We've Moved!

Thank you for checking us out!

We are proud to announce the new 4BetterOr4Worse Community on the web!

Over the last 18 months, what started as a fit over people getting divorced has grown into a ministry that mentors, supports, and encourages married Christian men.  In our effort to provide that support and encouragement, we created www.4BetterOr4Worse.org - providing information and resources to both the mentors and those being mentored.  

Thank you for your past support and I invite you to move on over and become part of our new web community.  We'll see you there!

A Week From Now...

A week from now, on May 1st, our new web community will be up and running. This blog will be part of that new community and will continue there, just as it has been here. There may not be much here on Blogger between now and then. On May 1st I will make a final post here, giving you a link and directing you to the new web site.

4BetterOr4Worse has grown from one man's editorial blog to a ministry. This could not have been done without your support and encouragement. I'd like to take this time to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that support and invite you to the new web site to continue there. Your support and participation will mean the success of whatever we do there.

Thank you - and I'll see you on May 1st!

Bert

Standing Before Your Enemies

As you get up in the morning, shower and shave, and get ready for your day, what enemies are you going to face today? Are your enemies on the outside - a boss that you don't see eye-to-eye with, another call from the mortgage company warning you of impending foreclosure, the colonoscopy you really don't want to drop trou for? Or are your enemies on the inside - a habit you can't shake, really not feeling good about yourself, some difficult choices you need to make?

Enemies are something common to the Old Testament in the bible. God's people fought enemies all the time. They won some and got their butts handed to them in others.

I'm sitting here, searching through BibleGateway.com, looking for Biblical support to confront someone on something that just isn't right in his life. As it usually happens, I've found an awesome piece of God's word that I'd like to share with you about how to defeat your enemies.

Let me set the stage for this story for you a bit. God had just defeated the city of Jericho through Joshua. In Joshua 6 God says to Joshua,

"See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors..."

God also warned Joshua the the men of Israel were not to take any of the plunder for themselves. All the silver, gold, iron, and bronze would be taken and claimed for God. Nothing was to be taken for personal treasure hunting. Everything that was not taken in to God's claim was to be destroyed.

In Chapter 7, they went to battle against another city, Ai. This city was thought to be an easy victory. In fact, the men sent to gather intelligence information reported that they wouldn't need very many soldiers at all. So, Joshua went up against the city of Ai with 3,000 men. They promptly got their butts kicked! Joshua went back to the arc in the temple and had a very frank and personal conversation with God. He was so upset that he tore his clothes off and went face down on the ground! When was the last time you had that kind of intense exchange with God?

This is what God said to Joshua:

Joshua 7:10-13

¹⁰So the LORD said to Joshua, "Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face?

¹¹"Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they have also put them among their own things.

¹²"Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies; they turn their backs before their enemies, for they have become accursed. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy the things under the ban from your midst.

¹³"Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, "There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst."

There are three things here that I want to share with you. First, God says "Get up"! It's simple really. Get up - stand tall. You're a child of God and you can rest in the knowledge that he'll take care of you.

The second thing God says is in verses 11 and 12 where he says "Look people, you're not living right. And as long as you don't live right I'm not going to be with you!" God was with them at Jericho and gave them the city. Yet, they disobeyed and kept plunder for themselves. When they went to Ai God was not with them and they got a good old fashioned whoopin'.

The last thing God says to Joshua is in verse 13. He says "You can fix this." The word consecrate means to purify - to make the dirty things clean. God told Joshua that if the people of Israel would purify themselves He would be with them again.

What this meant for Joshua and the people of Israel was survival. Being in the desert without God would mean the death and extinction of God's people. God was offering them an all-or-nothing proposition. If you're with me, I'll give you wonderful things. If you're not with me, you die. There was no settlement in the middle.

So, for us as men, when we get out of bed in the morning and face our enemies, we need to make sure that we go with God. It's very simple. Start each day with God and He will take your through your day with His protection and grace. Start each day on your own, using your own strength and your own resources, and your enemies are going to beat you up.

It says so in the Bible.

John 13:17 "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

The Gift and the Celebration

The entire confidence of Christianity hangs on Easter Sunday morning when Jesus Christ came up from the pit of hell and returned to a live physical form.  The resurrection broke the stranglehold that sin and death had on a law-based Jewish culture and cemented eternal life for everyone (not just for the Jews).  It completed the gift of God's grace to a sinful human race. 

