Why is communication so hard?

by Dr. Gary Chapman

Why does communication break down after marriage? Often, the answer lies in emotions. Before marriage we felt one over-powering emotion . . . love. But now the emotions of hurt, anger, disappointment, and fear often dominate. These emotions do not encourage us to communicate. Or, if we communicate it is likely to be critical. 

We speak out of our anger and create even more negative feelings. The key is learning how share emotions without condemnation. "I'm feeling hurt and when you have time, I need your help." Identifying your feelings and choosing to share them is step one. Step two is accepting the feelings of your mate and asking, "What can I do to help?"

Why is communication so important in a relationship? Because we are not mind readers. The apostle Paul recognized this reality when he asked the question, "Who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." The reason we know what God is like is because God has chosen to reveal Himself. If we reciprocate, we can have a love relationship with God.

Likewise, when we reveal ourselves to another, and they listen and reciprocate, we can build an intimate relationship with that person. Communication is to a relationship what breathing is to the body. Don't stop talking and don't stop listening.

- adapted from The Marriage You've Always Wanted by Dr. Gary Chapman -

Continue the conversation: Share your questions, thoughts insights, or comments by joining the conversation on Facebook at facebook.com/5lovelanguages

"One Language at a Time"

— A Story about The 5 Love Languages
For twenty years, The 5 Love Languages has been improving marriages... one language at a time.
For more information, visit us online at http://www.5lovelanguages.com

If you like the song, you can purchase it on iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/love-you-more-single/id515103656

Don’t Add Fuel to Racism’s Fire

J. Lee Grady Newsletters - Fire In My Bones

In the case of Trayvon Martin, we’d be better off to keep our heads cool and our words peaceable.

I live eight miles from the gated subdivision where Trayvon Martin died on Feb. 26. A few weeks ago that section of Sanford, Fla., was as peaceful as the palms that sway in our humid breezes. But since the black teenager’s unexplained death, an unsettling pall of anger and suspicion hangs in the air.

The specter of American racism has returned. And the world is watching us argue about it.

“Why do we have to say things, especially in the media, that rekindle old feelings of resentment and racial hatred? If we want the fires of racism to go out, why do we stoke them and blow more hot air on the cinders?”

Upset citizens have marched in Sanford, and similar protests have been staged in New York, Miami, Tallahassee, Fla., and the nation’s capital. Trayvon has become a national symbol of injustice. People want to know why George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old man who shot Trayvon (allegedly in self-defense), was not arrested after the incident. Those who are most angry about the case claim that Zimmerman killed the unarmed boy simply because he was black and wearing a hoodie—and that a racist police force mishandled the case simply because they don’t care about black boys.

When you throw those accusations into a boiling pot, mix in combustible comments by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, add a demand from the New Black Panther Party (they are offering a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman’s “capture”), and then stir it up with 24/7 media coverage, you know you are about to get a fiery explosion.

Long Distance Love

by Dr. Gary Chapman

Question:

"How can one deal with a long distance relationship when the spouse's love language is Physical Touch? I am desperate and don't want this to end because of the distance."

Answer:

I am often asked this question when I speak to military couples. The good news is that all of the love languages can be spoken long distance. I know you may be thinking, "How can I speak the language of Physical Touch when we are half a world away?" It's not that difficult.

In a letter, phone call, or e-mail you say, "If I were with you, I would put my arms around you and give you a kiss you would never forget."

No, it is not the same as actually doing it. However, it communicates love emotionally. They know that you are thinking about them and their love language. One wife said recently, "Learning to speak my husband's love language long distance has made a world of difference. And, he is speaking my language. He writes, "If I were at home, I'd vacuum the floor and take out the trash without your asking. Wow! That speaks to me." So my advice? Try it. I think you'll like it.

Continue the conversation: Share your questions, thoughts insights, or comments by joining the conversation on Facebook at facebook.com/5lovelanguages

Sunday Sermon - 25-March-2012 - Dr Isaac Yim

Speaker: Dr. Isaac Yim
Itinerant Speaker

http://www.mediafire.com/?4m6n8udc0355pbd

You Can’t Be Pro-Life and Anti-Immigrant

J. Lee Grady Newsletters - Fire In My Bones

I’m dreaming of a day when U.S. immigration policy reflects the values of the Bible.

Earlier this year when I was preaching in California, a woman came to the church altar and asked me for prayer. She spoke with a thick Spanish accent. Her tears had already streaked her mascara, and she was trembling. In between her sobs she told me that her husband, who is not a U.S. citizen, had been deported to Mexico—leaving her and their four children behind.

This woman is a U.S. citizen, but her husband had been standing in line for 10 years to get his papers. As is often the case with Mexicans, bureaucracy offered him no compassion. Now a family is split up. The land of the free and the home of the brave slammed its doors on a Christian brother.

