Marriage
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To Death Us Do Part
Of all the sins to besiege the church in recent years, none has been more insidious or devastating as the sin of adultery, particularly among the leadership. In the heart of this spiritual locust is lust. The culprits will tell you that they never meant to hurt anyone, and that it all started out so innocently. But adultery is a lustful relationship fed over a period of time, so there is opportunity to analyse the wrong path and get as far away from it as possible. But what can one do to guard against it? Let me suggest that there are several options at our disposal to combat it.
1. Guard against spiritual pride.
Spiritual pride tells you that ‘it wouldn’t happen to you’, at which point, if you believe it, you are setting yourself up to be eaten by the locust. C S Lewis said about spiritual pride, “For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” It is this common sense that is the first to fall; the clear understanding that giving in to lust will fling the doors open wide to a breaking down of trust and a building up of walls of hurt among loved ones.
2. Watch your walk.
Micah was one of those minor writing prophets with a big message which boiled everything down to the bare bones. At one point in the latter part of his message he brings us the bottom line: What does God require of you? To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Acting justly is the aspect of faith that determines how we relate to the world around us, while loving mercy speaks to the desires that determine how we look at the world; it is exactly this loving of mercy that guards us from opening the door to lust because it causes us to focus on the consequences of our actions in the lives of our nearest and dearest and beyond. Loving mercy is at the heart of altruistic living.
3. Protect your marriage.
Longevity in relationships doesn’t just happen. It requires work. Marriages need us to start out completely committed to the principle that no matter what it takes we will protect our marriages by practicing forgiveness, clarity in communication – even when you find it really difficult to express what you are feeling (men!) – and being willing to say we are sorry even when we still can’t see the whole picture.
If we fail to start with a firm ‘no matter what’ commitment then when the storms come we will waiver. We will accommodate alternative possibilities; possibilities like an illegitimate relationship outside of our covenant which, no matter how brief, undiscovered or exciting, will at very least erode our commitment to our spouse and potentially be a marriage- breaker.
4. Call on the Lord.
The Lord knew that His Church would be facing all kinds of trials and temptations, so when He was asked about prayer, He taught us about worship, (Hallowed be your Name), commitment to the Father, (Your Kingdom come), dependency, (Give us our daily bread), forgiveness, (Forgive our sins and help us to practice forgiveness) and deliverance from the stuff of life that can make us shipwrecks, (Keep us away from temptation).
Prayer is life and breath for a believer, but it is also a key factor in keeping us well away from straying off the path and strengthening our covenant relationships. If lust is a destroying locust then prayer is a locust destroyer. Walter Trobisch, back in the eighties, wrote a book called, ‘I Married You’, in which he describes marriage as a three way relationship with God at the base. The closer we get to God, the closer we get to each other. Prayer is an essential tool for a healthy marriage, so learn to pray together.
Divorce is devastating. It is the death of a dream, and in a world of brokenness, we need to give everything we have to build healthy, wholesome marriages that minister to the wounded. That will mean trampling the locust of lust firmly under foot as we step together into the future.
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