I've witnessed a few incredible things in my 40-some years on this planet.  I've seen 2 space shuttles blow up and watched in disbelief.  I've also watched the surreal footage of the World Trade Center collapse on September 11.  I sat at my brother's dining room table and helped plan his funeral with him - never believing he could really ever die.

To me, it would seem unbelievable that Jesus was dead in the first place.  I'm not surprised that the group had issues with the fact that he might be alive.  I imagine there was a lot of confusion about whether Jesus was "still" alive or alive "again".  They didn't know the whole story.  In fact, they were the story.  

That's kind of where I want to focus this post.  When Jesus came to be with them all for the first time after the resurrection He asked them a question.  

Luke 24:38, 39

³⁸He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

It's hard to determine the level of emotion Jesus was feeling when he asked the question.  Did he ask this with a loving smile on his face?  Was he frustrated at their doubts and confusion?  I wasn't there.  I don't know.  But I do know that he showed up to prove the resurrection to those who chose to meet together.  

We have the benefit of reading the story from beginning to end.  We can point to them and say "yeah - why didn't they believe?" because we know the end of the story.  Because they were the story, they didn't have the same point of reference.  Still, they were expected to believe.  

As married men, we all have our relationship struggles.  We struggle in our relationship with God.  We struggle in our relationship with our wives.  We struggle in our relationships with our kids.  Life is like that.  Nothing new here.  But when it comes to dealing with our struggles, how much belief to we have that God is here to take care of everything?  Or put another way - how little belief causes us to try to handle our struggles out of our own resources and energy?  We are our own stories.  Sometimes it's difficult to put our complete faith in God when we can't see the ending to the story.  

Unlike the disciples and the people gathered in the room in Luke 24, we have the benefit of knowing how that story ends.  True, each of us in our marriages are our own story and we might be afraid, frustrated, or angry about the current chapter we're in.  Yet, because we know the ending to that story, we can be confident in the ending to our own stories - if we believe.

Faith - believing - is a difficult thing on the nuts and bolts level.  I believe there is a God.  I believe that Jesus Christ died to save me from myself and from hell.   That's the easy part.  The hard part is to believe that God will take care of me through the current crisis chapter I'm in.  It's to believe that if I give up my relationship with my wife to God that he will make it better than it could be if I try to take care of it on my own.  It's difficult to trust that God will heal the hurts and uncertainty done to a relationship through addiction, adultery, dysfunction, terminal illness, unplanned pregnancy, car accidents, law suits, financial distress, job loss - and the list goes on.  It's difficult to trust because, in those situations, we are the story being written and we aren't sure how it will end.  

I saw the movie Bedtime Stories with my family last night.  In the movie the Adam Sandler character tells his niece and nephew that there are no happy endings in real life.  At the end of the movie, the kids and the narrator (the late father) teach him about happy endings in real life.  

In Luke 24: 34-39, Brother Luke, Jesus Christ, and our not-so-late Father God - teach us about happy endings in our real lives.  If you believe - really trust on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour level of trust - you're guaranteed a happy ending to your story.  

It's Easter weekend.   There's a lot of reason for celebration.  Yet, there's still a lot of pain and hurt out there in relationships.  If this Easter weekend isn't a weekend of celebration for you, leave a comment so we can pray for you.  And if you need to reach out for some  help, we can do that too.  

Thanks for stopping by.

The Gift and the Cost of the Gift

If you're starting to notice a theme in the stuff you read here you're probably right. The keystone of this ministry is salvation through Jesus Christ and the gift of Grace. Well, actually, that's part 1. Part 2 is how the gift of grace affects your relationships with the people around you. Those two things, taken together, are the two sole ingredients in making your marriage a better place. With Easter upon us, I'm making an attempt to show you how these things fit together in a very real and personal way. I believe that it's easy to lose the reality and the impact of Easter in all the noise of impending springtime, NCAA Basketball, a nice Easter ham, and a long nap.

So that you and I wouldn't have to - Jesus was laid out on a wooden cross. Iron spikes, 4 to 6 inches long, were hammered through his wrists into the wooden beams. Then his feet were positioned, one on top of the other, and a spike hammered through the tops of both feet into the beam. The cross was then set vertical in a hole and large wooden shim pressed into the hole on either side to hold it in place. If the scourging that the Roman soldiers gave him was the beginning of the end, this was the end of the end. I don't know about you - but I cannot wrap my brain around the amount of excruciating pain that was dealt out when Jesus was hung on the cross. It should have been me - It should have been you. He did that so that you and I wouldn't have to.

