ATG Podcast | EP 01: Preparing for a Healthy Marriage – Interview with Gerard & Jeannie Long

The ATG Podcast Season 1
Marriage Matters Series
Episode 1: “Preparing for a Healthy Marriage”
Guest Interview with Gerard and Jeannie Long

In season 1 we are talking all about Marriage. In our Marriage Matters Series we offer connection, community, and comfort through inspiring stories, guest interviews, and teaching on biblical principles for a healthy marriage. We want to help you learn how to triumph in any difficulty in your marriage. Whatever season or stage of Marriage you are in, whether just preparing for marriage or you are already married, we want to encourage you with insights, wisdom, and practical tools to help you see that your Marriage Matters.

ABOUT GERARD AND JEANNIE LONG:
This week we are talking with Gerard and Jeannie Long, the founders of Awakening to God Ministries, on preparing for a healthy marriage. In forty-one years of marriage, Gerard and Jeannie Long have come to know and love God in a profound way. It’s this love that has enabled them to persevere through any parent’s worst nightmare and to now have even more love for Jesus Christ and for each other. They have learned how to triumph in any difficulty in marriage. Find out more about their story at: www.awakeningtogod.org

GOD LOVES MARRIAGE!
KEY PRINCIPLES:
• Put God First
• God’s Path Leads to Life
• God has the Best for You
• Sex is God’s Idea-It’s a beautiful gift between a man and woman in marriage
• A Marriage that Prays Together Stays Together

BE IN THE WORD:
Luke 10: 25-28
“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it? And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly, do this, and you will live.”

Ecclesiastes 4:12
“And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him-a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Ephesians 2:10
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Genesis 2:18
“Then the Lord God said, “it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Song of Solomon 8:4
“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.”

John 10:10
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Ephesians 5:1-3
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”

Proverbs 9:10
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

Psalm 19:14
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

QUESTIONS:
1) What does the Bible say about dating/courting? Is it ok to date someone if we have no desire to get marriage?
2) How far is too far? What is an appropriate level of intimacy before marriage?
3) Is there such a thing as soul mates? Does God have one specific person for you to marry?

RESOURCES:
Living Hope book by Gerard Long:
https://store.awakeningtogod.org/prod...
https://triumphofmarriage.com
https://store.awakeningtogod.org/prod...