For several years, I have always tried to explore the stories of Christmas and Easter for any new lessons, especially what people would not normally realize or emphasize, especially in practical terms.

The lessons are many, but I have selected two of them that pertain to the family life of the major personalities involved (Joseph and Mary) for us to focus on, discuss, and learn some vital lessons that we can apply for our daily living, and for success in the times ahead. FOCUS #1: MARY (The Mother of Jesus)

When the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary (the Mother of Jesus), he made 3 very important statements, with exclamation (excitement): “Rejoice (hail), highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28).

1) GOD’S FAVOR (“Highly favored one”) --- God’s special grace in your life, and opening of important doors for your progress and success in life, plus His approval upon your life. God selected you for the accomplishment of His special purpose towards a specific destiny.

2) GOD’S PRESENCE WITH YOU (“The Lord is with you”) --- Experiencing the Presence of God’s Spirit with you at all times through commitment to Christ, Bible study and meditation, life of obedience, fervent prayers of faith, useful service, and holy living.

3) GOD’S BLESSINGS (“Blessed are you among women”) --- Knowing and experiencing God’s unique and choice blessings according to His favor upon your life, and His Presence with you. God pouring into you His joy, happiness, provision, anointing, miraculous experiences, and His power, that will enable you to attain great achievements and success that are bestowed upon you in special ways.

Lesson: In my opinion, these 3 qualities must be in the life of every chosen vessel of God for God’s special purposes; and these virtues must also be in the life of every woman before she marries (if she understands that she will be pregnant and become a channel for God to bring other human beings into the world for God’s divine purposes).

Every single lady must work towards these virtues as her primary goal in life, and must seek to get more of God’s favor, God’s Presence, and God’s blessings in her future marriage, family life, home, relationships, and entire life. Every married woman must constantly check herself to see if these qualities abound in her life as well.

Absence of these 3 important virtues is a major cause of many failed relationships, marriages, families, economic plans, social progress, and political initiatives in today’s carnally-driven societies.

The lack of these factors provides the reason why many churches and ministries are weak because of weak foundations, since the people involved simply gather as church members or ministry participants from weak marriages, unfruitful homes, and disorganized families that are without God’s favor, God’s holy Presence, and God’s genuine divine blessings.

The man, who is going to marry the woman, to become her husband, must have these qualities first in his life, and be spiritually sound enough to patiently, humbly, diligently, prayerfully, and wisely teach and help the lady to discover and maintain these foundations, and grow in these qualities to full maturity in the relationship.

Parents who raise the men and women from childhood, must guide and train them to finally acquire these important virtues for daily living, with the mindset and a definite goal that they are training the children for the success of their future homes, relationships, courtships, marriages, and family life.

What makes you and I think (or believe) that God will excuse us for any reason if we disregard these principles? Why should you think that you can live anyhow and get up to marry as a woman mainly according to your personal desires without these virtues and principles; or marry as a man without godly principles operating in your life?

You cannot simply believe that you can carelessly select a woman to marry without ensuring that the woman has lived a wise and holy life in obedience to the Lord, and therefore has a purpose in life, and has prepared herself for marriage and family life in a permanent union with you in a way that has caused God’s favor, God’s Presence, and God’s blessings to be upon her?

Many of us are very disappointed and frustrated in life, because things are not going the way we expect, especially for relationships, marriage, home affairs, family life, finances, business, health, political ambitions, exploitations abroad, ministry, and advancement.

The primary reason is that many of us jump the first two steps of not seeking for God’s favor and His daily Presence with us, and try to frantically grab God’s blessings, without starting from the beginning by using scripture, prayer, humility, faith, obedience, and diligence to seek for God’s favor, and allow God’s Holy Spirit and Presence to abide in our daily lives, for the Lord to work in us, for us, and through us. Let us diligently order our lives in the right direction in 2015 with these guiding principles.

FOCUS #2: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOSEPH AND MARY; AND THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN, MARRIAGE, AND FAMILY LIFE FOR SUCCESS.

God’s salvation plan was made manifest through a family (marriage of Joseph and Mary). God found it most important to go to the woman (Mary) first, and not to the husband. It was in Mary that the tremendous miracle was going to be performed.

Mary was the one who was going to become pregnant. Note that the Archangel appearing to Mary, and Joseph having dreams, does not necessarily make Mary more spiritual than Joseph. Gifts, levels of anointing, and revelations of God are in accordance with your specific role.

Be careful how you look down on others (or become puffed up because of your gifts and achievements) or allow others to intimidate you (especially in your marriage, relationships, organization, workplace, business, community activities, performances, ministry, church etc.) by unduly comparing talents, gifts, revelations, and achievements, and allowing your thoughts, desires, and feelings to negatively influence your actions, initiatives, and behavior.

Have you ever asked yourself who was responsible for handling the placenta, blood, cutting of the cord and all the immediate activities and assistance that any pregnant woman would need during labor and having a baby?

That must definitely be Joseph her husband who was alone with her in an animal house where no one would want to stay and sleep. That is the essence of true love and marriage --- fulfilling your role and performing your duties with enthusiasm and excellence. Marriage is more than feelings, enjoyment, and selfish gains.

No organization, church, business, society, government, and nation can prosper and maintain its infrastructure of discipline, diligence, the wise management of resources, love, unity, productivity, and progress, without the establishment of godly and successful marriages, homes, and families.

Can you imagine that even the Lord God Almighty the Creator Himself, needed to personally come down humbly to converse and negotiate with a 16-year old virgin girl, give her important basic points pertaining to God’s purpose and her destiny, and gain her understanding and cooperation before coming humanly into His own created world to redeem it after a fall? Wow! Tell me about the importance of women in the affairs and salvation of the world being depicted to us!