“Hispanics love to say Mi casa es tu casa (“My house is your house”) because togetherness and community are valued in their culture. My dream is that, some day, all Americans will learn to say that phrase—and mean it.”

This breaks my heart. I hope it breaks yours.

I have many immigrant friends who came to the United States seeking a better life. Some, like the Russian-speaking Pentecostals I know in Philadelphia, were granted religious asylum in the 1990s because they were persecuted for their faith in their native country of Belarus. I have many Indian-born friends who were granted easy access to America’s privileges.

Sunday Sermon - 18-March-2012 - Elder Ps Dorai Manikam

Speaker: Elder. Ps. Dorai Manikiam
Full Gospel Assembly, Kuala Lumpur.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qw9atop1wgtj9v5

The Spit of the Soldiers

by Max Lucado

The whipping was the first deed of the soldiers.

The crucifixion was the third. (No, I didn’t skip the second. We’ll get to that in a moment.) Though his back was ribboned with wounds, the soldiers loaded the crossbeam on Jesus’ shoulders and marched him to the Place of a Skull and executed him.

We don’t fault the soldiers for these two actions. After all, they were just following orders. But what’s hard to understand is what they did in between. Here is Matthew’s description:

Jesus was beaten with whips and handed over to the soldiers to be crucified. The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s palace, and they all gathered around him. They took off his clothes and put a red robe on him. Using thorny branches, they made a crown, put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then the soldiers bowed before Jesus and made fun of him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Jesus. Then they took his stick and began to beat him on the head. After they finished, the soldiers took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Matt. 27:26–31 NCV)

How Do I Fix It?

by Mark Gungor

• -“Pastor, I had an affair and am trying to restore my marriage but even after three years, things still are still really difficult. What can we do to make things right again?”
• –“ I was so busy with raising children and I didn’t have much time for sex but now that we’re empty nesters my husband isn’t really interested in pursuing our sex life. How do we get back to the way it used to be?”
• –“My wife was sexually active with other guys before we married and it has really impacted our life now. What can we do to overcome her past?”
• –“I divorced and remarried a man who was also previously married and we are having issues dealing with the blending of our two families. How can we make this work and just be a normal family?”

These are all questions typical of requests for help that I hear. What they, and so many others, are really asking is, “How can we fix it and make it like it used to be?” People are looking for the solution that will erase the consequences of actions or events so that everything will go back to the way it was before.

One of the things that I do a lot is warn people rather than supplying solutions. “Don’t do this. Don’t go there. Stop it!” There are things you can do to help improve such situations or deal with these kinds of consequences in your marriage, but they are more patches than solutions. That’s why I spend more time warning people not to go to hell than I do helping them try to find an air conditioner once they get there!

Don’t Underestimate the Supernatural Power of Conversion

J. Lee Grady Newsletters - Fire In My Bones

The testimony of a former drug dealer from Ohio reminded me this week of the priority of evangelism.

When my new friend Shannon McNeal was just a little boy, his older brothers put him in a washing machine, turned on the water and sat on the lid to trap him inside. Another time they taped him in a cardboard box and threw it down a flight of stairs to see if he would survive. And once they put him in the kitchen oven, turned it on and blocked the door with a chair while he screamed.

Shannon’s mom wasn’t around to stop the brutality. A single mother, she worked long hours at a Ford automobile plant in Lorain, Ohio, near Cleveland. Her husband had walked out on the family when Shannon was 2, leaving the three fatherless boys to fend for themselves.

“Sometimes we get so caught up in the hoopla of charismatic gifts—chasing the latest glittering manifestations and the trendiest prophecies—that we forget true conversion is the greatest miracle on the planet.”

Without any boundaries, Shannon’s brothers began dealing drugs as young teens, and they threw wild parties in their house while their mother was at the factory. Then a male relative exposed the boys to hardcore pornography. When Shannon was just 6 he was forced to watch pornographic videos; before he had even reached puberty he was expected to act out what he had seen with neighborhood girls.

Little Love Tanks

by Dr. Gary Chapman

During infancy, a child does not distinguish between milk and tenderness, between solid food and love. Without food a child will starve. Without love, a child will starve emotionally and can become impaired for life. A great deal of research indicates that the emotional foundation of life is laid in the first eighteen months of life, particularly in the mother/child relationship.

The 'food' for future emotional health is love expressed in five ways: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service. Speak all five languages to your child the first eighteen months and you are laying the best possible foundation for emotional health.

Do you know your child's primary love language? What I discovered years ago is that what makes one child feel loved, does not necessarily make another child feel loved. If you treat all children the same way in an effort to be fair, you are really not being fair at all.

