Marriage and Divorce Healing and Reconcilation
My friend LA Marzulli has a great mini-sermon about taking seriously a critical element of the Christian life – putting the full armor of God. We are living in a fallen world, full of all kinds of influences and attacks, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Keeping Ephesians 6:13-17 in mind everyday is critical, and having peace in the daily chaos is possible!
Listen to this brief audio- LA Marzulli on putting on the full armor of God (mp3 – 4 min.)
What does your unanswered prayer have to do with a space mission? The recent successful landing of JPL’s Curiosity mission on Mars demonstrated a similar principal in the Bible- success can already have happened even though we are still waiting for it. Confused? Read on . .
Since it takes radio waves 14 minutes to reach Earth from Mars right now, the Mars mission control at JPL in Pasadena received word of a successful landing long after the events had already happened. While the scientific world sat on the edge of its collective seats, and waited as each bit of telemetry and data trickled in, on Mars the probe had landed many minutes earlier, guided automatically to its landing.
We too have a limited view in our lives of the events we are praying for. It seems to us we are waiting forever for our prayers to be answered, but in God’s eternal time, he already sees the end. To our earth-bound minds, it seems like the answer to our prayer is a long time off. But God’s way will happen; you can be sure. Trust Him to unravel your prayer in His time.
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. Isaiah 46:10
We have to do a lot of waiting in this life. We wait for loved ones to come to the Lord. We wait for reconciliation. We wait for God to improve us. This waiting is is part of God’s way to mature us:
“When you are going to play with me?” “Not yet. Not until I finish this report.” Fifteen seconds later the child asks the same question, this time with a tone of voice that can drive you mad. But the child is in us all. We too look forward to the day when we have learned perseverance before the Lord. It is the older wise man or woman who can take the many hassles of life in stride, without grumbling and complaining, with contentment rather than resignation. God has chosen to inject his character of perseverance and patient waiting into everyday, earthly life. We are patiently waiting for the Lord’s coming. Creation itself is patiently waiting for the time when it will be liberated from bondage (Rom. 8:22).
Welch, Edward T. (2006-11-01). Depression: A Stubborn Darkness (p. 94). New Growth Press. Kindle Edition.
The sting of failure hurts. In relationships, in our career, in ministry there is often failure. The harder we work, or the more we pray, it seems the more we can miss the mark. Then there are the expectations we have of burdens and hopes we’ve prayed months or years about only to see things not progress or even get worse. Dear ones, everyone experiences this discouragement, and including the giants of faith, such as Moses, Elijah, David Livingston and, most importantly, Jesus. God does take us down roads where things get worse before they get better. But the accusations of failure are the lie from the pit of hell.
Isaiah 49:4 Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain;
Yet surely my just reward [is] with the LORD, And my work with my God.’ “
So give a listen to David Wilkerson’s great sermon:
Audio: “I Have Labored in Vain: A Message for All Who Carry a Sense of Failure“
Here’s the text of the sermon as well.
Learn of the Hope in God amid a temporary sense of failure.
We are often so focused on our own family and relationship problems, that we only see them in our own personal terms and hurts. But God sees marriage rejection and splits as part of a bigger picture. This picture is very big, and involves His relationship with humankind.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church.
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Eph 5:31-33 NIV
When your prodigal rejects your true Love and forgiveness, you are in good company. Your individual rejection is a puzzle piece of pain in a greater picture of God’s love and redemption. This picture is the fallen world itself where humankind rejects Christ’s unconditional love.
He understands your pain, because the pain of rejection is a core pain that Christ experienced in His life on the earth and experiences now as people reject his free grace. He is on your side, and because of this he will help you and be your true love forever.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. – Isa 53:3-4 NIV
Are you praying for your loved one? Yes? Excellent. But the Lord convicted me of something recently. You see, my prayer for my loved one was often focused more on myself. “I want our relationship restored.” “I want her to have the joy of salvation.” “I want . . . . ”
You get the picture. It is so important to continue to pray for marriage restoration, but we need to pray with God’s heart, not just our own desires for a restored marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that wanting a restored marriage is a bad thing, but our heart should first be the Lord’s, which is focused on Him and his will to help and save our prodigals.
Jesus used a model prayer to teach us how to pray (Luke 11:13). This this prayer Christ teaches us to pray first for God’s will and way, then to forgive others. Later in this chapter Christ reminds us that heavenly Father is good, and so we are to expect He will give us good things.
So let’s continue to pray for our loved ones, but ask that the Lord would give us His heart and will when we pray. Then we can leave all the good things he has planned for us to Him.
Rejoice Marriage Ministries published some touching testimonies from women and men who are trusting Christ to heal their marriages. http://rejoiceministries.org/mothersday.php
Desiring God produced this short documentary about the love story between Ian and Larissa Murphy.
Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.
If we make secondary things primary, they cease to be secondary and become idolatrous. They have their place. But they are not first, and they are not guaranteed. Life is precarious, and even if it is long by human standards, it is short. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1).
So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.
—John Piper, This Momentary Marriage (Crossway, 2009), p. 178.
Visit Ian and Larissa’s blog here.
John 4:4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
Not only is Christ greater than the world around us, He is greater than ourselves in our weakness. He is building a new person inside of us; a new person and yes a new personality.
So as we stumble at times in our lives with broken relationships and job (or lack thereof) pressures, the wilderness journey will be fraught with impossible battles only the Lord can solve. If you are saved in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you. Invite him to take over, don’t listen to the old voices of failure, for the Lord can and will do great things for others through you. For “Philippians 1:6: being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
The Lord spoke a strong word tonight via a sermon he directed me to. David Wilkerson’s “Standing Steadfast in Christ” spoke about not seeking the easy way out. As the Lord shows us in scripture through nature, those who choose to avoid conflict, people and the inevitable fires of life will suffer spiritual apathy. It’s clear my trials at work and at home most be met head on with the grace of Christ. So “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” combined with the fact Christ will see me through my storms outside and my emotional pains within is absolutely necessary for me to grow.
And growing means not focusing on my own self but on how I can serve Christ and others. Wilkerson reminds us of Peter, who after he returned to the Lord and the risen Christ told him “Do you love me? Feed my sheep?”
Lord, help all who read this know that we must face life with your grace to grow and bear fruit for you. Let us not shrink from the spiritual battles at home and at work, but let us focus on helping the least and the lost of this world, in Jesus name.
Listen to Standing Steadfast in Christ>>
