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LifeRich Publishing - Danny Kovacs

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139 pages

English

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Daily Altar is a call to a daily altar.
More couples and families are torn apart because of neglect than are torn apart because of adultery.
Neglecting God will lead you to neglecting your spouse (it doesn't matter if you both call yourselves a Christian).
There is nothing more important that the two of you need to do today than meet with God.
Through spiritual disciplines, God has given the believer a means of growing in godliness.
When we make the altar a priority, we will practice it, and when we practice it, we will experience God's power!

Sujets

Religion

Philosophie et théologie

Inspirational

Christian Living

Informations

Publié par	LifeRich Publishing
Date de parution	21 février 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781489746115
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

daily altar
7 Disciplines of a Power Couple

DANNY KOVACS

Copyright © 2023 Danny Kovacs.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

LifeRich Publishing
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.liferichpublishing.com
844-686-9607

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Front cover image by Altarpreneur.

Book design by Altarpreneur.

ISBN: 978-1-4897-4609-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4610-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4611-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023900137

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 02/14/2023

T o the single, wanting to be eng aged.
T o the engaged, wanting to be mar ried.
T o the married, wanting to stay eng aged .

To my love, Daniela , I can never properly express what a
godly blessing you are. Thank you for listening to my sermons
before I ever preached them, while we sat on the couch toge ther.
To our miracle boys, Levy and Seth – If the Lord keep s us,
please read this with your fiancé, before you say, “ I do.”
To our parents , thank you for showing us love in ac tion.
(Dad, we’ll see you in g lory.)

TABLE of CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: Spiritual Disciplines
Part A
Part B
Chapter 2: Prayer
Chapter 3: Fasting
Chapter 4: Bible Reading
Chapter 5: Worship
Chapter 6: Serving
Chapter 7: Solitude
Chapter 8: Sabbath
Notes
About the Authors

INTRODUCTION
(Start well to end well)
Where Would Your Heart Be Bu ried?
The body of famous Scottish missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, was buried in England where he was born, but his heart was buried in Africa, the land he loved. At the foot of a tall, tropical tree in a small African village, the natives dug a hole and placed the heart of this man whom they admired and respected; a man who spent 30 years of his life “in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races,” as his tombstone reads. a
If your heart were to be buried in the place you invested your time and energy, the place you loved most during life, where would it be? In your bank account? In a corner office at work? At home with your spouse and children? In your “ministry”? On your social media acco unts?
Where is your heart, t oday?
In Psalm 139:23 (NKJV), we read a bold prayer from David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” David despised the wicked men who spoke against God and took His name in vain; but he also hated the sin that he knew could be hiding in his own h eart.
As individuals and as a couple, Daniela and I want that spiritual tenacity and vulnerability. Do you? He asked the Lord to search his heart and know his thoughts. The Hebrew word translated “search” here is one often used to describe the way miners searched deeply for gold. It’s the same word used at the beginning of this psalm. “O Lord, You have searched me and known me (Psalm 139:1, NKJV).” Only God truly knows us. That’s why we need to ask Him to searc h us.
PRAYERPOINT : Dear Father, search our hearts. Forgive us for following our own ways and being ignorant of Yours. Get rid of any desires or activities that waste our time and that draw us away from You. Refresh us through the power of Your Spirit and Word. Amen.
Don’t Settle for a Good Marriage
This book is not about keys for a successful marr iage.
We’re not here to tell you five steps you should take or what we’ve done to experience “breakthrough” in our marriage. Along with a few personal examples, testimonies, and short stories, what follows is a Biblical guide, for the believer; actions a child of God has the privilege of taking, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 2 Peter 3:18, NKJV).
This book is about intimacy with God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit (see Eph.1:17; 2 Cor.13:14, NKJV). That’s the only thing that will lead to an intimate and fruitful marriage; both of which are cultivated by spiritual discipl ines .
This is one of those books that you may be tempted to just flip through and skim over, partly because it’s kind of long; you might think: Who has time for this? Secondly, because the spiritual disciplines we cover, such as prayer, fasting, Bible reading, and so on, are common. You hear them and think, I know all about them .
And that’s the problem. They have become so common that we have neglected them.

More couples and families are torn apart because of neglect than are torn apart because of adul tery .

There are couples who are not fighting, cussing, or slamming doors. They eat dinner together, take (expensive) vacations together, and dress their children nicely. They even go to church together. But they don’t give any serious attention to God, or to each other. This is synonymous with neglect ― not giving proper attention . If you love God, give Him your attention. If you love your husband, give him attention. If you love your wife, give her atten tion.
Marriages don’t drift in a day. They drift with every decision or indecision relating to the practice of spiritual disciplines. Speaking from experience, it does not take much effort to live a complacent life. One day without reading the Word of God leads to another without prayer, which leads to another without worship, which leads to…you get the idea? We get fat on the world and skinny towards God.
In January of 2017, God opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t leading my family in His presence on a consistent basis. Keyword: consis tent .
It was a Sunday night. I came home from church with my family, unsettled. I had knots in my stomach. And it wasn’t the Sunday blues type of feeling, the kind you get when you think about having to go to work on Monday. It was more like remorse. A feeling that something was missing. I was bothered in my spirit, and I felt God wanted to get my atten tion.
Thoughts ran through my mind. What am I living for? What will I leave behind? What example am I setting for Levy and Seth (my sons)? Why am I led by my flesh and not the Spirit? How can I love Daniela like Christ loved the ch urch?
His presence was not a priority, and the fire on the altar was not kept burning (see Leviticus 6:13, NKJV). Looking back, it’s only His grace that brought us to where we are today. I began discovering more and more about the altar ― what it looked like in the past and what it means for us t oday.
In Proverbs 1:32 (NASB) we read, “…the complacency of fools will destroy them.” We certainly don’t want to be fools. We know you don’t want to be fools, otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this.
The two of you need to ask yourselves: Are we all in for God or not? Will we commit to a life of spiritual discipl ines?
You never know what adventures await you as a couple until you submit to God. If you’re content with status quo Christianity, you’ll never have a deeper, heartfelt relationship with God, or each other. From one couple to another, our challenge is this: Don’t settle for a good marriage. Strive for a God-centered marr iage.

In the simple illustration above, which we call The Marriage-Altar Pyramid ( MAP , for short), we’ve categorized couples based on their view of the altar ― the place where they meet with God, and God meets with them. Please note, this is not an “I’m-holier-than-thou” labeling system. It is a simple way to quickly identify where you stand in your relationship to the altar, based on the spiritual makeup of your relation ship.
By the way, this is NOT just for married or engaged couples. If you are single and reading this, it’s for you too.
Altar Builders : These are the power couples, those that practice the presence of God and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, not their own; they embrace the privilege of the altar and meet with God daily. They are not satisfied with living life on Sunday sermons or crumbs from the pulpit. God is at the center of everything they do, and everything they do is God-centered. They’re not perfect, but they’re being perfected. They don’t segregate their time and activities ― whether they are at home cleaning, at work conducting business, or on vacation enjoying the outdoors, they understand their identity in Christ and live as His children; everywhere and al ways.
In one of our favorite books that Daniela and I read together, Turkeys & Eagles , Peter Lord puts it this way,
Acts of righteousness are the righteousness of Christ…lived out in a normal life. Everything you do ― except when you deliberately choose to sin ― everything, is an act of righteousness! b
Half-N-H