The Fundamental Blog

In today’s secular world, and too often even within Christendom, the concept of the unifying dimension of marriage seems to have gone by the wayside. The commitment to a spouse is second only to the commitment to Christ Jesus and today we rarely see people who are willing to take the marriage relationship as seriously as it was intended to be by God. I know that in today’s blended families the tendency is to split the duties of providing and parenting into factions of, “yours,” and, “mine,” but it doesn’t make it right. This is one area in which we should really stand out from the world and show them that there is a better way. Since Christ sanctioned the Bible and since we are claiming Christ as our Lord, we must be willing to be diligent in pursuing a Biblical pattern in marriage, but what does that look like?

It begins with a right understanding of God’s opinion of marriage, a willingness to do a bit of leg work on our own, and the commitment to persevere through the hard times knowing the God is refining us to the image of Christ as we walk through the valleys of life. God gave the institution of marriage as a lifelong union of a man and a woman, a rejoining of two parts of a whole, if you will. Looking at Genesis 2:23 we read, “… she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” and in the next verse… “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they will be one flesh.” So we can see here that in the making of woman, God took her out of man, and in marriage they are rejoined as one flesh.

I am dismayed at the number of professing Christians that maintain separate bank accounts, deny their spouses the right to discipline the children that were parented through a previous relationship, and require prenuptial agreements before getting married. This is evidence that the marriage is lacking the, “becoming one flesh,” aspect that God’s Word teaches as the model for a Godly marriage. “Oh, but you don’t know my spouse! You wouldn’t think such things if you knew what he/she was capable of.” This is no excuse. All this says is that you didn’t apply due diligence in selecting your spouse in the first place. Nothing happens outside of the providence of God, so if you have been led to the marriage altar, then you must be in a relationship that God has allowed.

I am not suggesting that all of the marriages that God allows to happen are carefree or unconditionally protected from every bad thing, but I am saying that God knows about it and is faithful in walking through the hard times with you. I am confident that many people get married, even professing Christians, who think that if it doesn’t work out, they’ll simply divorce and go on to a new relationship, but doesn’t the vow taken before God say, “…for as long as you both shall live?” We seem to neglect the importance of the most critical earthly decision, that of a mate, as though we were picking a pair of shoes. My mother used to own a champion dachshund bitch that she bred for several years, as a result my father observed, and relayed to me, that, “…most people will spend more time and effort choosing a mate for their dogs than they will for themselves.” Sadly, I have to agree with him.

But what about the case when the spouse is not a believer? What does Scripture say? Well, if you knew that your spouse was an unbeliever before you got married, then you violated Biblical principles in yoking yourself to an unbeliever. But if this is where you find yourself, then look to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7. Here is a wealth of marital guidance, among which we read; if we find ourselves married to an unbeliever and they are willing to remain in the relationship, then we are to let them remain. It could be that we are going to be used of God to bring them to faith. This case could be either the one where we were blinded by a false image of love and married anyway, (even though we knew it wasn’t right), or that two nonbelievers marry and later one comes to faith without the other.

There is never a moment when you can look at your situation and say that God didn’t allow it to happen. He may not have caused it, (usually our messes are the result of our own bad choices), but if we’re in it, then He has allowed it. If you are in any kind of marital strife, God knows about it. Our society has programmed God out of our lives and programmed a sort of humanism in. We need to return to the Biblical teachings of what our lives, and especially our marriages, ought to be about. Not only that, but we need to see it as essential that we teach the next generations that there is a reason to be certain about the people we decide to marry. It is vital that the Christian marry a Christian. How can a couple raise up children in the Lord if they, themselves, are divided on the issue? But the model of Biblical marriage is more than agreement in spiritual matters, it is the agreement of practical matters as well. These practicalities must be handled in such a way as to demonstrate the Christian principles to our children. Why should mommy and daddy have separate checkbooks? This indicates that one of them doesn’t trust the other with the money and further, that one may be hiding things from the other as well.

For one parent to tell the other step-parent that they are not allowed to discipline , “My,” children sends the signal that the child need not listen to the step-parent, and that the child may actually be able to intentionally play one parent off the other to gain favors. These are only a couple of examples of why it is so important that you and your prospective spouse are equally yoked in marriage. Make sure that you agree on money, discipline, your Christian faith; without these, so many areas of life will eventually become battlefields, battlefields where the children ultimately lose.

