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Tuesday, June 3,
2008
Cancel the Guilt Trip
1 Corinthians 7:15-16 But if the
unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under
bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. (16) For what knowest
thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O
man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? (KJV)
Before packing your spiritual baggage and
going on a guilt trip, stop and consider before boarding a potentially
sinking ship. Make sure you know ahead of time what you are getting into
before boarding a vessel that is getting ready to set sail on the dead sea
with winds of doctrine predicted also. So you decided that you were the one
and only that God could use to save your unbelieving husband or wife as
verse 16 makes reference to? Now that they have departed you think you
failed God and did something wrong? Basically what you are saying and what
gets taught in many religious organizations, is that it is your duty to be
the savior and make sure your significant other gets saved. I have heard
the phrase spoken so often that “God hates divorce” even to the point that
some make it seem like it is some unpardonable sin. The truth be known, is
that marriage is only temporary, in other words it is something that takes
place here for our time on earth and does not carry over into the eternal
realm. There is a divorce God does not look kindly on and that is when one
divorces themselves from the truth of God and His plan of salvation and falls
for the lies of the devil and his cheap imitations.
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses,
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever
therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (KJV)
You ever hear the term high maintenance?
That is what happens when you end up with someone more concerned with
earthly things than the things of God. Spiritual prostitution, selling
oneself out for a thrill in the flesh; something that can be a huge
distraction to a believer who desires a relationship with God. My point is,
having dealt with a situation like this myself, is that maybe the departure
is a blessing in disguise, so before you gather your prayer groups together
and pray this person back into your life, watch what you ask for.
Matthew 5:31-32 It hath been said,
Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of
divorcement: (32) But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his
wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery:
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. (KJV)
Many times these verses are looked in the
literal or physical context and not the spiritual. As we just saw in the
verses from James, many husbands and wives are cheating on the Lord with
their spiritual adultery and have separated themselves from Him. Again, how
can two walk together unless they be agreed? And if one or the other
partner in a relationship is more concerned with the things of this dead
fallen world, then the believer ends up carrying around dead weight. I can
assure you that if the Lord says something is dead and needs to be
discarded and He then makes a way of escape, it would do one good to take
heed before they end up dead also.
Exodus 34:14-16 For thou shalt worship no
other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: (15) Lest
thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a
whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call
thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; (16) And thou take of their daughters
unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make
thy sons go a whoring after their gods. (KJV)
God is a jealous God because He knows
that His way and His plan for mankind is so much better than what we could
ever ask or think. Just like with a parent raising a child, you envision a
life for them of blessings, and how it breaks your heart to see them end up
in a life of misery and despair because of bad choices and decisions. Also
as a parent when you see your son or daughter has made a bad choice
concerning a husband or wife, you reach out and try to stop them before
they get to deeply involved in a destructive lifestyle.
Ezra 10:10-12 And Ezra the priest stood
up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives,
to increase the trespass of Israel. (11) Now therefore make confession unto
the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves
from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. (12) Then all the
congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so
must we do. (KJV)
The spiritual is greater than the
physical, and as we see God has dealt with situations throughout the Bible
where His people are in a bad place because they are unequally yoked with
someone unhealthy to their walk and provided a way of escape for them. Your
spiritual welfare is of more concern to our Lord than your temporal marital
status here on earth, and should be yours also.
1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no
temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who
will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (KJV)
I have seen times where a departure of an
unbeliever is actually a way of escape being provided by the Lord and not
some failure on your part as the devil would like many to think. That
heartache and misery you have been experiencing, the confusion and doubt
that has been dogging you and sucking the life out of you was doing more
harm than good. While the Lord is throwing you a lifeline so that you don’t
end up drowning in frustration and despair, the devil is throwing you the
line to an anchor of a sinking vessel, guilting you into thinking you must
go down with the ship.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 Now the Spirit speaketh
expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (2) Speaking lies
in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; (KJV)
Know this, that if an unbeliever departs,
the person they departed from first was God. That person you have been
married to may have once been a true believer, but like we see in the above
verses has departed from the faith. Like with a bus schedule, they give you
departure times as well as arrival times; in other words you can’t depart
from something unless you were actually there at one time. Seducing
spirits, doctrines of demons that appeal to the lower fallen nature of man,
spiritual adultery, which ends up separating them from the love of God. My
point today is, no you don’t take your marriage lightly or look for a way
out because you want to find something better. The message God has for
today is that the spiritual is so much greater than the physical realm, and
if there is something or someone that is hindering your walk and needs to
be let go of, then heed the way of escape and don’t be taken in by some
phony guilt trip. I have seen some of these so called Christian men who
treat their spouses like some robotic slave, demanding respect and
obedience to them when they are nothing more than shallow flakes. If you
are in a situation where you are married to someone who is more like a
dictator than a loving Christian and they are pulling you down rather than
building up, be assured this is not something our Lord would want you to
continue in but will make a way of escape if you are willing. Don’t let
anyone pack your bags and try to send you on some guilt trip, because when
people try to make you think that by being separated or divorced is a
failure, the truth be known, is that they are just telling you that they
hold more to the physical than the spiritual. God is more concerned with your
eternal marriage than your earthly one, so if He has made a way of escape,
heed the warning and cancel the guilt trip.
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