My marriage will always come before my kids. It’s a vow I made on my wedding day and it’s a vow I’m living in the every day. It’s a promise to guard my heart, attitudes, and words toward my husband – my daughter’s father – because her happiness depends on it.
Legalistic parenting is common not because parents hold ill-will toward their children, but because legalism is the easy route. It’s much easier to follow rules than to walk daily in faith, and it’s much easier to parent based on fear and control than complete trust in Jesus Christ.
Using “hate the sin” as a license for cruelty defeats the purpose of proclaiming truth. The gospel needs no help causing division; it is foolishness to those who reject it (1 Cor. 1:22-24). Because the gospel will divide based on its exclusive nature, our job is not to further that division but to simply love the Lord our God with all our hearts (emotions), souls (being), minds (thoughts), and strength (effort).
We’ve celebrated marriage as the haven for God-defined sexuality that it is, but we’ve forgotten something. We’ve forgotten that marriage can’t fix a lust problem.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about our wedding day is this: it wasn’t the best day of our lives. It was beautiful, special, and monumental in its significance, but each year we spend together and each challenge we face brings deeper joy than we felt back then. The wedding is just a day. Marriage is a lifetime. It only gets better with age.
In their zeal for the word of God, they forgot the spirit of God. They became so encompassed with the law, with the words, and with the rules that they forgot Who the words came from and for what they were meant. Jesus’ work resuscitated the spirit of the law: grace is the motive to obedience.
God forgives sexual sin. I could stop with that amazing fact and just revel in the redemption He offers! (And I do – it’s all in my testimony.)
Though God forgives us, there are still consequences for sin. Most people will never fully forget the things they have done or experienced. Our daily walk of faith requires us to choose God’s way at every opportunity, rejecting shame and embracing the purpose He has for our lives. As we walk in this freedom, there will inevitably come a day when we must share our journey with another person. There comes a time when we have to be honest about the past.
“How far along are you?”
The woman in line next to me was asking, glancing from my heels to my laptop to the stomach rounding beneath my business casual.
“Eight months.” I smiled.
Another woman turned around. “Girl, you’re about to pop! Don’t you have that baby on this plane!” But the first woman looked more concerned than amused.
“You don’t look big enough to be eight months pregnant.”
We don’t often hear the words “celebrate” and “sexuality” in the same sentence, particularly within the church. It may even bring to mind some negative or New Age-y connotations, like National Naked Gardening Day or the “Free the Nipple” movement. But that’s not what I’m talking about. This topic brought up some great questions in the Lust Free Living groups I launched two weeks ago, and it deserves discussion here as well.
God tempts no one (Jas. 1:13), but His good gifts can be used for evil if our hearts are not on guard. Marriage – a holy relationship reflecting Christ and the church – is one of Satan’s primary targets. If he can make Christian women idolize marriage before they have it, he can destroy that marriage once they do.