I like to picture each child as having an emotional 'love tank'. If the tank is full, that is the child feels loved by the parents, then the child grows up normally. If the tank is empty, the child will grow up with many internal struggles. And, in the teenage years will go looking for love, typically in all the wrong places. Learning what fills your child's little love tank is one of the secrets to successful parenting.

Continue the conversation: Share your questions, thoughts insights, or comments by joining the conversation on Facebook at facebook.com/5lovelanguages

Sunday Sermon - 11-Mar-2012 - Ps Dr Christina Ang

Speaker: Ps. Dr. Christina Ang
Itinerant Speaker

http://www.mediafire.com/?8k23ju4qa7c6fi3

The Love Dare - Day 1

Day 1 - Love is patient

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. —Ephesians 4:2

Love works. It is life’s most powerful motivator, and has far greater depth and meaning than most people realize. It always does what is best for others, and can empower us to face the greatest of problems. We are born with a lifelong thirst for love. Our hearts desperately need it like our lungs need oxygen. Love changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful with it. No marriage is successful without it.

Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those pillars are patience and kindness. All other characteristics of love are extensions of these two attributes. And that’s where your dare will begin. With patience.

Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.

No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. The irony of anger toward a wrongful action is that it spawns new wrongs of its own. Anger almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems.

Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet

by Max Lucado

It has been a long day. Jerusalem is packed with Passover guests, most of whom clamor for a glimpse of the Teacher. The spring sun is warm. The streets are dry. And the disciples are a long way from home. A splash of cool water would be refreshing.

The disciples enter [the room], one by one, and take their places around the table. On the wall hangs a towel, and on the floor sits a pitcher and a basin. Any one of the disciples could volunteer for the job, but not one does.

After a few moments, Jesus stands and removes his outer garment. He wraps a servant’s girdle around his waist, takes up the basin, and kneels before one of the disciples. He unlaces a sandal and gently lifts the foot and places it in the basin, covers it with water, and begins to bathe it. One by one, one grimy foot after another, Jesus works his way down the row.

In Jesus’ day the washing of feet was a task reserved not just for servants but for the lowest of servants…The servant at the bottom of the totem pole was expected to be the one on his knees with the towel and basin.

The Love Dare - 4

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3

Are You Aligned for Your Assignment?

J. Lee Grady Newsletters - Fire In My Bones

You might have to make a strategic move in order to fulfill God’s plan for your life.

During a recent conference in Georgia my friend Barbara Wentroble taught an insightful message from the book of Ruth. She pointed out that Ruth, a hopeless young gentile widow, never would have inherited God’s blessings if she had stayed in the forsaken land of Moab. She had to leave her home and travel to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Once Ruth was repositioned, she discovered God’s salvation and favor—and she ended up in the lineage of the Messiah.

The Bible is full of stories of people who had to move from one place to another to align with God’s plans. Abram and Sarai left their relatives in Ur; Moses had to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt; Nehemiah had to travel from Persia to Jerusalem. In the New Testament, Peter had to go to Cornelius’ house in Caesarea; Paul had to sail to Rome; and God had to scatter the disciples (see Acts 8:1) so they would fulfill the Great Commission.

“When the Lord is getting ready to do a new thing, He repositions us. God wants us in the right place at the right time.”

None of these transitions were easy. We prefer the comfort of the familiar and the security of a steady paycheck. But faith is a journey, and it often leads us to places we would never choose on our own.

The Love Dare - 3

http://thelovedarebook.com

The Scriptures say that God designed and created marriage as a good thing. It is a beautiful, priceless gift. He uses marriage to help us eliminate loneliness, multiply our effectiveness, establish families, raise children, enjoy life, and bless us with relational intimacy. But beyond this, marriage also shows us our need to grow and deal with our own issues and self-centeredness through the help of a lifelong partner. If we are teachable, we will learn to do the one thing that is most important in marriage—to love. This powerful union provides the path for you to learn how to love another imperfect person unconditionally. It is wonderful. It is

difficult. It is life changing.

This book is about love. It’s about learning and daring to live a life filled with loving relationships. And this journey begins with the person that is closest to you: your spouse. May God bless you as you begin this adventure.

But be sure of this: it will take courage. If you accept this dare, you must take the view that instead of following your heart, you are choosing to lead it. The world says to follow your heart, but if you are not leading it, then someone or something else is. The Bible says that “the heart is deceitful above all things,” and it will pursue that which feels right at the moment.

We dare you to think differently, and to choose to lead your heart toward that which is best in the long run. This is a key to lasting, fulfilling relationships.

The Love Dare - 2

This forty day journey cannot be taken lightly. It is a challenging and often difficult process, but an incredibly fulfilling one. To take this dare requires a resolute mind and a steadfast determination. It is not meant to be sampled or briefly tested, and those who quit early will forfeit the greatest benefits. If you will commit to a day at a time for forty days, the results could change your life, and your marriage.


