February 20, 2001
Marriage has its problems but when they come, the most popular solution these days is simply ending the relationship. Another one could be dumping it on your mother.
Consider this story. A certain mother has one daughter who is divorced. This woman had her son-in-law staying in her home rent-free while he sent support to his wife, the woman’s daughter. When he moved out, the daughter decided she wanted to move in, rent-free. Not only that, she wanted her mother to raise her two children, ages twelve and fourteen, “for the Lord.” This daughter also was in the middle of an affair with a married man. She disclosed he was the father of her oldest child.
Despite tangled stories like this one, people in our society continue to mock nuclear, two-parent families and the concept of marriage-for-life. Instead, the numbers of single parents are increasing. It is not too uncommon for a single person to adopt children. Two people of the same gender and living together also demand that privilege. It seems anything goes.
Marriage and family were not intended to be so fragmented and diverse. At the very first marriage ceremony, God joined one man and one woman. The Bible says, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
God promotes this unity throughout Scripture. He intended marriage as a sacred relationship of two people under His protection and authority. Human beings have trouble with this concept. From the beginning, we disobeyed God. Adultery and multiple marriages began right after the first family fell into sin. “Unnatural” relationships between men and men, human beings and animals, and other perversities were not far behind.
The problem is not that marriage is just one choice among many but that a biblical marriage seems impossible. It may begin well but after the glow dims and faults begin to appear, most couples separate, each looking for a mate that will forever remain shiny in their eyes.
These days, some men reason that one woman is not able to satisfy the appetites of one man. Some women, fed up with that attitude, drop men out of their lives altogether. What most do not realize is that marriage can last and be fulfilling — with help from the One who designed this relationship.
Withing the past six months, I’ve met couples who have been married to each other for sixty years or more. This seems an amazing feat but it must be noted that these are not perfect people. Their common and distinctive quality is that they made a commitment to each other and determined to make that commitment stick. They took their marriage vows seriously because they repeated them both to each other and before God.
My parents were a few days shy of their sixty-seventh anniversary when my dad died. Mom told me that for them, divorce was not the thing to do. They determined to not fight but settle their differences. They were happy together because they worked at it.
I did not follow their example. My first husband was an alcoholic and we had other problems. I thought the only way to resolve them was by escaping the marriage. Now I realize and admit this was a selfish attitude. Since then, I’ve learned that nothing is impossible with God. He has helped me through far greater difficulties than those I ran away from and proved His power to help me overcome my selfishness.
Still, I have to say that staying married is not just tough — it is impossible. In our humanness, when the going gets tough, we will bail out. We do not know how to resolve the issues or we do not want to. Yet God promises that He can “work in us, both to will and to do His good pleasure.”
Oh Lord Jesus, thank You for working to make us want a strong marriage, for giving us Your unconditional love for each other, and offering Your wisdom regarding any problems that threaten to separate us. While the challenges may be huge, so are You, our wonderful God.
Showing posts with label nothing is impossible for God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nothing is impossible for God. Show all posts
Friday, February 16, 2018
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Tampering with the Bible? .................. Parables 424
June 7, 1994
A certain group of scholars have decided to color-code the Bible. They are trying to determine which words Jesus actually said, which words He may have said, and which words (in their opinion) He did not say. Their goal is to print these words in red, grey, or black.
Christians believe that the Bible was inspired by God and is an accurate historical record. That is, all words the writers attribute to Jesus actually do represent things He said.
On the other hand, these scholars (who may call themselves Christian), come from a tradition of liberal theology. In that tradition, sceptics and rationalists, for many years, have discounted the literal value of the Bible. For instance, they say miracles are not logical therefore cannot happen, so the miracle accounts cannot be accurate.
They also say Jesus was perhaps a real person but the New Testament could not have been written by those who knew Him directly. It was compiled much later. Because of that, so they say, whoever Jesus is, and whatever He actually said, is lost. Based on their rational judgment, the scholars have put themselves in a position to decide which quotes have merit and which are only a later addition.
The entire premise behind this reasoning is that Jesus could not possibly be God and the miracles attributed to Him could not have happened. Their color-coding is not an attempt to discredit the value of the Bible as religious literature but somehow explain where it came from. After all, it has endured and has a positive effect on those who follow its teachings.