Let us pay attention to the fact that after creating a woman, God had nothing else to create. A woman was the best idea God could conceive! All the women reading this around the world should say a loud Amen! And should stop whatever they are doing right now and clap loudly wherever they are!

The men also wish to advice and appeal to the women to train themselves to control their cravings for material things, and especially control their words and temper, appreciate our little efforts while they help us to achieve more, in order to avoid nagging and the lack of cooperation with us, for them to be very sweet, so that their presence and our homes become peaceful and not rather appear hostile to us.

Women should work diligently along with their men to create an atmosphere that would always attract and draw the men to run home for love, fellowship, and expression of affection. We know that it works both ways for both partners; yes I know you are saying that. Oh my goodness! Have I opened a can of worms and stirred up a hot debate? Hahaha!

We encourage women to recognize their importance, unique nature, and special roles, in order to overcome the cultural barriers and notion of always being at the receiving end in respect of the definition of themselves, their contribution and success, and their cravings for money and provision, love, care, and attention from men.

We wish to encourage them to focus also on how to develop their talents and gifts, optimize their opportunities, make themselves domestic managers, become involved in decent and productive relationships, relate properly to their fiancees, bond strongly to their husbands and seek to fulfill their needs, and explore the best ways that they can give to men, children, family members, in-laws, friends, and the community.

They must see and understand their own potential and importance to men, children, and society, and stand on their feet to be real “helpers” to men as God designed and purposed them to be.

Men should also recognize their own potential and obligations as responsible leaders in homes, relationships, marriages, and families. Men make the women pregnant to bring new lives into the world. In adult terms “the mortar does not pound the pestle; it is the pestle that pounds the mortar; the pestle is therefore held more responsible for the final product of the pounding process” (I can imagine some of you laughing. Hahaha! Stop laughing; I mean business, okay?).

Through men, God provides ingredients along with their wives to make a good and happy home, and has endowed men to provide special love and care for women and children in diversities of ways. Men thereby ENCOURAGE AND PROMOTE such importance and unique role of women for our success in all aspects of life.

If you the man, as a responsible leader and lover, have not been patiently and humbly engaging in good communication that respects the views and inputs or efforts of the woman, and have not been consistently discussing, teaching, praying with, practicing godly principles, guiding and encouraging the lady in your dating activities, courtship, or marriage and family life, then we seriously advice, entreat, admonish, caution, and encourage you to make a strong resolution do better in the coming year. Say Amen to that! So be it! You will be amazed how the grace of God will be poured into your life for satisfying achievements and resounding success by December 2015.

Men are required to be leaders in guiding and promoting processes for family productivity, and therefore the productivity of entire communities and nations. They can do this effectively and achieve the desired results only when they submit to God and recognize His sovereignty, and fully cooperate with the Lord God just as Joseph did after God appeared to tell him in a dream regarding what was going on with his wife and His plan for their family, and for future generations.

My wife and I were reading the Christmas story at home yesterday when we came to a statement Mary made in Luke 1: 48, 49: “God has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth ALL GENERATIONS will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.” My wife said: “Wow! See how Mary was prophesying the future of her great and eternal influence on mankind.”

Anyone with a contorted view of real marriage, its real purpose, and importance of family life, will also not understand, or even hate the celebration of Christmas. Marriage is the highest ordained institution of God on earth, and He designed it for ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.

Mary and Joseph gave us a true example of a pure relationship leading to marriage. The bride-to-be (Mary) kept herself pure as a virgin for her future husband. Even after their engagement, which was a kind of traditional marriage (similar to the traditional marriage or customary marriage in some cultures like Africa etc.), they did NOT have any sexual intercourse or enjoy other forms of sexual exploits, because the marriage had not been finally blessed by God (Mathew 1: 18).

We need to be careful and ensure that we do not hinder the Hand and power of God’s holiness that must follow us into our marriages and bless our family life, by disobedience and refusal to do what is right in the eyes of God. For true Christians, anything they have must be sanctified (fully set apart) and blessed by God before they can use it meaningfully.

The principles of purity before the official parental and divine permission to contract a marriage, are also universally held in different ways by other notable religions and several cultures as well.

That is why we even sanctify the day with scriptures and prayer in the morning before we use the day to do anything. If we do not allow God to be in charge of affairs this way, then the Hand of God will not follow us in the things we do.

Joseph and Mary believed in complete obedience and not partial obedience like the case of Moses who tragically lost His only chance of entering the Promised Land that he so much hoped and toiled for. We are told that “Joseph her husband, being a just (righteous man), was not willing to disgrace Mary publicly, and was contemplating on how to put her away (divorce her) quietly” (Mathew 1:19).

If people found out that Mary was pregnant and thought she had committed adultery, she would be stoned to death! By the way, if we (people of today) were in the Old Testament days we would see many dead bodies of men and women in our streets each morning after the horrible adulteries and fornication that take place each night (and in the day too) nowadays! We would stone people until all the stones in our neighborhoods get finished!

We learn from Joseph that one sign of a just and righteous husband (or male lover) is a wise, kind, compassionate, and affectionate who loves his wife (or fiancée) so much that it will hurt him and deeply bother him to disgrace his wife or fiancée publicly.

Male lovers and husbands, can we use this standard to test our righteousness now and in the future for our relationships with our female lovers and wives? WE WISH YOU A VERY MERRY AND THOUGHTFUL, ENJOYABLE CHRISTMAS, AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR THAT IS FULL OF HOPE!