This is often a very difficult time of year for men and women standing for marriage restoration, especially if it’s the first Christmas season after marital separation. And it breaks my heart to see standers under such a burden of self-condemnation just because they’re hurting and struggling during an understandably painful time; that’s exactly what Satan wants to use to steal, kill, and destroy the peace, joy and victory )abundant life) Jesus came to give us. Romans 8:1-2 very specifically says Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Yet, we can’t deny the apparent conflict between the requirement for obedience to receive all of the blessings promised in God’s Word and the idea that we shouldn’t feel like failures when we’re unable to attain the high mark of perfection. That’s why it’s so important to understand that God knows that we’re NOT perfect, and He understands our ongoing struggle to overcome our human weakness as we strive to walk in faith and obedience as we stand for the restoration of our marriages.

Since Paul wrote most of the New Testament and is certainly considered a great man of God, reading 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 is a good place to begin understanding that God can actually be glorified in our weakness, because it says Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And we can all attest to the fact that it’s in times of our greatest weakness and trials that we tend to realize and acknowledge that we can’t do what we need to do without God, so we call on Him and rely on HIS power to get us through. And then His name is glorified when we make it through in HIS strength and not ours. In the same way we wouldn’t need a Savior if we weren’t sinners and there wasn’t a place called hell; we wouldn’t need God’s grace and power if we were always strong and perfect. So we need to stop letting the devil put us under condemnation because of our human shortcomings and failures. Instead, we should recognize them as opportunities for Jesus to be glorified as we rely on HIS grace, strength, and power to overcome them and everything the devil intends for evil. Hebrews 7:28 even says For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. Obviously, God does not expect us to be perfect or that we can even attain it in and of ourselves. That’s why we have to turn to our Lord and Savior when we are weak and when we struggle with faith and our walk as Christians. As Hebrews 10:13-14 says Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. And 2 Samuel 22:33 very clearly says It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

Taking on attitudes of self-condemnation occurs when we take the focus off of Jesus, and put it on ourselves; ignoring Philippians 3:12, which says Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Of course, that brings us to the inevitable question of just why Christ Jesus “took hold” of us.” Fortunately, truly understanding that takes us a long way toward overcoming guilt and self-condemnation, because the root of self-condemnation is “self, which is what happens when we take our focus off of the Lord and His glory, power and purpose, and put it squarely on ourselves. Yet, Ephesians 1:6-14 makes it VERY clear that we are CHOSEN by God for the praise and glory of Jesus Christ; that EVERYTHING that happens is predetermined and ordained by God, when the time is right according to His plan, just for His praise and glory.

God wants us to have an intimate love relationship with His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and He wants us to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit so others are led into the same relationship with Jesus. But when we allow the devil to magnify our human frailties instead of focusing on the awesome glory and power of Jesus, we can’t be the vessels we’re called to be for the purpose of drawing others into His kingdom, which is exactly what the devil wants. So the bottom line is exactly what Rick Warren says; it’s NOT about us! Yet, we tend to make it all about us. And the reason we do that is because we don’t understand obedience; we don’t understand what it really means to trust and obey God. We tend to see obedience as a means to an end. In our case, it’s usually the means by which we think we can achieve the restoration of our marriages. So when we have a hard time taking God at His Word and believing that He IS restoring our marriages, or when we fail to walk out the principles of faith and marriage restoration according to what the Bible teaches, we get discouraged and down on ourselves, because we think that means that our marriages aren’t going to be restored; that we blew it, so now God won’t or can’t restore our marriages! What a snare of the devil that kind of thinking is! It just sets us up to fail, because it inadvertently rests the ability to get what we want in us, and everything we do in that endeavor is totally fruitless and useless, because our motivation to trust and obey is not for the praise and glory of Jesus Christ and the furtherance of His kingdom, but for our own desire for marriage restoration. And James 4:3 makes no bones about that, because it says When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. And 1 Corinthians 4:5 even says Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

So it’s obvious that not only is faith and obedience important as we stand for the restoration of our marriages, but our motives are even MORE important! And the ONLY motive for obedience that pleases God and releases the supernatural power we need in our situations is spelled out very clearly in the following verses:

John 14:23 – Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 14:21 – Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

1 John 2:5-6 – But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to slip into thinking of obedience as a means to the restoration of our marriages, but that’s not true. Yes, all of the verses we usually refer to about trusting God with all our hearts, acknowledging Him in all our ways and committing to doing things HIS way are important, but we can’t take those out of the context of obedience being motivated by our love for Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That’s why it is so important to keep things in the right order, and Jesus said the FIRST thing is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength; which means not putting ANY other gods or idols before Him, including our marriages, spouses or even the restoration of our marriages. And when we love Him that way, we will obey Him because we love him and want to please Him, and when our obedience is motivated by genuine trust and love, we will be blessed with every promise and provision found in God’s Word. And when we love Jesus, we will also love the Word, because John 1:1-4 tells us In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And it’s not insignificant to note that most of the time we allow the devil to put us under condemnation, it’s due to a lack of faith and knowledge of what the Bible teaches. That’s why Romans 10:17 is so important; because it says Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. And another very important reason to study our Bibles seriously as we stand for the restoration of our marriages is because we are in the spiritual battle of our lives, and 2Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. So the only way to overcome attitudes of self-condemnation is to spend quality time studying the Bible, because that’s the only way to truly trust and obey God and have His love made complete in us. We have to know His Word in order to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. And we can all be sure that as a result of doing that, we will have a much more intimate walk and relationship with the Lord; we’ll feel much less condemnation, and the devil won’t be able to steal our peace, joy, or victory! Then we’ll have the abundant life Jesus came to give us, so be blessed and encouraged!

Posted Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pm in Seeds Of Faith.