Tag Archives: Sin

It is FINISHED!!

Christian, The Church, , , ,

it-is-finished

 

Isaiah 53

Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.

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“God made me do it….”

Affair, Cheating, Christian, Fidelity, infidelity, marriage, personal reflection, The Church, , , , , ,

I saw these verses today and I wanted to share with my blog friends, because lately I’ve been hearing story after story of a spouse “falling in love” with someone at church, and then justifying their affair by saying “Well, he is an elder (or she is in the music ministry) and we can serve God better if we leave our spouses.”  Or even worse, I’ve heard of loyal spouses going to their pastor and telling their spiritual leader that their spouse is involved in adultery, AND THE MINISTER won’t tell him/her to end the affair because they are youth group leaders together!!!

The verse is James 1: 13-15 “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

At first I kind of struggled with this one, because it seems to say God does not tempt people with evil–and I personally believe that our God, as the Lord God Almighty, is actually sovereign over everything including evil. I don’t think He just “sits back and allows it to happen” but rather, He is actively involved and foreordains EVERYTHING! So…what does this mean? Well I looked at the Greek and a possibly better way of translating it might be “When tempted, no one should say, ‘Of God I am tempted.’….”

God has made it clear that adultery does not please Him, and it is sin to commit adultery.

“Do not commit adultery.”  (Ex 20:14)

“How senseless is the adulterer! Whoever commits adultery destroys himself.”  (Prov 6:32)

“You have heard that it was said: Do not commit adultery. But I tell you this: anyone who looks at a woman to satisfy his lust has in fact already committed adultery with her in his heart. ” (Mt 5:27-28)

“Avoid unlawful sex entirely. Any other sin a person commits is outside the body but those who commit sexual immorality sin against their own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, given by God? You belong no longer to yourselves.” (1 Cor 6:18-19)

“the will of God for you is to become holy and not to have unlawful sex. Let each of you behave towards his wife as a holy and respectful husband, rather than being led by lust, as are pagans who do not know God.” (1 Thess 4:3-5)

“Marriage must be respected by all and husband and wife faithful to each other. God will punish the immoral and the adulterous.”  (Heb 13:4)

“You adulterers! Don’t you know that making friends with the world makes you enemies of God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.” (Jas 4:4)

So then don’t fool yourself.  If you are married but attracted to that deacon in church, it is not “God bringing you two together”!!! It’s not God’s will for you to divorce your husband so you can minister more effectively with the deacon–or to sing praise to His name with the slinky lady in the Praise Choir!  NOOOO! If you really want to effectively minister and bring glory to God’s name, obey what He has told you very clearly, and then be a testimony of the blessings God brings to those who obey Him.

Sooooo…if you’re tempted, it started when you were dragged away by your own evil desire to want more than your marriage, and that desire leads to sin, and sin gives birth to spiritual death.   Instead of using “God made me to it…”as your justification, please do the right thing–end your affair, return to your marriage, honor the vows you made before God and family, and be a living testimony for how to love your spouse and rebuild a godly marriage.  That would be a ministry!!

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WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!?

Affair, Cheating, Christian, infidelity, , , , , ,

I read a post today over at the Institute for Nouthetic Counseling blog, entitled “Why?”  (the author is Dr. Jay Adams) that inspired me to write this post.  This is one question we hear SO OFTEN at AffairCare!  “Why!!!!???”

“Why did my spouse have an affair?”

“Why don’t they love me anymore?”

“Why did this happen to me?”

“Why did God let this happen?”

Usually when people ask this question, like Dr. Adams says…they aren’t really looking for an answer but instead they feel sad or depressed, want to complain, and for the most part want to blame someone or something else for what’s going on in their lives.  But believe it or not, there really are ANSWERS to these questions, especially if you are a believing Christian!

“Why did my spouse have an affair?”–Spouses have affairs for one simple reason: by nature we are sinful (Romans 3:23).  That is to say, until we are regenerated by God’s salvation, in our natural state, we are slaves to sin and death.  So  it is our nature to do sinful things, sinful things feel natural or comfortable, and sinful things are easy and “feel good”.  Sometimes even when a person is saved, they will succumb and slip back into the old sinful habits because obeying God can feel uncomfortable or be difficult.  So your spouse had an affair because they are human.

“Why don’t they love me anymore?”–This is actually a two-pronged answer. If you’ve looked at our Basic Concepts, you’ll understand that on one hand it has to do with a gradual increase of Love Extinguishers putting out the flame of love, and a gradual decrease of Love Kindlers that make the flame of love blaze!  But that’s really only one part of it.  The other part is that they have made a decision.  Contrary to the way it’s portraited in our culture, Love is not a feeling that swoops over you and is uncontrollable. Love is a CHOICE to act in a loving way and expend time, energy and thought for that person (I Cor. 13:4-8).  Thus, they have CHOSEN to put their time, energy and thoughts into that Other Person..and if they put that same amount of time, energy and thought into you (and upholding their vow)…Love could be rebuilt.

“Why did this happen to me?”–Again, a two-pronged answer.  If you are not a Christian, saved by grace, then it happened because human beings are naturally sinful and sinning hurts us (Eph 2:1).  Oh yeah, we think “It feels good,” and that momentary rush of Affair Adrenalin may temporarily feel good!  But in the long run…sinning hurts us.  It harms children, destroys families, devastates grandparents and aunts and uncles…ruins finances…breeds unhappiness and sorrow!!  On the other hand, if you are a Christian, saved by grace, then it happened for one reason: God promised you He would continue to do His good work in you until you were completed (Phil 1:6).  Apparently in God’s providence He has decided you needed this problem in order to grow more intimate with Him and become more like Him.  It is an opportunity to become the man or woman God intends for you to be.

“Why did God let this happen?”–I’ll quote Dr. Adams here (he says it perfectly):  “What happened …  was an act of God’s providence. You know He’s actively at work in this world.  And what He does for His children is always for their good (Romans 8:28).  Even though we don’t know what He’s up to (by ordaining this painful situation), nevertheless, we can be sure of several things since you are a Christian:  God is in the problem–God is up to something in the problem–God is up to something good.  GOD IS INVOLVED IN WHAT IS HAPPENING, BRINGING ABOUT GOOD IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, IN HIS TIME!!”

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