One-Minute Devotions for Couples

Moeller Bob, Moeller Cheryl

Description

The most important step a couple can take to build a strong, loving, and enduring marriage is to invite Jesus Christ into their relationship each day. This insightful devotional for couples is organized around 250 one-minute readings that include a probing question, an encouraging story or practical advice, and an appropriate Scripture verse.Bob and Cheryl Moeller, cofounders of For Better For Worse For Keeps Ministries, have successfully used this simple one-minute format on radio and television for decades. Filled with encouragement, inspiration, and wise counsel, their relationship-nurturing devotional will give busy couples quick opportunities to draw near to God--and to each other.

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
• Date de parution: 01 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736952040
• Langue: English

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Verses marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.
Verses marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Verses marked HCSB are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible , copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible , Holman CSB , and HCSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
Cover design by Koechel Peterson Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota Cover photo Ron Chapple Studios / Thinkstock
The authors are represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc., of Hillsboro, Oregon

To our friend and editor, Rod Morris, whom God used to change the course of our ministry two decades ago. For Better, For Worse, For Keeps Ministries began the day you called and invited us to submit a book proposal on marriage. Thank you ever so much.
Congratulations, Rod and Deanne, on your thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.
ONE-MINUTE DEVOTIONS FOR COUPLES
Copyright 2013 by Bob and Cheryl Moeller
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-5203-3 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5204-0 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Contents
A Word to the Reader
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Day 36
Day 37
Day 38
Day 39
Day 40
Day 41
Day 42
Day 43
Day 44
Day 45
Day 46
Day 47
Day 48
Day 49
Day 50
Day 51
Day 52
Day 53
Day 54
Day 55
Day 56
Day 57
Day 58
Day 59
Day 60
Day 61
Day 62
Day 63
Day 64
Day 65
Day 66
Day 67
Day 68
Day 69
Day 70
Day 71
Day 72
Day 73
Day 74
Day 75
Day 76
Day 77
Day 78
Day 79
Day 80
Day 81
Day 82
Day 83
Day 84
Day 85
Day 86
Day 87
Day 88
Day 89
Day 90
Day 91
Day 92
Day 93
Day 94
Day 95
Day 96
Day 97
Day 98
Day 99
Day 100
Day 101
Day 102
Day 103
Day 104
Day 105
Day 106
Day 107
Day 108
Day 109
Day 110
Day 111
Day 112
Day 113
Day 114
Day 115
Day 116
Day 117
Day 118
Day 119
Day 120
Day 121
Day 122
Day 123
Day 124
Day 125
Day 126
Day 127
Day 128
Day 129
Day 130
Day 131
Day 132
Day 133
Day 134
Day 135
Day 136
Day 137
Day 138
Day 139
Day 140
Day 141
Day 142
Day 143
Day 144
Day 145
Day 146
Day 147
Day 148
Day 149
Day 150
Day 151
Day 152
Day 153
Day 154
Day 155
Day 156
Day 157
Day 158
Day 159
Day 160
Day 161
Day 162
Day 163
Day 164
Day 165
Day 166
Day 167
Day 168
Day 169
Day 170
Day 171
Day 172
Day 173
Day 174
Day 175
Day 176
Day 177
Day 178
Day 179
Day 180
Day 181
Day 182
Day 183
Day 184
Day 185
Day 186
Day 187
Day 188
Day 189
Day 190
Day 191
Day 192
Day 193
Day 194
Day 195
Day 196
Day 197
Day 198
Day 199
Day 200
Day 201
Day 202
Day 203
Day 204
Day 205
Day 206
Day 207
Day 208
Day 209
Day 210
Day 211
Day 212
Day 213
Day 214
Day 215
Day 216
Day 217
Day 218
Day 219
Day 220
Day 221
Day 222
Day 223
Day 224
Day 225
Day 226
Day 227
Day 228
Day 229
Day 230
Day 231
Day 232
Day 233
Day 234
Day 235
Day 236
Day 237
Day 238
Day 239
Day 240
Day 241
Day 242
Day 243
Day 244
Day 245
Day 246
Day 247
Day 248
Day 249
Day 250
About Bob and Cheryl Moeller
A WORD to the READER
I f we were selling marriage insurance, the only policy we would offer would contain just four words, Prayer and God s Word.
Nothing we know of can better safeguard and protect your marriage bond than coming together daily in prayer and the study of the holy Scriptures. As you call on your heavenly Father together, you gain the incredible assurance that He hears you, for where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them (Matthew 18:20). As you fill your hearts and minds with the Scriptures, you gain the powerful confidence He is at work in your lives, for God declared through the prophet Isaiah:
So is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
(Isaiah 55:11)
That s why we ve put together these 250 one-minute devotionals for you to use each day as a couple. We want you to taste of the power, love, and joy that can be yours when you call on the name of the Lord in prayer and study His flawless Word together.
Our prayer is that the Lord will use your daily devotional time together to build a hedge around your marriage so high, so wide, and so deep that nothing will ever get through to compromise your vows. It is God s express will that what He has joined together no one ever separate. In Jesus you can experience the love and strength to remain faithful and committed to each other for a lifetime: A cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Remember, your marriage is for better, for worse, and for keeps.
Love in Christ,
Bob and Cheryl
DAY 1
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
E ZEKIEL 36:26

