Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.—Matthew 7:24–25

If you are building a house, the most important time is when you lay the foundation.

First you make sure the blueprints are right. You turn them in to the city for approval. You plan out the electrical wiring and the plumbing work, you make sure everything is right, and then you pour your foundation.

If your foundation is poured properly, you can proceed with the framing and the roofing and all of the subsequent work. But if you get the foundation wrong and it is not done as it should be, you are going to have to tear it up later and start again.

I know it is fun to decorate and choose paint colors and landscaping, but none of that is as important as laying the foundation. The same is true of marriage: the most important part of it is the foundation. We want to build our marriages on our relationship with God, using the Bible as our blueprint.

We have seen the films about how love is supposed to be. They call them “romcoms,” romantic comedies. We have heard the emotional songs about love. We look at celebrities and perhaps wish we could have a life like theirs.

But if you use this culture, this world, or Hollywood as an example, you are not going to have a successful marriage. One day storms will come. Hardships will come. Temptations will come. Challenges will come. Health issues will come. And if the foundation of your marriage is not built upon the rock of Jesus Christ, it will not stand.

Don’t look to culture for cues on how to succeed in marriage. Look to a reliable source: the Word of God. The Bible tells us everything we need to know about how to have a strong and lasting marriage.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.—Philippians 2:3

I once heard a story about a husband and wife who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. At a gathering for friends and family, the husband stood up and proclaimed, “I love this woman so much.” Turning to his wife, he said to her, “Dear, because you have given me twenty five years of wedded bliss, I am taking you to China.”

The wife was so excited. She exclaimed, “China! I have always wanted to go to China!” Then she said to her husband, “If you are doing that for our 25th wedding anniversary, I can’t wait to see what you will do for our 50th wedding anniversary!”

The husband replied, “That is when I will pick you up.”

A story like that is funny to hear, but the reality of how our culture views marriage is no laughing matter. As Oscar Wilde wrote, “The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life.”

Is a long and happy marriage even possible? Can a woman and a man fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after? That is what the fairytales tell us. Is it more realistic to ask if couples can live “happily even after” they’re married?

I’m here to tell you, the answer is yes. It is possible to have a happy marriage. It is possible to have a strong marriage. But it doesn’t happen by random chance.

Sometimes people say, “They have a marriage made in heaven.” Does that mean that others have a marriage made in hell? No. If you see a marriage that looks like it was made in heaven, it is because those people have applied themselves to making it work.

When a husband and wife are each putting the other one first, with Christ as their foundation, they can experience a happy and fulfilling marriage.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.—Exodus 20:12

Few things in life can bring us as much pleasure or pain as our families. When things are working well in the family, it’s great. When things are not going so well, it’s tough. Parents have tension with children. Children have tension with parents. Husbands have tension with wives. Wives have tension with husbands. Then there are the in-laws. Families are complex. But God established the family.

In the Ten Commandments, before a word is said about how we treat one another, God starts with the family: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).

In Genesis we have God bringing Adam and Eve together. He started with the family. He created the family. And He—and He alone—defines the family. God loves the family.

There is only one picture that God gives to a lost world to show His love for the church and the church’s love for Him. That is marriage. He says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25), and “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (verse 22).

Effectively, here is what God is saying: “Look at this Christian couple right here. See the way that husband loves his wife? That is how I love this church, My people. See how that wife loves her husband? That is how My church loves Me.”

Because of that, when a Christian family starts to unravel and when Christian people get divorced, that is devastating in many ways to the testimony of believers in a given community.

It has been said that a family can survive without a nation, but a nation cannot survive without the family.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. —Mark 10:9

When I was a kid, I would build models. However, I was really bad at it, because I would get glue everywhere. So when I decided to build a model as an adult, I thought I would be so much better at it. But I discovered that I was as bad as I always had been. Glue was everywhere.

Then I discovered superglue. It sounded so simple. Only a couple drops here and there would hold things together. But then I got it on my fingers, which the instructions warn against. So my thumb and index finger were stuck together for a while.

When Genesis 2:24 (KJV) uses the word “cleave” to describe the relationship between a husband and a wife, it uses a Hebrew term that speaks of adhering to or sticking together. It is to be attached by some strong tie. The verb suggests a determined action. So it is not that a husband and wife are stuck together, but they are sticking together. They are holding on to one another. There is nothing passive about it.

