HOW DOES GOD SEE MARRIAGE?
Part 3: GUARD AGAINST DISMEMBERING

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh”
(Genesis 2:24).

Let’s get it straight. God loves divorced people, but He hates the spirit of divorce. Why? Because it tears apart what God has made one. God loves making two things into one. How did each one of us begin? The sperm from our father fused with the egg of our mother and immediately we were conceived. A new person. No longer two but one. The devil hates new life. The destroyer who comes to steal, kill, and destroy seeks to eliminate this new life. Precious new babies, conceived through God’s wondrous working are dismembered limb by limb in the womb.

The devil also hates God’s plan for marriage where God brings two people together and makes them one. In Matthew 19:4-6 (NET) which is repeated from Genesis 2:24, Jesus said: “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one Flesh’? So they are NO LONGER TWO, BUT ONE FLESH.”

God’s plan for our marriage is oneness. This is the very first principle that is mentioned about marriage. He wants us to come together as one flesh, but He also wants us to be one soul, one spirit, and with one vision and purpose. The devil loves destroying God’s plan of oneness. He wants to dismember marriages. Mutilate them. In the same way he is behind the dismembering of precious babies in the womb, he determines the same for marriages. He wants to dismember them little by little and piece by piece.

The Message paraphrase of Malachi 2:15 says: “’I hate divorce,’ says the GOD of Israel . . . I hate the VIOLENT DISMEMBERING of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage. So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.”

No marriage suddenly falls apart. It happens gradually. It happens little by little. That’s why we must guard our marriage in every part—physically, spiritually, and emotionally. We must guard our thought life. This is perhaps the biggest area of all. Everything begins with our thoughts.

The enemy of our souls tries to bring negative thoughts to you about your husband. Guard your thought life. Cast out every negative, self-pitying, and destroying thought in the name of Jesus.

1 Peter 5:8, 9: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring line, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom RESIST steadfast in the faith.” Don’t become a victim. Instead, RESIST.

We must not only watch our thoughts but our spirits. Husbands are not perfect. There will be times when they may say and do things that hurt and wound the soul. This is where we must reach beyond our feelings. Instead of allowing our hearts to become hard, we soften our hearts to forgive, to forbear, and to love. We stand strong and will not allow the devil to have the victory. We will not allow him to dismember our oneness. NOT EVEN ONE LITTLE BIT!

When God talks about a man cleaving to his wife in Genesis 2;24 it is the Hebrew word “dabaq” and literally means “to cling to, to be glued, stick fast.” When God made you and your husband one, He glued you together. Satan will try to unglue you and slowly dismember you. Do not let him.

In the strength of the Lord you can stand against his temptations!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Dear God, please arrest me when I am becoming unglued from my husband. Please help me to think “oneness.” Please help me to promote oneness in our relationship. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am going to be a “sticking fast” wife.

HOW DOES GOD SEE MARRIAGE?
Every Little Detail: Part 2

“The eyes of the LORD are in ever place, beholding the evil and the good”
(Proverbs 15:3).

It’s good to remind ourselves how God looks upon marriage, isn’t it?

Malachi 2:13-16 gives powerful words to every marriage: “Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt TREACHEROUSLY: yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal TREACHEROUSLY against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away (divorce) . . . therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not TREACHEROUSLY.”

The word TREACHEROUS is used three times in this passage about marriage. It’s not a light word. The word is “bagad” and means “pillage, to deal deceitfully, treacherously, unfaithfully, to offend, to transgress.”

God created marriage to be a complete oneness of body, mind, soul, and spirit (Genesis 2:24). Marriage is the strongest metaphor in the Bible to reveal God’s relationship with His people. Firstly, with Himself and His chosen people, Israel. God looked upon Israel as His bride. When the Israelites turned away from Him and served other gods, God said they were like a wife turning away from her husband. He uses the word TREACHEROUS again. Read the following Scripture.

Jeremiah 3:20: “Surely as a wife TREACHEROUSLY departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt TREACHEROUSLY with me, O house Of Israel, saith the LORD.” Therefore, this word, TREACHEROUSLY is used of both the wife and the husband who depart from the marriage.

The Bible also reveals that marriage is a revelation of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. This is why marriage is so powerful. God is the originator of marriage. Not us. He designed it. He planned it. It’s the glorious way He wants us to live on this earth.

The Holy Spirit wants to inhabit even the smallest details of our marriage. He wants to be in EVERY LITTLE DETAIL of our marriage—in our sexual union, our daily living, our attitudes, and our interactions with one another.

What could happen if we allowed the Holy Spirit to come into every detail? Every situation we face together. Every word we say to one another. Every disagreeing moment? Yes, it would certainly make all the difference.

I am challenged to do this. Are you? Can we allow the Holy Spirit to come into every little detail and moment of our marriages? He will show us how to react to one another. As we yield to Him instead of our ugly flesh, He will make our union more and more beautiful and wonderful.

This is God’s plan. He planned for it to be beautiful and wonderful, never treacherous.

