The Act Of Marriage Order Printed Copy

Author: Tim Lahaye
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About the Book

"The Act of Marriage" by Tim LaHaye is a Christian guidebook on marriage and sexuality, offering advice on building a strong, fulfilling relationship with one's spouse. LaHaye explores topics such as communication, intimacy, and sexual satisfaction within the context of marriage, providing practical tips and biblical guidance for couples looking to strengthen their bond and cultivate a healthy sexual relationship.

Elizabeth Elliot

“I have one desire now – to live a life with reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my strength and energy into it.” Elisabeth Elliot, an inspirational woman who remained faithful to God, and the calling he had laid on her heart, through many trials and tribulations. ELISABETH’S EARLY YEARS Elisabeth Elliot was born on December 27, 1926 in Brussels, Belgium, where her parents served as missionaries. Before she was a year old they moved to America to Germantown, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. Her family grew when they came to America, and Elisabeth gained four younger brothers and one younger sister. While they lived in Germantown, Elisabeth’s father was the editor for the Sunday School Times, which was a weekly journal that contained Sunday School lessons that were used simultaneously in several Sunday School classrooms to keep the teaching and learning cohesive in churches throughout the country. CALLING TO ECUADOR A true pioneer in the world of Christianity, Elisabeth went to Wheaton College and studied Greek, because she desired to translate the Bible for the remote regions in the world. While at the college, she met Jim Elliot. After graduation, Elisabeth went on a missionary expedition to Ecuador with other students from Wheaton, including Jim Elliot. In the first year of their missionary journey, Jim and Elisabeth worked in different regions. A year after entering Ecuador, Jim joined Elisabeth in the Quichua Indian tribe. In 1953, Jim and Elisabeth were married and continued to serve in Ecuador. They had a daughter, Valerie Elliot Shepard. When the Auca tribe in Eastern Ecuador killed Jim Elliot and his missionary partners, Elisabeth refused to give up on the people in that tribe. She continued to live in the region with her daughter and Rachel Saint, the sister of another one of the missionaries that the Auca tribe killed. They lived among the Quichua tribe. While living in the Quichua tribe, two Auca women lived with Elisabeth for one year. During that year of living with the two Auca women, Elisabeth came to understand why the tribe killed her husband and the other missionaries. The tribe feared that outsiders were going to come into their tribe and take away their freedom. With that understanding, Elisabeth and Rachel Saint were able to go to the Auca tribe and build relationships with them. They led the people of the tribe to Jesus. The tribe saw and understood the forgiveness and grace that Elisabeth and Rachel extended to them. Elisabeth wrote two books while she lived in Ecuador that contained her experiences and Jim’s experiences with the Auca tribe. She wrote Through the Gates of Splendor, which gives an account of her and Jim’s experiences with the Auca tribe. ELISABETH’S RETURN TO AMERICA After spending two years with the Auca, Elisabeth came to America with her daughter in 1963. Elisabeth and her daughter, Valerie lived in New Hampshire when they returned to America. Elisabeth met Addison Leitch, a theologian professor at Gordon Conwell University, and was thrilled to marry him in 1969. During their marriage, Addison and Elisabeth toured the United States with speaking engagements. Elisabeth never limited her message to women. She would inspire other Christians to live their lives, both men and women, with a passion to live for God. Four years after they were married in 1973, Addison lost his battle with cancer and died. Valerie was thirteen when Elisabeth married Addison and was excited that God gave her a “Daddy.” When he died, Valerie was devastated to lose the father that she knew. She knew about Jim Elliot her biological father, but she knew Addison as a father who was present with her. ELISABETH’S LOVE REDEEMED After Leitch’s death, Elisabeth had two lodgers in her home. One of the lodgers married her daughter, and the other lodger, Lars Gren, married Elisabeth. Lars Gren was a hospital chaplain. Lars and Elisabeth were married until her death. At the age of 89, on June 15, 2015 Elisabeth Elliot died. As her soul resides in heaven, her legacy lives on earth with her writings and stories. ELISABETH ELLIOT’S BELIEFS ON FEMINISM Elisabeth was never afraid to tell where the woman’s place was. She believed that women in the military needed to be in non-combative places because they would be needed at home, even if they were single. Also, she believed strongly that a married woman, especially to a pastor, was to support his ministry and not begin her own career. Her beliefs came because she counseled so many women whose marriages were falling apart because the women insisted on working outside of the home. Also, she studied the Bible and understood what it meant for women. Elisabeth didn’t like addressing the issue, but she was very bold and forthright in her answers. Elisabeth knew how to answer the question of women speaking in the church. She declined speaking on Sunday mornings to a congregation. If she were asked to speak at a Sunday School class or another meeting at a church, she would only oblige if a man who was a leader turned over the meeting to her. She understood the Bible to be clear that women are not to usurp authority over men. She knew that the Bible didn’t discriminate between Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, but she also knew that she could not usurp authority over men. Her beliefs gained her respect, and men and women listened to her and read her books. BOOKS WRITTEN BY ELISABETH ELLIOT In her lifetime, Elisabeth wrote and published twenty-four books. She continued to travel and speak all over America sharing her story, her knowledge, and wisdom of God’s Word until her health stopped her in 2004. Her most popular books were Through the Gates of Splendor and Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under God’s Control. Through the Gates of Splendor tells the story of Jim Elliot and their encounter with the tribes in Ecuador that eventually took his life. Passion and Purity: Your Life Under God’s Control is a book that deals with dating for single Christians and how to honor God in their romantic relationships. It was published in 1984. In a world where everyone is doing whatever they please, she gives her own examples of love, heartache with the deaths of her husbands, and romance with all of them, while maintaining a pure relationship with them and before God. Elisabeth used her theological knowledge in her books and speeches. QUOTES FROM ELISABETH ELLIOT “God never denies our hearts’ desire except to give us something better.” “I have one desire now—to live a life with reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my strength and energy into it.” “Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.” “Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.” “We cannot give our lives to God and keep our bodies to ourselves.” “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”