When we come to the New Testament use of the word, it is a term that means to cement together and stick like glue, so the two cannot be separated without serious damage to both.

This involves constant communication before marriage and during the marriage. In a poll that was taken among people who were divorced, 86 percent cited deficient communication as the number one reason for the breakup of the marriage. There was a communication breakdown.

Every marriage will have its conflicts, and couples need to learn how to resolve this. Cleaving together means putting the needs of your mate above your own. And as Ruth Graham once said, “A successful marriage is made up of two good forgivers.”

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.—Romans 5:8

Of all of the pictures that God could have chosen to show His love for us, He chose marriage.

Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Wives are told to be submissive to their husbands as unto the Lord. Here is what the Lord is essentially saying: “Hey world, want to know how much I love My people? Check out the way that Christian husband loves His wife. Hey nonbelievers, want to see how much My people love Me? Check out the way that Christian wife loves her husband.”

From that perspective, can’t you see how bad it is when Christians divorce? It devastates our witness. We tell the world how to live—how to be changed by Jesus—but then we can’t work out our problems in our own marriages. It should not be so.

God has chosen marriage as a representation to a lost world. Therefore, when you have a strong marriage, you are a powerful witness. How did God show His love for His bride, the church? By sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for us. Talk is cheap. Words are easy to say. But God put His own Son on the cross to die in our place, in order to demonstrate how much He loves us.

“But Greg,” you might say, “Those are tall orders! There’s no way we can love like that on our own!” That’s true; we can’t.

We need the Holy Spirit’s power to be the husbands God has called us to be. We need the Holy Spirit’s power to be the wives God has called us to be. We need the Holy Spirit’s power to be the parents God has called us to be. We need His help.

So be filled with the Spirit, walking thought by thought, decision by decision, act by act under His control.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Submitting to one another in the fear of God.—Ephesians 5:21

Sometimes wives choke on the verse that says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” They might say, “I don’t want to submit to my husband or anybody else.” But before God tells wives to submit to their husbands, God tells both husbands and wives to submit to one another in the reverence of God.

If you are a Spirit-filled person, you will be a submitting person.

Maybe when you think of submission, you equate it with some form of slavery. That is not what submission is in the Bible. Let me put it another way: If you are really filled with the Spirit, you will think of others over yourself. A Spirit-filled husband will put the needs of his wife above his own. A Spirit-filled wife will put the needs of her husband above her own. Both of them are putting the other in the first position.

In military language, it means, “to rank beneath.” It is not about superiority or inferiority. It is about order. It is about sacrifice. It is about obedience. It is not about you; it is about your mate. You want to hold them up. You want to support them.

A successful marriage is not so much about finding the right person as it is about being the right person.

It drives me crazy when I hear wives quote verses to their husbands about what he should be doing, or when the husband quotes verses to the wife about her role. Read your own verses and put them into practice.

Stop blaming your wife and instead be the best husband you can be. Stop blaming your husband and instead be the best wife you can be. Stop reading each other’s mail and just do what God tells you to do. You will be amazed at what will happen.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.—Genesis 2:24

The objective God has in bringing a man and a woman together can be captured in two very important words: leave and cleave. These come from Genesis 2:24 (KJV), which says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The word “cleave” means to glue or to cling. So to leave and cleave is to sever and bond, to loosen and secure, or to depart from and attach to.

A successful marriage begins with leaving. In effect, you leave all other relationships. The closest relationship outside of marriage is specified in Genesis 2:24, implying that if it is necessary to leave your father and mother, then certainly all lesser ties must be broken, changed, or left behind.

This doesn’t mean that when you get married, you are no longer a son or a daughter or a sibling. But what it does mean is that you have a new, primary responsibility, and that is to your spouse. You must still honor your mother and father, but leaving has taken place.

Leaving implies giving other relationships a lesser degree of importance. You still can have friends, but your best friend should be your spouse. Having members of the opposite sex as friends can be problematic at best and potentially destructive at worst. Most adultery happens through close contact and relationship, not mere sexual attraction. So be very careful. Your best friend should be your husband or your wife.

In Malachi 2:14, God said of the relationship between a husband and his wife, “Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.” The word “companion” used here means someone united with another in thoughts, goals, plans, and efforts.

Are you united with your spouse in this way?