I learned what it means to, “be one flesh,” when I began to experience pains in my chest. I was under high anxiety because my wife had just had heart surgery and I began to have, what I thought were sympathy pains. Being the man, I promptly decided that I should keep this information to myself and not burden my wife with it while she was still recovering. On more than one occasion, I found myself genuinely concerned that I would die in my sleep at night; and waking up in the morning being truly surprised that I had lived through the night. Of course, I was sparing my wife the worry, but then I began to have the Spirit work on me and I kept having, “…one flesh…” in my mind. It wasn’t long before I realized how upset I would be if the very thing I was doing to my wife, were to be done to me.

I explained to her what I had been feeling and how I was wrong that as, “one flesh,” I had not told her what was going on. If she and I are one flesh, as the Bible tells us, then I had no right to keep from her what this half of that one flesh was struggling with. I have learned that my struggles are OUR struggles and that her struggles are equally OUR struggles. Thankfully there was nothing seriously wrong with me and I look back on that episode with thanksgiving because God allowed me to see His vision for a Christian marriage. Brothers and sisters, there is no division of children, money, health or debt. There is no, “her bills,” and, “my bills.” There are only bills, and there is only, “our,” money to pay them; she doesn’t suffer from cancer, you both do; one of you never receives an inheritance, you share in it.

What God took out of man, as woman, in the creation He gives back to us in marriage. The loneliness of the spinster’s life, or that of the unsatisfied bachelor, is evidence that we may not be whole beings without our mates. I am not saying that everyone must be married to be complete, God sometimes fills the void Himself. But for those who are not sated by God’s filling which allows contentment in the single life, it seems as though it may be the spouse that is lacking. Even so, we must be extremely careful about the spouse we choose. The selection of a mate is not like buying a car that you can foresee trading in after a few years. This is a choice that needs to be made from the perspective of a life-long commitment, one that you are going to ride out though good times and bad, knowing that God has promised to walk with you through every valley and to bless you in your shared, common faith.

Being salt and light to the world bears with it a certain amount of responsibility and accountability. Before you take the leap simply for the sake of an over infatuated, mistaken sense of what you believe to be love, make sure that God is in the choice. Then, once you have accomplished that, make sure to keep God in the marriage. If you do this you will surely still have occasional rocky roads, but the world will look at the commitment and wonder at a marriage that is not divided, not splintered into, “yours and mine,” but rather, one that has been able to endure the trials and tribulations leveled against it. You can end up with the kind of marriage that will cause people to ask, “How do you do it?” When they ask, (and they will), you will be able to smile and tell them that, early on, you both decided to be, “one flesh;” to cleave to one another no matter what because those are the enduring traits of a marriage that is…


All for the Glory of Christ

Have you ever received a gift and not really understood the value of what you had been given? It may have been the most wonderful gift you could imagine, but without knowing how to use it properly, or being able to wade through pages of instructions to understand the item, it was simply put on the shelf and never taken down again. Some people, like me, might get a phone and never understand the multitude of capabilities that are contained within such a small device. If I have a phone that I can use to talk to someone, that’s all I need. I don’t care about voice-mail, photo specifications, internet connectivity, download memory space and all the other things that go into today’s phones, I only want to be able to call someone and hear them when they answer.

This shortsightedness may be alright for the kinds of gifts we give one another, but too often this is how we receive the gift of salvation from God. We say, “I have received salvation and that’s enough.” This is a very limited view and can even go so far as to present an obstacle which ends up blocking the blessings that God would like for us to enjoy. Sure, God could force the blessings on us but He doesn’t work that way. God will use His power through the Holy Spirit to lead us into the right knowledge of the gift of salvation and as we make ourselves available to grow in grace, He is willing and faithful to bless us more and more. Saving grace is not something to receive and then forget about until we find ourselves at the gates of Heaven, no; saving grace is intended to be displayed through us so that others may see the wonders of our God and perhaps find a reason to accept Christ in their own lives. We are called upon to be salt and light, remember?

Once you have had your life saved by the blood of Christ, will you then keep it to yourself? From the day we are born we are walking the road to Hell and to suddenly realize that you are saved from the fate of eternal torment in Hell, one would think that you would want everyone to know about it! Our salvation is not one of works, lest any man should boast, but there is a works component that is made manifest in the lives of the saved. We are not saved by works, but we are saved unto good works. We are told that we will recognize the followers of Jesus Christ by their fruit, this is what the world needs to see, our fruit. In fact, if the person claims salvation and yet shows no fruit, one has to wonder if they were ever really touched by the Spirit at all.

