|
Home
Archive
June
May
April
Comments
and/or Questions
|
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.
|
