The Great Escape

God does the extraordinary as we do the ordinary. Acts 12:1-9 The Message (MSG) 12  1-4  That’s when King Herod got it into his head to go after some of the church members. He murdered James, John’s brother. When he saw how much it raised his popularity ratings with the Jews, he arrested Peter—all this during Passover Week, mind you—and had him thrown in jail, putting four squads of four soldiers each to guard him. He was planning a public lynching after Passover. 5  All the time that Peter was under heavy guard in the jailhouse, the church prayed for him most strenuously. 6  Then the time came for Herod to bring him out for the kill. That night, even though shackled to two soldiers, one on either side, Peter slept like a baby. And there were guards at the door keeping their eyes on the place. Herod was taking no chances! 7-9  Suddenly there was an angel at his side and light flooding the room. The angel shook Peter and got him up: “Hurry!” The handcuffs fell off his wr

Matthew 19:3-6    (NIV) 3  Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4  “Haven’t you read,”  he replied,  “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’   5  and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ?   6  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Marriage is a Covenant not a Contract.    1. Covenant is based on mutual commitment. 2. Contract is based on mutual distrust.   "Commitment is being willing to be unhappy while we work it out."  3. Covenant surrenders rights and assumes responsibility. 4.  Contract protects rights and shirks responsibility.  5.  Covenant has the interest of the other in mind. 6.  Contract has personal convenience in mind. "God remains fai

Hebrews 13:4    (NIV) 4  Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Ephesians 5:3    (NIV) 3  But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7   (NIV) 3  It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;   4  that each of you should learn to control your own body [ a ]  in a way that is holy and honorable,   5  not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;  7  For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20   New International Version (NIV) 18  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.   19  Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Sp