seven prayers for christian dating

If we refuse to pray in dating, we refuse to receive the precious resources we need most in dating. Too many of us struggle in dating — to discern our hearts, to communicate with one another, to balance priorities and responsibilities, to reject sexual temptation — without ever asking God for his wisdom, strength, and help. We wonder why we make the same mistakes and fall into sin over and over again, while we leave the King sitting on the bench. We may talk about praying, but we rarely actually talk to God. We read articles, text friends, listen to podcasts, even ask for advice, but put off kneeling at the feet of our Father in heaven. If we want to date well, we will need to pray more. The invitation to pray in dating is not another burden heaped onto the back of single men and women. It is the path into having our feelings and desires tested, confirmed, and fulfilled. It’s not another gen. ed. course we have to pass before God gives us a husband or a wife. It is the 747 big enough, strong enough, and safe enough to carry us through these single years, and if God wills, into the new country of marriage. Don’t start dating without praying, and don’t stop praying while you’re waiting. If you don’t know what to pray, here are seven prayers for any not-yet-married relationship. 1. Free us to date differently. “Whether you eat or drink” — or date or marry — “or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31) Our Father in heaven, so much in the dating scene today seems so broken — unnecessary ambiguity, unhealthy communication, fear of commitment, boundaries crossed, messy breakups. Because we are yours, we desperately want our dating to be different. Set our relationship apart from every fallen example around us. Allow our love and respect for one another to say something profound and beautiful about your Son, even when we make mistakes or sin against each other. 2. Give us a passion for each other’s faith and joy in you. I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:25–26) It will be too easy to focus our attention and energy on each other — the status of our relationship, the nature of our conflict, the trajectory of our feelings — but the most important dynamic in our relationship will be its influence on our relationship with you. I am naturally more concerned with what my girlfriend (or boyfriend) thinks and feels about me, when I should be far more concerned with what she (or he) thinks and feels about you. God, inspire in us a passion for each other’s faith and joy in you. 3. Keep our affection for each other from blinding us to sin. I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:2–3) The line between affection and infatuation can blur quickly in a relationship, blinding us to you and to ourselves. Having “fallen in love,” we lose touch with our fallenness. Satan steps into the euphoria and deceives us into ignoring, overlooking, or excusing sin. We compromise in relationships in ways we never would otherwise. God, blow away the fog of any infatuation, and fill our eyes with your truth and beauty. When every fiber of every muscle in our bodies wants to give into temptation, ignite our hearts to reject sin’s filthy promises and to prefer you and your righteousness. 4. Remind us our bodies were bought with a precious and infinite price. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18–20) Sadly and tragically, sexual immorality seems to be the norm — even, in some cases, among relationships claiming to be Christian. But when everyone else is giving in, we refuse to give up. Whenever we are tempted to cross boundaries you have lovingly set for us, carry our minds to the cross, where Jesus died to liberate us from every ounce of sexual sin. It will be one of the most radical, countercultural, Spirit-enabled feats of our lives: choosing to deny the impulse to experiment or express ourselves sexually in dating because we trust you and treasure Jesus. 5. Weave our dating relationship into other meaningful relationships. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13) Father, guard us from isolating ourselves and our relationship from other believers. The more time we spend one-on-one with each other, the less time we spend with other important people in our lives. That distance is one of the greatest dangers in dating. Draw the men and women we need into our feelings, our communication, and our decision-making. Bring us other Christians who love us enough to ask hard questions. When the temptation will be to date off in a corner, weave our relationship into real, consistent, and engaged community. 6. In your perfect timing, give us clarity about whether we should marry. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. . . . Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. (Psalms 37:5, 7) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. (James 1:5) We feel how vulnerable we are in dating — the uncertainty, the fragility, the volatility. It is not a safe love yet, because it is not yet sealed with our promises. If we are to truly, deeply, exclusively, freely, and passionately love each other, it must be as husband and wife. It must be inside the beautiful and mysterious oneness of marriage. So, give us clarity, God. We are waiting for you to make clear whether we should marry. We don’t want to date one day longer than you would have us. We’re pleading for wisdom in dating because we know how much you love to give it to those who ask. 7. At every step, remain our first and greatest love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” (Luke 10:27) “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4) Above all, forbid that any love would begin to overshadow or replace our love for you. If either of us consistently draws us away from you, give us enough faith and love to walk away. Guard us from anyone who wants your place in our heart, and lead us to a husband or wife who has already given all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength to you. Whether we ever marry or not, we pledge our love first and forever to you — from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health — until death once and for all marries us to you.