5:21: The Nine Divine Words from Ephesians That Can Change Your Marriage for Good!

By Rick Larson

Couples whove attended Rick Larsons Heaven Now! seminar are discovering (and talked about) a life-changing biblical truth.

There is one bold, clear, unavoidable sentence, which is the heart of this book: what is the ageless principle God tucked inside the New Testament that can bring new hope, strength, and direction to your marriage today?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503529618

Rick Larson

For more than thirty years, Rick Larson has counseled married couples using the biblical principle of 5:21. Ordained by the Evangelical Covenant Church of America, he speaks to churches and parachurch ministries throughout North America. Before entering full-time ministry, Rick, who holds a master’s in social work, worked for the state of Rhode Island as a policy adviser on social services to the state legislature and to the governor. Rick has pastored two churches in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC); Chapel in the Pines in Arnold, California; and Hope Community Church in Houston, Texas. He also served as director of ministry for the midsouth region of the ECC. His most recent church ministry has been as executive pastor at Sierra Bible Church, an independent evangelical congregation, in Sonora, California. Rick and Linda have two grown children and are grandparents to four grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2015 by Rick Larson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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NIV

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Rev. date: 01/06/2015

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

A Personal Invitation

A Little Piece of Heaven, Now!

A Changed Life

A New Measure of Love

His Strongest Need

Her Heart’s Desire

The Cost of Money

The Gift of Children

The Selfless Joy of Sexuality

As Long As You Both Shall Live

Let the Story Continue

About the Author

Dedication

To my wife, Linda,

who was already living out God’s principles for

marriage long before I began to understand them.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the Evangelical Covenant Church which ordained me and trusted me with my first opportunity to be a pastor at Chapel in the Pines in Arnold, California. You treated me like gold. Thank you!

Thank you, Mark Levering, for seeing ministry gifts in me and for mentoring me in those early years.

Thank you, Eugene Peterson, for your books on pastoral ministry, which have been a lifeline of insight and guidance.

Thanks to Sierra Bible Church in Sonora, California, for your encouragement of eight-plus years and your part in the development of the Heaven Now! marriage seminar and this book.

Thanks to Lori Fields, my ministry assistant. Your belief in the message of 5:21, and your untiring effort, has been a real encouragement to me.

Thanks to the Board of Heaven Now! for your commitment and unending support.

Thanks to Craig Rogers for listening to that first seminar and pushing me to have it duplicated. And thanks to the couple that paid for the duplication so we could offer the CDs free of charge.

Thanks to all the couples throughout the country who have applied the biblical truths in the seminar and in this book and found new joy in their marriage.

Finally, I want to thank Mark Cutshall, who was referred to me by Russ and M.L. Chandler, both authors. Mark and I have enjoyed a wonderful friendship and a collaborative effort that has resulted in this book. I owe so much to Mark and his wisdom and his literary skills. He has thrown himself into this endeavor without reservation and with a determination to make the biblical truths and message of this book come alive.

Foreword

Do you ever notice how husbands and wives interact with each other? Leslie and I have been watching couples for years, and whenever we see a husband and wife that’s attentive to each other, enjoying each other, we smile because we realize there’s something very good happening between them: At the heart of their shared delight is love, pure and selfless.

Selflessness can be a rare commodity in marriage, because each person brings his or her individual wants and needs. When the temptation is to be selfish, we need to be selfless. Selflessness is foundational to a marriage that works according to God’s design.

When selflessness is embraced and practiced, it sets a couple free to enjoy life together. That’s why Rick Larson wrote this book. Rick has invested three decades in pastoral counseling, helping couples see beyond the selfish me first temptations to a love that, like the subtitle says, can change your marriage for good.

Rick’s message of hope is as simple and direct as the biblical passage you’ll come to learn, remember and live out in your marriage. As you’ll see, Rick does something very intentional: He lets you to eavesdrop on his conversations with couples. You’ll see what’s going on in their marriage. You’ll learn where they’re really struggling and where they’re beginning to truly care for each other. Their stories, alone, will cause you to journey with God and discover his heart and intent for your marriage.

5:21 is filled with big truths and little wonders.

Some of the most meaningful, lasting discoveries are waiting for you at the conclusion of each chapter. In the space of a few, simple questions and suggested thoughts, you have the opportunity to take a breath and reflect on your marriage, individually and/or together with your spouse. Your conversations, in fact, can be the kindling that can warm you to a new depth of mutual caring and move you closer to each other and the Lord himself.

Someone once said:

I heard, and I forgot.

I saw and I remembered.

I did, and I understood.

May you understand more fully than ever God’s best for your marriage, by doing, together, the timeless truths that await you in these pages.

– Drs. Les & Leslie Parrott

A Personal Invitation

Submit to one another

Out of reverence for Christ.

– EPHESIANS 5:21

Nine words.

One overlooked New Testament sentence that can strengthen, restore, heal, and bring life to a marriage—your marriage—regardless of what the two of you have gone through, or what you’re facing right now.

Nine words of shared sacrifice and mutual blessing that can take you beyond indifference, infidelity, anger and mistrust, beyond a pending separation or perhaps a looming divorce.

Nine words that can rekindle and deepen your love for each other, regardless of what your marriage looks like:

• a new marriage with a mountain of wedding gifts still unopened,

• a very busy marriage crawling with expressive, active children,

• a demanding, tiring marriage now frayed around the edges, or perhaps

• a deteriorating marriage of raised voices and growing silence.

What is the current state of your marriage, and what do you desire for your marriage more than anything else?

The wife of a couple I once counseled said, The harder we try to make things work, the more we get stuck in the same dumb, hurtful patterns. How do we know how to make things better if we don’t even know where we’re going?

What I shared with her and her husband that day and in the following weeks got them listening and talking and thinking and praying and, most importantly, discovering how to love each other, again. What I shared with them was a set of timeless biblical truths about marriage wrapped in real-life stories, truths made practical and personal through a series of inviting, open-ended questions. By putting these truths into practice over the course of weeks, months and years, they turned their relationship around.

One day, alongside her husband, the wife told me,

Something new is happening in our marriage. It’s a kind of love we’ve never experienced before, and it flows from the very things you’ve shared with us. In fact it’s so good; we think you should write a book about it.

And so I have.

The life-changing truths this and many other couples have experienced are tucked inside the pages you’re now holding. And the truth is this:

The greatest love you’ll ever experience in marriage—this biblically based love that can transform your marriage—flows from your love and reverence for Christ who calls a husband and a wife to freely and mutually surrender themselves to one another. This love can take root and grow regardless of the state of your marriage. It’s a love that can bloom sooner rather than later and, in fact, be passed