2010 Sermon on Ephesians 5

Hey Guys! Just a quick link to a sermon I gave last year on my heart to serve my wife.... Before I go through my heart for seeing Ephesians 5:25-30 on the pages of this blog, I thought I would give you a preview by way of this sermon. My theology on Eph. 5 has developed further since this sermon, but I thought you all may enjoy hearing it! Enjoy and I'd love to get your feedback after you've listened!

BTW, I just listened to a portion of the sermon and  I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the audio. The church where I gave this sermon had really bad recording equipment....

Listen here!

First Post!

Hi! My name is Mike Falkenstine and I’m glad that you’ve decided to visit my new blog. I’m a guy that has a heart for ministry. I love seeing people either come to know Christ or grow in their walk with Christ. Professionally, I’m a ministry executive with the China Resource Center, a ministry my wife and I started 6 ½ years ago. You can learn more about CRC here, but suffice it to say I love what I do. It is a joy to wake up every day and love your job!

Beside ministry in China, I also have a heart for marriages, and in particular, helping and encouraging men to love their lives as Christ loved the Church. Ephesians 5:25 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her….” As I’ve investigated what that really means, I’ve been blown away! To love our lives as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us? Wow! That’s some serious love…. That’s a ‘I’m all in, even to the point of giving up my own live’ kind of love. How can we do that? What do we do to love our wives in that way? Wow…. That is what this blog will be about. I think as men, we really have no clue what that means, how to do it well, what our role is as a husband. I want to help you and I’m hoping you can help me. Being a Godly husband is not easy. The enemy loves to see us fail and I’m hoping that together, we can encourage each other, pray for each other and hold each other up. As the movie Courageous has shown, our responsibility at home is a great one, and it all starts with our relationship with our wives.

So what will I cover in this blog? Here’s just a sampling:

• Things I’ve learned about loving my wife as Christ loves the Church through the 15 years of marriage with my wife Sherie
• Short Bible Study tidbits on being a Godly Husband
• Quotes from others who know more about all of this then I do
• Recipes I’ve used as I cook dinner…. Yes, that’s right. Recipes! As you’ll learn through the blog, I think one of the greatest ways we can love our wives is by cooking dinner on Sunday night. This gives her a true Sabbath day of rest and is a great way to show her that you’re willing to serve her in a real tangible way. This may be easy for some guys to pick up and harder for others, but when I really got serious about loving my wife in this way, acts of service were huge. It also sets a great example for our kids, that Dad is a servant leader. The recipes are somewhat simple things to make, and I’ve found that when I cook on Sundays, it also creates new traditions in our home. My wife has tried to reproduce some of my recipes and can’t do it like I can….. Our kids look forward to having ‘Daddy’s Mac n’ Cheese’ or my ‘Chicken Cheese Chimichangas.’
• Guest blog posts from some of you! If you've also done some reading, research and/or have great experiences on deeply loving your wife, I’d love to post your thoughts and material here.

There’s a couple of ways you can easily keep up with this blog. You can use Google Friend Connect to be alerted when I have a new post. I use Google Reader on my Android Tablet, which is a great way to get the RSS feeds from multiple blogs. Finally, you can subscribe to the left to receive an email each time there’s a new blog post.

Thank you for your interest in being a better husband and I look forward to walking this journey with you!