D oes your marriage need a heart transplant?
The prophet Ezekiel made a remarkable promise regarding the transforming love of God. Regardless of how troubled our marriage may have been up to now, God can take our heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. It begins with trusting the heart of God, who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross. There, bearing our sins, Jesus opened a source of love that can literally transform our life. If our heart is stone cold, we need to ask God to perform a heart transplant-to replace the old one with a new one that is once again soft and tender toward our spouse.
Heavenly Father, if my heart has started to harden toward those I love the most, I ask You to do what only You can do-to restore it to a soft and caring heart-a heart like Yours. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
DAY 2
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 J OHN 4:7,10-11

W hat s the source of all love in our marriages?
The great missionary David Livingstone launched an expedition to find the source of the magnificent Nile River in Africa. Have we ever asked, what is the source of true love in our marriage? Is it our romantic attraction? Is it our compatible personality traits? Or is the origin of true love found outside the two of us?
Today s Scripture teaches us that all genuine love comes from God. Fortunately we don t have to attend a seminar, buy a DVD series, or make an exotic safari to discover its transforming power. We simply have to ask God for it. Since God s love is the true source of all love, why not invite that river to flow into our marriage?
Dear God, let the inexhaustible river of Your love cascade through our marriage. Amen.
DAY 3
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
P SALM 139:23-24

I f our marriage is going to change, who should make the first move?
A twentieth-century devotional writer tells of a couple that never agreed on what to listen to on their radio. One day the wife realized the arguing in their marriage was due mainly to selfish issues in her own heart. She surprised her husband by switching the station to what he liked.
Why did you just do that? he asked.
Because I know it s what you prefer, she calmly replied.
He got up and turned it to back to her music. From that point onward, the acrimony and fighting in their marriage began to dissipate. One person took the first step of letting God examine their heart and make changes. Our marriage doesn t usually change when our spouse changes; change typically begins when we make the first move of letting God remove any offensive way in us.
Dear Lord, You have our permission here and now to examine our hearts and to take away anything that displeases You. Amen.
DAY 4
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
E PHESIANS 3:16-17

I f we wanted the soul of a loving person, whose heart would we ask for?
Someone once said that if we want the soul of a musician, we should ask for the heart of Beethoven. If we want the soul of a sculptor, ask for the heart of Michelangelo. But if we wanted the soul of a loving person, whose heart would we ask for?
First and last on the list should be the heart of Jesus Christ. But to receive a new heart from God we must take a step of faith. We ask Jesus Christ to forgive our sin and wrongdoing, and then accept His free offer