Some Christians feel threatened by this sort of “scholarship.” Others laugh at the “stupidity” of the so-called educated. Quite frankly, it seems these people are sincerely trying to understand, but cannot do it because their God is too small. He is unable to come into history in a human form or do miracles.
Sometimes my concept of God shrinks a bit too, but not quite the same way. For example, if I give in to despair in “impossible” situations, I am not really believing that “with God, all things are possible.” Whenever I yield to temptation, I am not relying on a God who is able to help me resist it.
An even more extreme situation is whenever I disobey God by choice. I may know what He wants of me but, for a time anyway, I simply refuse to do it. During that kind of rebellion, my attitude may actually come from listening to Satan instead of God. When this inventor of evil and “father of lies” tempted Eve in the garden of Eden, he used this line: “Did God really say that?”
When Eve began to doubt what God said, she actually changed His command from “do not eat” to “do not touch.” Her tampering with the Word of God led to disobedience on her part, then Adam’s. As a result, their sin brought the propensity to sin into the entire human race.
Doubting that God really means what He says leads to sin. Doubting that Jesus is not deity and casting doubt on everything He said sounds like dangerous business for anyone.
However, rather than point fingers at the foolishness of that error, all who claim to be Christian need to be on guard. If we obey only what appeals to us from the words of Jesus, perhaps we are no different than the liberal scholars. That is, if we don’t follow ALL of His Words, we too are “color-coding” our Bibles.
A certain group of scholars have decided to color-code the Bible. They are trying to determine which words Jesus actually said, which words He may have said, and which words (in their opinion) He did not say. Their goal is to print these words in red, grey, or black.
Christians believe that the Bible was inspired by God and is an accurate historical record. That is, all words the writers attribute to Jesus actually do represent things He said.
On the other hand, these scholars (who may call themselves Christian), come from a tradition of liberal theology. In that tradition, sceptics and rationalists, for many years, have discounted the literal value of the Bible. For instance, they say miracles are not logical therefore cannot happen, so the miracle accounts cannot be accurate.
They also say Jesus was perhaps a real person but the New Testament could not have been written by those who knew Him directly. It was compiled much later. Because of that, so they say, whoever Jesus is, and whatever He actually said, is lost. Based on their rational judgment, the scholars have put themselves in a position to decide which quotes have merit and which are only a later addition.
The entire premise behind this reasoning is that Jesus could not possibly be God and the miracles attributed to Him could not have happened. Their color-coding is not an attempt to discredit the value of the Bible as religious literature but somehow explain where it came from. After all, it has endured and has a positive effect on those who follow its teachings.
Some Christians feel threatened by this sort of “scholarship.” Others laugh at the “stupidity” of the so-called educated. Quite frankly, it seems these people are sincerely trying to understand, but cannot do it because their God is too small. He is unable to come into history in a human form or do miracles.
Sometimes my concept of God shrinks a bit too, but not quite the same way. For example, if I give in to despair in “impossible” situations, I am not really believing that “with God, all things are possible.” Whenever I yield to temptation, I am not relying on a God who is able to help me resist it.
An even more extreme situation is whenever I disobey God by choice. I may know what He wants of me but, for a time anyway, I simply refuse to do it. During that kind of rebellion, my attitude may actually come from listening to Satan instead of God. When this inventor of evil and “father of lies” tempted Eve in the garden of Eden, he used this line: “Did God really say that?”
When Eve began to doubt what God said, she actually changed His command from “do not eat” to “do not touch.” Her tampering with the Word of God led to disobedience on her part, then Adam’s. As a result, their sin brought the propensity to sin into the entire human race.
Doubting that God really means what He says leads to sin. Doubting that Jesus is not deity and casting doubt on everything He said sounds like dangerous business for anyone.
However, rather than point fingers at the foolishness of that error, all who claim to be Christian need to be on guard. If we obey only what appeals to us from the words of Jesus, perhaps we are no different than the liberal scholars. That is, if we don’t follow ALL of His Words, we too are “color-coding” our Bibles.
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