There were two others. Jesus' cross was set in between two other crosses where two other criminals were also being executed. Two guys, both convicted criminals. One of them got it, the other one didn't. As the soldiers and the Jewish leaders were lobbing insults at Jesus from the ground one of the other men being executed bated him with a sarcasm.

Luke 23:39 "One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!"

I think this was the guy who had issues of personal responsibility. "I was framed, man! I didn't do this!" You know the type - the reason why he's here is because someone else screwed up. It's not his fault and it's so unfair that he's being held responsible for it.

The other man was different, maybe more quiet and remorseful. He understood his part in the events that were playing out. He knew where his responsibilities lay. He got it - that he deserved to be hanging there for the wrong things he did.

Luke 23:40, 41 "But the other criminal rebuked him . 'Don't you fear God,' he said, 'since you are under the same sentence? we are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."

This guy had humility and maturity. I am punished justly, for I am getting what my deeds deserve. He got it! And for his humility and responsibility he was rewarded.

Luke 23:43 "Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

So many times I see husbands full of pride and ego, like the first criminal. There is no humility in the way they relate to their wives. The attitude is that if anything is wrong in the relationship someone else better take care of it. Don't frame me for being the bad guy. I didn't do anything to get us in this place! The only thing being executed here is the marriage.

It takes the crucifixion of one's self in order for a man to gain the attitude of the other criminal. Hey, I know I screwed this up. I have a part in the dysfunction of this relationship. I own this but I don't want it to stay this way.

I want to leave you with this. It's a quote from the material that is used in the Exchanged Life Conference at the Life Center in Grand Rapids, MI.

Jesus Christ gave his life for us,

so that he could give his life to us,

in order to live his life through us

Think about how the gift of grace and what Jesus Christ did on the cross can affect you - and in turn, effect your relationship with your wife.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Gift and the Gift Card.

This ministry is based on something very simple yet almost too incredible to believe. The fact that Jesus Christ came from heaven - His sole purpose was to hang out with humans long enough for us to get to know him and then die a vicious death to pay for all the wrong things we did, do, and will do - ever. That was it - the entire mission. He came. He taught. He paid, because he loves us. And then He was taken back up to heaven.

In Mark's account of his time with Jesus he recounts the abuse that Jesus endured for me. In chapter 14 Mark tells how Jesus was before the Jewish ruling counsel and how they physically beat him with their fists, slapped his face, and spit on him. But this abuse just scratches the surface. Later, in chapter 15, Mark tells about how the roman soldiers scourged him. If you've ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ, you now are aware of what a scourging is. Even as I write this I get queasy over the memory of that scene. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, a scourge is a handle with many leather cords attached to it. Today it's most commonly referred to as a cat o' nine tails. Often, metal objects were attached to the ends of the tails so that when it hit the skin it would tear it open. Even after the scourging, Mark tells us that the roman court pressed the crown on thorns into his head, spit on him some more, and beat him in the head with a stick.

My friend, you and I were separated from God by the sin in our lives. God saw this and he didn't like it. He wanted a way to have a relationship with us again. The only way He could do that was to have Jesus Christ endure this punishment and eventually die and go to hell - all so that you and I could have a relationship with God again. You and I should have been the one spit on, beaten up, and scourged - our skin ripped apart in searing pain. You and I are the ones who rightly deserve to die and go to hell for the sin in our lives. But God doesn't want us to go to hell. He doesn't want us to die. He loves us and wants a relationship with us. He wants us to be with Him.

Jesus Christ took our place in the beatings, the abuse, the death, and our place in hell so that we could go on living in community with God. He loved us that much. He gave us this gift - the gift of forgiving the wrong things we do and a seat with him in heaven forever. We don't have to pay for it - the price has already been paid. We can't earn it like a paycheck. It comes with no strings attached - it's free!

For Christan married men, this gift comes with a gift card attached. The card says just one thing on it:

Ephesians 5:25
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her."

*If you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as the one who saves you from the wrongs you do in your life you're still separated from God. If you want to change this, send an e-mail to Info@4BetterOr4Worse.org and someone will contact you and help you make this happen in your life. We can't do it without him, and what's more is that we were never meant to.

Encouragement 101

In the last week I've really been made aware of the value of encouragement and of the large number of people who desperately need it. There are two people in my personal life who are in crisis and I answered a call for help from one of my facebook friends who posted a "lament" about bad things happening to a friend of hers. I have a good friend who is far from home and his support group, and is drowning in the struggle to find and keep a job and establish himself in a new community. The past 24 hours have found me trying to figure out how to encourage him - man to man.