Blessing from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Oh God, my Father, help me to be aware that You are watching every little detail in my marriage. Please flood my heart with Your Holy Spirit that I will overflow in love and patience and sweetness toward my husband. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

HOW DOES GOD SEE MARRIAGE?
Part 1: A Hard Heart is Dangerous

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them”
(Ezekiel 36:27, 28).

One of the most beautiful things in life is to keep a soft heart—

A soft heart toward God.

A soft heart in responding to God’s word.

A soft heart to people who speak against us.

A soft and tender heart toward our husbands.

Jesus said in Matthew 19:8 that “hardness of heart” leads to divorce. Those are very strong words, but everything begins with our heart attitude. The only way we can keep a soft attitude is by the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. Our fleshly nature gets offended, hurt, bitter, and then hard. We must guard against these evils.

Instead, we must yield to the Holy Spirit to flood our hearts with His forgiveness and love. But what do you do when your love flies out the window and there is none left? You still have God’s love—His agape love that loves in the face of opposition and hatred.

Romans 5:5 says: “The love of God is shed abroad (poured into) our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

Offense leads to bitterness,

bitterness leads to hardness,

and hardness leads to divorce!

Stop the downward path to destruction now. Dear lovely wife, if you are offended by your husband, or anyone else who has hurt you, get on your knees before the Lord. Forgive—there is no other option. Unforgiveness not only hurts the other person, but you, and your family. But mostly YOU.

Every time your husband sends another arrow into your soul, retaliate with a blessing. That’s God’s way. Of course, it is the opposite to our way. But our way doesn’t work; God’s way does.

1 Peter 3:8 (NLT): ‘Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. This is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing.”

The Knox translation says: “Not repaying . .  . hard words with hard words, but blessing those who curse you,”

And here is one more from The New English Bible: “Do not repay wrong with wrong, or abuse with abuse; on the contrary, retaliate with blessing.”

And while you are on your knees, don’t forget to open God’s Word. It always set us straight. I love Psalm 119:165: “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”

PRAYER:

“Dear Holy Spirit, thank You that You live in my heart, shedding abroad God’s love and forgiveness throughout my being. Please move mightily in my heart to fill me to overflowing with love and sweetness. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am resisting all hardness of heart and embracing the soft, sweet anointing of the Holy Spirit in my life.

WHO IS THE HAPPIEST?

“Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments,
which I command thee this day,
that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee,
and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth,
which the LORD thy God giveth thee, forever”
(Deuteronomy 4:40).

Did you hear about the recent research, “The Ties that Bind: Is faith a global force for good or ill in the family?”? It was conducted in 11 different countries by the World Values Survey and Family Gender Survey? The New York Times published it and received a violent backlash from feminists.

Why? Well, they found that “Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages.” They found that highly religious couples enjoy higher-quality relationships and more sexual satisfaction compared to less/mixed religious couples and secular couples.

A graph also showed that religious couples have more children than couples who rarely or never attend worship services and parents with four or more children were happier and more satisfied with their lives.

The liberalists couldn’t take these statistics. They did not want to believe them. But of course, they are true. We will always be happiest when we follow God’s plans. God divinely ordained a one flesh marriage, glued together physically, spiritually, and purposefully. He planned home and motherhood. When we embrace His ways with all our hearts, we find rest, joy, and happiness. Why? Because we are in the very perfect will of God. We are in the place where God intends us to be.

And what could be more wonderful than that?

Why would anyone trade this joy for leaving precious children in daycares and the public education system which has now been hijacked by the liberalists and the homosexuals? Why would they trade a beautiful home life for running around the city dropping children off and going to a career (deprived of their precious children) that only has temporary value? It has no eternal reward.

Oh yes, it may give a little extra cash. But they spend so much more too. It’s amazing how much you save when you cook from scratch and do things from home. It’s amazing how much gas you save and how much less you purchase that you don’t need because you are out always out and about.

And the adrenaline to make it happen! And the tension. And the overwhelmingness.

And all the time God’s wants you to experience His rest in your home.

Jeremiah 6:6 says: “Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the OLD PATHS, where is the GOOD WAY, and walk therein, and ye shall find REST FOR YOUR SOULS.” To obey God’s way is the good way to walk and it always brings rest. More than physical rest. Rest deep down in our souls. Don’t you love that rest?

I was reading Deuteronomy chapter 11:18-25 again this morning (which is a repeat of Deuteronomy 6:4-9). What a beautiful picture of home life. It’s a picture of the family in the home—the mother teaching her children in the home and filling herself and her children with God’s Word so that it is entwined in every part of our lives.

And what is the result? Deuteronomy 11:21-23 says: “That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children . . . as the days of HEAVEN UPON THE EARTH. For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves . . .”

May you also enjoy days of “heaven upon the earth.”

Be blessed today, Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“I thank You dear God, that Your ways are best. You planned the best way from the beginning of time and it has never changed. It is still the best way even in our 21st century. Please help me to keep sticking closely to Your ways. Amen.”

AFFIRMATON:

I will never be ashamed of God’s ancient ways because they are the ways that work!