The first thing one usually hears in a discussion of this type is that we should, “…judge not lest we be judged…” The problem is that we are called to discern among those of us that claim to be children of God. How can Paul say that he judges no-one in one breath and then in the next say, “but when I do judge, my judgment is right…”? We, as Christians are not to judge the world, that is the divine providence of God Almighty. The world can not be held to a Christian standard and since they are of the world, who of us can fault them for doing the things that the world does. It is as ridiculous as faulting a skunk for spraying a noxious odor at it’s enemies; it’s what they do! The worldling does worldly things because they ARE worldly. It’s as simple as that. But to those who claim the banner of Christ, we are to judge their fruit with a Godly discernment.

The thing is, that too many professing Christians can not be identified by their behaviors. We are supposed to show good fruit, to be ambassadors of the gift of God’s grace in our lives. How can a true Christian claim salvation on the one hand, and then on the other hand, leave the gift box on the shelf while living in the world like all the rest? Doesn’t the life that Jesus Christ gave for us matter at all? How does the professing Christian believe in his salvation and at the same time laugh at the off color joke, indulge in the unethical business practices that his co-workers encourage, and lie, cheat and steal when among those he is used to associating with?

One of the most obvious displays of the problem is evidenced by the, “Sunday Christian.” You have surely seen them, the ones who are holy and pious on Sunday morning and by Sunday afternoon are living lives that rival the most base worldling. Sometimes they don’t even make it home before they exhibit their true colors. I have seen couples fighting all the way to church and then they are at it again before they can get out of the parking lot after services. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that these people have genuinely received their share in the saving grace of the Lord, they have taken the gift and put it up on the shelf thinking that it’s enough that it be there to usher them in to the celestial city when the time comes. But they ignore it the rest of the time. What a waste!

Jesus died a criminal’s death so that we might have the opportunity, through faith, to reconcile our sinful nature with the Holy nature of God, the Father. This can not be appreciated if our gift of salvation remains on the shelf! We must unpack the box and learn what the gift is all about. We should hunger to know how to please God more each day, to bend our stubborn wills to the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit. We need to feed on God’s Word so that we can learn to understand the blessings that he would want us to receive. John 15:8 says, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit;…” When the world looks at us and sees nothing other than what we were before of professed justification, what good is our witness? When we do well, then our witness speaks to the world about the multitude of blessings bestowed by our Heavenly Father. When we do well, it glorifies God!

This can not happen if we never take the box down off of the shelf. If we do not take the time and put in the effort to understand the gift, if we neglect our duty to our Saviour, then God receives no glory from our actions. In fact, just the opposite is the case. When the professing Christian bears no fruit, then Satan is glorified! Satan gets to use us to say, “See, there is no point to this God thing, worship is useless and it isn’t even worth the bother.” The world looks at this person and sees that they are no different than they ever were and mistakenly concludes that there is nothing to be gained by accepting Christ as their Saviour. Unless the Christian allows God to work through him, how is the cause for the kingdom of Christ to be advanced? Satan sits in our churches week after week and demonstrates that holiness is an overstated ideal, the sincere convert looks at the emotionless, cold senior members and thinks that there is something wrong with being, “on fire,” for the Lord. They feel as though there is something wrong with seriously contending for the faith. The message from the congregation, the church boards and oftentimes the pastorate itself is that the Biblical principles that are supposed to guide the development and path of the church are outdated, out of touch, or simply wrong.

Why not put a known drug user in front of the youth as an example to aspire to, what’s so wrong about filling the pulpit with openly gay clergy who not only flaunt their depraved lifestyles in front of the church, but also cast disparagement upon any who would take an intolerant position against them? Who cares if the Wednesday night youth group uses the sanctuary for football practice? Open the gift people! Learn what the Spirit says about reverence in the house of God, the right way to select leaders in the church and the Godly characteristics that need to be displayed within the body of Christ. We are called to be a people apart from the world. The body of Christ is not a social club that exalts the biggest givers, or the ones who dress the best; it is about being holy as He is holy, about daily dying to ourselves so that He might live and be displayed through us.

If we are going to accept the gift in the first place, then OPEN THE BOX! One hundred million professing Christians who do nothing with the gift of God’s grace, salvation by faith in Christ Jesus, can do nothing to turn even one from a world of chaos and darkness. The very most they can hope to achieve is to make them another useless hypocrite like themselves, and turn them into one, to whom Christ will one day say, “Depart from Me for I never knew you.” But one repentant, faithful, caring soul being used of God can prove to the whole world that there is nothing to compare to the riches and the glory of the awesome God they serve. What one hundred million can not do, one can; when that one is living…


All for the Glory of Christ