My answer to most of these types of questions is to get back to basics. So, this morning I cracked open the Good Book and started thumbing my way through the New Testament. I wonder how many men are like me - plenty familiar with the front half of the New Testament but not so much with the back half. There's some great stuff back there! The Apostle Paul does a lot of encouraging through letters to pastors in the middle part of the New Testament. His letters to the Philippians, Titus, Timothy, and the Hebrews are all about encouragement and motivation. In my back to basics philosophy, you can not only receive encouragement from these books of the Bible but you can also take a lesson in the how to's of encouragement as well. If there's someone in your life that has really hit a rough stretch of road in life and needs some propping up, this is where you figure out how to do it. Most of these books are not a long read - some of them can be read in just a few minutes.

I am by no means an expert in encouragement. Yet, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to encourage someone. In my efforts to encourage my friend I'm taking some cues from the way Paul writes his letters and I've found a few things that might help you if you're in the same boat.

1. The template.
   I've been accused of being very analytical and left brained, rigidly conforming to templates for my actions and reactions to things in life. While that may be a valid criticism of my habits, I think there is some value in it. Paul's letters of encouragement all have similar elements. There's a greeting before he gets down to business. Paul uses the greeting to express his heartfelt love and concern for the people he's writing to. Then he gets down to business. He addresses issues with heartfelt sincerety and sound principles. Paul is a master at delivering love with accountability - truth with grace. In the end, he turns personal again, leaving the reader with a very heartfelt goodbye.
   
   
2. Grace and Peace
   Frequently, in his letters, Paul starts out the letter by using the phrase "Grace and Peace be with you". I think it's important that those two elements become the goal of our encouragement. Grace and peace come from God - no where else. But we who are doing the encouragement are the hands and feet of God. We men, as brother's in Christ, are the method by which God delivers his grace and peace. I think it's really important that we keep this in the forefront of our minds when we set out to encourage and motivate another person.
   
   
3. Prayer.
   Paul prayed a lot! Often, when we are in a position to encourage someone it happens over a peroid of time and not for just one point in time (i.e. death of a family member, loss of job, divorce, etc). Pray for the person you're encouraging consistantly. Yes, it's possible that this means doing something you're not used to.
   
   
4. Truth and Grace.
   As I said before - Paul was a master at delivering accountability with a purpose. One of the venue pastors from my church said to me once "Grace always follows truth.". Accountabilty is important. At times, the reason why someone may need encouragement is because of consequences from poor choices they have made. When this is the case, as brothers in Christ, we need to shine the light on that and see it for what it is. However, grace needs to follow that truth. It has to be communicated in love and support - never with condemnation and condecention. Paul sometimes throws in references to his own failures in order to support his point of grace and to remind his reader that they're in the same boat. In other cases people are in bad spots through no fault of their own. A little different approach might be in order here. Remind them that God loves them and is in control of everything. This can be really difficult sometimes. I'm struggling with this myself. Sometimes it seems that the words "Jesus loves you" and $2 will buy you a coffee at Starbucks. My advice, for lack of anything better, is to acknowledge those feelings but continue to validate the truth. "I know that might be hard to believe right now, but it's true - God cares for you."
   
   
5. Teach - Don't Preach
   Paul always manages to maintain an attitude of sincerity. Many times, as he writes, he explains how his teaching is in their best interest. He communicate that the motivation for his teaching is because he cares for them so much and wants the very best for them. This is another critical element anytime you set out to encourage someone.
   
   
6. Humor.
   I often wonder why the writers of the contents of the Bible never included anything funny? I have been blessed by some very funny people in my life and I have recognized the asset that humor can be when encouraging someone. There are physical and emotional benefits to laughter and I think this can be an important part of encouragement - even if it's just to get someone's mind off their troubles for a few minutes. Just be careful to keep the humor appropriate. Racy or inappropriate jokes (not to be confused with bad jokes or groaners) can lead you down a path you're tying to avoid in the first place.
   
   
7. The wrap up.
   I think it's important when you end your time with someone that you do two things - pray together and let them know you love them.
   

I've written this for two reasons - First, I hope you find some value in what's written in this post. Second, one learns by doing. To that end I'm teaching myself by writing this to you. If you have anything to add, or if you think something needs to be corrected, please grab the comment box and give me your thoughts.

Thanks for tuning in.