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TechnoratiI have reminded my wife of this verse and she has reminded me that she won’t be one of those stand-by-your-man kind of women if I ever cheat. She has made it clear that she will use her get-out-of-marriage free card (Matthew 19:9) if I ever commit adultery. And I believe her! This may surprise those of you who know my wife as the sweet and kind lover of people that she is! But she has another side that only those closest to her know about, an unmatched inner strength and resolve. I actually am reminded of my wife when I read Mrs. Sanford’s comments about her husbands infidelities. To be honest, I am afraid of cheating on my wife and, in some wierd way, that makes me more attracted to her. Debbie is not defined by me. She is defined by God and, therefore, she looks at me with a perspective calibrated by who she is in Christ.
We are going on our 19th wedding anniversary and my hope is that we are both faithful to God and each other for the rest of our lives. But we can’t get cocky about the strength of our internal resolve to stay pure. Instead we must….
3. Choose to live a life of dependency on Christ moment by moment.
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:21-25
It is Jesus who has rescued us from the penalty of sin (when we trusted Him as our Savior), is rescuing us from the power of sin (when we continue to trust Him moment by moment) and will rescue us someday from the presence of sin (when we die or fly.) But, in the meantime, we are in a daily battle with who we were (our sinful nature) and our new identity in Christ. When we choose to listen to our old self we lose. When we choose to depend on Christ we live out who we really are in Christ.
Once, at a pastor’s conference many years ago, the lead speaker (who was a famous Christian psychologist) claimed that he had counseled thousands of pastors and their wives through adulterous situations. He said that the one common denominator that all of the compromising pastors had was the the safeguards they had put in place with members of the opposite sex. This may surprise you as much as it did me but he vehemently said it was true. Every one of these unfaithful men of the cloth had refused to counsel a woman alone or be in a car with the member of the opposite sex alone or whatever.
The speaker then told us something I’ll never forget. He said, “Gentlemen, safeguards, in and of themselves, will not protect you from unfaithfulness. Only a strong relationship with Jesus and your wife will.” He went on to explain that he thought safeguards were all well and good but he pounded the point and the pulpit home with a phrase I will never forget, “lust will pick a lock.” Continue »
mikeymike885 »
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