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

—Ephesians 5:14–16

In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us to awake from spiritual lethargy. I want to apply these verses specifically to marriage today.

You can’t sleepwalk through marriage. Show me a marriage that is strong and vibrant and thriving, and I will show you a marriage that people are giving attention to.

It’s sort of like making a fire. You begin with some kindling and newspaper and twigs, and then add some logs to it. Once the fire is going, you put another log on it. And another. You continue to feed it over time. In the same way, if a marriage is strong, especially over a period of time, it is because the husband and wife keep putting logs on the fire. They cultivate their romance. They strengthen the marriage.

If you stop feeding the fire, it will start to weaken. You must constantly give it attention. You must be proactive, not merely reactive. When the husband neglects his role and the wife neglects hers, one problem turns into another, and soon it gets worse and worse. Eventually it reaches a state of crisis.

It’s best to engage in “preventative maintenance” and strengthen the marriage every day. Verses 15 and 16 tell us how: by “walking circumspectly” and “redeeming the time.” To “walk circumspectly” conveys the idea of looking, examining, and investigating something with great care. It’s like the attention you would give to the words of a contract before signing it. “Redeeming the time” refers to making the most of every opportunity.

Are you examining your marriage carefully, paying attention to detail? Are you taking advantage of every opportunity to strengthen your marriage? Are you making sure you have done everything you can do?

Don’t sleepwalk through marriage; tend the fires to keep it alive and strong.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. —Ecclesiastes 1:9

Joy Davidman, the wife of C. S. Lewis, made this insightful statement about the pursuit of pleasure: “Living for his own pleasure is the least pleasurable thing a man can do; if his neighbors don’t kill him in disgust, he will die slowly of boredom and lovelessness.” And that is true. It has been said that the only cure for hedonism is to try and practice it.

The pursuit of pleasure is nothing new. As Solomon reminds us a number of times in the Book of Ecclesiastes, when you boil it down, there is nothing new under the sun. Though our technology has changed and we have had certain advancements since Solomon wrote those words, the basic cravings of humanity have not changed, nor have the basic things we look to. The philosophy of eat, drink, and be merry has been with us for a long time.

When Solomon decided he would pursue everything this world had to offer, he was not considering God in all of it. He was living horizontally—he had adapted a worldview that omitted God. Eventually he came to realize there was nothing to profit from under the sun. It was only when Solomon looked above the sun and looked to God that he found the answers he was seeking. When we see God for who He is, we will see the world for what it is.

If you have a close relationship with God and are walking closely with Him, you will recognize philosophies, concepts, and ideologies being propagated that are contradictory to what the Bible teaches. When you are walking closely with God, you will see this world for what it is.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

—Psalm 46:1

When I was a kid, I attended Southern California Military Academy in Long Beach. We would have mandatory chapel every Sunday. Not being raised in a Christian home, I can recall it was the only time, for the most part, that I was ever in a church service. I remember one of the songs we sang in chapel was “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

At the time, I was experiencing a storm of my own because of the way my mom lived as an alcoholic. I remember singing, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of the lark. Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain.”

The problem was there was no mention of God in those lyrics. As we sang, “Walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone,” I thought, Who is with me? The lark that we’re singing about? Who is here?

As Christians, we do walk through storms in life. But we can hold our heads up high—not because of some bird singing but because the Lord is with us. He was with me as a little boy, though I hadn’t yet put my faith in Him completely. God was there as I cried out to Him.

We’re safer with Him in a storm than anywhere else without Him. I would rather be with Jesus in a storm than in the plushest, most luxurious place on earth without Him. The Bible tells us that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Sometimes God will calm or even stop the storms, but He is always with us through them.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! —2 Corinthians 4:17

There are lessons we learn in the storms of life that we don’t learn anywhere else. When Paul and Barnabas visited the believers in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, the Bible tells us they strengthened them and encouraged them “to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

This isn’t a verse you would usually see hanging on someone’s wall, is it? It is almost as bad as “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). There are some promises we would rather forget, but they are just as true as Romans 8:28, which promises that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” and Jeremiah 29:11, where the Lord says, “For I know the plans I have for you. . . . They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

No one is exempt from experiencing the storms of life. God is doing a work. And that is what we have to understand: God is at work. He will not waste our pain. He will produce something in our lives that we need. He is looking for a desired result.

As 2 Corinthians 4:17 reminds us, “Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!”

