it.  Satan may be the devil but he’s God’s devil.  God doesn’t cause temptation but he allows it.  Even his own Son, Jesus, was permitted to have temptation come to him.

Why then does God allow us (and his Son) to be tempted?

My Mom used to have a statement she used all the time: “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head.  But you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”  Satan is a tempter to sin.  That’s his nature.  That’s who he is.  That’s what he does.  As the prince of this world, his strategy is to tempt to ensnare.  Then when ensnared, he keeps people from reaching their God-given potential.

God wants to temptation to occur so we can learn how to choose obedience and faithfulness.  He wants us to learn how not to let the evil one build a nest in our hair.  The only way God can make sure this happens is for us to learn the enemy’s wiles and resist him so he’ll flee.

Even Jesus, God in human flesh, had to learn this truth.  Unlike us, he did resist at every point without sin.  But we can only learn by going through the experience of temptation.  Only when confronting the enemy and his wiles can we learn to defeat him and become stronger and holier.

Are you in life’s wilderness?  Are you feeling the evil one’s temptations?  Resist.  Be faithful.  God’s great nurture and love will come to you.

That’s tomorrow’s message!

Have you ever made a mistake with you child?  Perhaps you wrongly observed something and then wrongly accused them of the situation?  Or perhaps you just got angry and you shouldn’t have.  Or maybe you and your spouse got into a stupid argument in your child’s presence and you know that was wrong.

If any of these situations (or something I didn’t mention) have happened, astound your kids with something: Tell them “I’m sorry.”  It’ll blow their mind.  It’s so unexpected!

Plus, your modeling behavior you want from them.  As they grow toward and into adulthood, you want them to know how to say “I’m sorry” when they make mistakes and do something wrong.  It’s an important act for success in life and marriage for them.

Believe me.  We really can say “I’m sorry” to our kids.  And it’ll only increase their respect toward us.  Promise.