Consider it a dare, from others who have done it before you.

Sunday Sermon - 4-Mar-2012 - Bro. Tom Cheryan

Speaker: Br. Tom Cheryan
White Fields Assembly Seremban

http://www.mediafire.com/?f3j0ibpw0c2jhhv

Children Like Gifts. Some Love Them!

by Dr. Gary Chapman

Does your child feel loved? All of the research indicates that children who are loved fare better in life than those who do not. Most parents love their children, but not all children feel loved. When Dr. Ross Campbell and I wrote the book The 5 Love Languages of Children, we discovered that children have different love languages.

What fills the love tank of one child will not necessarily fill the love tank of another. One child may crave physical touch - hugs and kisses, while another longs for words of affirmation. For some children it's quality time, for others it is gifts or acts of service. Discover your child's love language, speak it fluently, and you will keep the love tank full.

The Love Language of Gifts

One of the love languages of children is receiving gifts. I know what you're thinking: "That is the love languages of all children." But, not really. Some children will ooh and aah and jump up and down with excitement when they are about to open a present. Once it is opened, they will repeat the performance. Others will simply open the gift, look at it, perhaps say thanks, and then they are off to other events.

Why the difference? For one child receiving gifts is their primary love language while the other much prefers quality time or one of the other love languages. Don't expect all children to respond the same way. If you want to love effectively you must learn the primary love language of each child and speak it regularly.

The Love Dare

LINK TO WEBSITE

In the movie FIREPROOF, a couple dares to rescue their choking marriage from the flames of divorce and temptation using The Love Dare book as a guide. Now you can take the experience of the film one step further with your own copy of The Love Dare book. This daily devotional steers you through the fiery challenge of developing a strong, committed marriage in a world that threatens to burn it to the ground.

The Love Dare personally leads you through daily devotionals, records your thoughts and experiences, and ends each day daring you to perform a simple act of love for your spouse. This 40-Day journey equips you to melt hardened, separated hearts into an enduring love that can withstand the flames of fear, pride and temptation. The Love Dare book will help you reinforce and enrich your marriage, earn back a love you thought was lost, and hear more about the One who not only designed unconditional, sacrificial love—He illustrated it.

In a world that attacks, devalues, and redefines relationships every day, learn how to rescue and protect your marriage from the firestorm. Take The Love Dare and FIREPROOF your relationship.

TV and Kids

from HERE

This month I decided to do some investigation into the effects of TV and other electronic media on children and their development. How much TV is too much TV? and What kinds of TV are detrimental and if any of it is helpful to children’s growth?

It seems there is general agreement that a child’s exposure to TV of any type should be limited. The American Academy of Pediatrics even said children two years and younger should not watch any TV whatsoever. Yet, there is also general agreement that we are completely ignoring this advice. Most parents lobby for and seek TV programs with appropriate content as a matter of convenience, since TV clearly serves as a babysitter of sorts for parents feeling time-constraints.

In many homes the TV is turned on early and stays on late. The programs viewed shows less actual choice and more habit. There are TVs in several rooms of most homes. Many children not only have their own TV, but electronic games, a computer, a DVD player for the car, and the list goes on.

So why is this so bad?  Why should we not allow children under two to even see the TV?

Young children’s brains are genetically programmed to develop most effectively when exposed to a rich environment. They must have lots of social interaction and language exposure. This leads to self awareness and understanding one’s role in society. They should have virtually limitless opportunities for physical play, imaginative play, and creativity.

This Is the Hour for Women to Arise

J. Lee Grady Newsletters - Fire In My Bones

God is calling His daughters to swallow their fears and step into a new level of faith and authority.

This week I’m ministering at Trinity Christian Centre, one of Singapore’s largest churches. It is led today by Dominic Yeo, but for 30 years it was pastored by Naomi Dowdy, a brave American missionary who grew the church from about 250 believers in 1976 to more than 4,000 members in 2005. The Pentecostal congregation has grown even larger since then, when Dowdy set Yeo into his pastoral role so she could do more traveling ministry.

Dowdy is a friend and a spiritual mother in my life. I’ve ministered with her in Malaysia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Ukraine and other countries. I’ve gleaned from her leadership skills, benefited from her counsel and been inspired by her zeal for missions. I view her as one of the planet’s best examples of a female church leader. When I consider her amazing legacy I’m grieved that we don’t have more women like her.

“I agree with the makers of the film Courageous that Christian men need to demonstrate integrity, sexual purity, family values and moral courage. But isn’t the same response needed from women?”

The primary reason we have so few Naomi Dowdys today is that the church does not encourage trained and anointed women to step into leadership. A second reason is that many women have either disqualified themselves from taking on such roles, or they aren’t willing to face the criticism that inevitably comes when a woman defies tradition.