God will take the things we are going through and use them for His glory in time. God’s endgame, if you will, His primary purpose for us, is to make us more like Jesus. He is getting us ready for Heaven.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

—Matthew 8:25

It was a serious storm to frighten these seasoned fishermen. The disciples were afraid for their lives. Matthew tells us, “Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping” (8:23–24).

In the original language, the word for storm is also used to describe an earthquake. The storm they were facing was a mega storm. It covered the boat to the extent they couldn’t even see past their hands. As The Amplified Bible puts it, “Suddenly a violent storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves.” And Mark’s Gospel, describing the same storm, says, “High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water” (Mark 4:37).

This gives us an idea of how massive of a storm this was. It reminds me of the TV program Deadliest Catch. I’m glad someone is going out there and doing that job. But looking at what some of those guys face, I would never get on one of their boats. It’s probably like what the disciples went through at sea. Meanwhile, Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, was asleep.

Has it ever seemed to you as though God were sleeping during your times of need? Maybe you were going through some difficulty and called out to the Lord, but you didn’t hear an answer that you knew of. You thought maybe God was just bored, preoccupied, or even asleep. But that isn’t true. The Bible says, “He who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps” (Psalm 121:4).

When the disciples cried out to Jesus, He responded to their call. And He will do the same for us.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. —Psalm 23:1

A favorite Scripture passage for many of us is Psalm 23, which begins: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul” (verses 1–3). We love that. It’s such a beautiful picture of us as sheep being led by our Shepherd.

But it isn’t a compliment when God compares us to sheep. Sheep are some of the dumbest animals on the face of the earth. If God had compared us to dolphins, that would have been great. Dolphins are super smart. If God had compared us to dogs, even that would have been a compliment. But God compared us to sheep.

Sheep are stupid. Sheep tend to run with the pack. Sheep have no defense mechanisms. Sheep can’t even escape from a predator. Sheep are basically leg of lamb in waiting—all that is needed is the mint jelly. It’s a done deal. Sheep need their shepherd. If the shepherd doesn’t come through for them, they are dead. We are like that too.

We love to read that the Lord is our Shepherd and that He makes us to lie down in green pastures and leads us beside the still waters. But Psalm 23 goes on to say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (verse 4).

We love the green pastures and the still waters, but we don’t like valleys—especially if they have the word death attached to them. Yet as David pointed out, the Lord is the Shepherd who was with him. And He is the Shepherd who is with us too.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

—John 3:36

Sometimes people will make a profession of faith, and then seemingly fall away. We ask ourselves, “Did this person lose their salvation?”

My question, in turn, would be, “Were they ever really saved to begin with?”

If somebody commits their life to Christ, then walks away and never comes back, I suggest to you that they were never a Christian at all. If, on the other hand, someone commits their life to the Lord, walks away, and then comes back to Christ, I suggest to you that they were simply a prodigal.

The true test is where they end up.

A true believer will always come home to the Lord, eventually. A person who is not a true believer won’t. In 1 John 2:19 (NIV) we read: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

—Matthew 5:44–45

My mother was married and divorced seven times. I had the privilege of sharing the gospel with several of my mother’s husbands, including Oscar Laurie, the man who adopted me. He came to faith in Christ, and I was very thankful for that. However, there was another husband of hers whom I will call Eddie. He was an alcoholic and almost killed my mother one night when he was drunk.

After I became a Christian, I sensed that God wanted me to share the gospel with Eddie. But I didn’t really want to. I thought, He is a bad man, and I don’t want to talk to him again. I don’t want to see him again. But I went anyway. And I would like to say that it was a glorious experience and that he got down on his knees and accepted Christ. But I can’t say that. He listened to me. He was nice. He was pleasant about it and said, “Well, you know I am glad this has happened for you, Greg.” I invited him to come and hear me preach, but he again said no.

There may be someone like that in your life who has hurt you, someone who has disappointed you. And you think because of that, you don’t ever want to talk to them again, much less share the gospel with them. But as believers, we are to overcome our personal prejudice and hang-ups. And instead of saying, “Never, Lord,” we need to say, “Yes, Lord!” Be willing. See what God will do. They may react like Eddie. Or they may react like Oscar.

Maybe there is even someone right now whom you regard as an enemy. What can you do? You can share the gospel—and leave the results in the hands of God.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie