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Marriage
Defined
Marriage between a man and a woman is a three-fold responsibility that encompasses all aspects of living. First, it
is with respect to God and His creation of the complimentary, not ‘opposite’, sexes – the procreative reasons
those sexes exist. Second, it is with respect to a man and woman living together in their shared decision making. Third, it
is the structured provision of cultural standards that make naturally ordered society. There is not valid marriage between
a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Such unions are not recognized by God in Christ (Joshua in English) Who, as the head
of the Church, represents God’s creative love for humanity.
Same-sex marriages are an attempt by counter-culture groups to redefine God and Who He is to suit their own self-interested
motives. Thus, ‘marriage’ between like sexes can be properly annulled by worldly legal means but it cannot end
in divorce because there was no real marriage to begin with. Annulment and not divorce is the avenue for consideration when
God’s witness through the hands and activities of a married man and woman is lost to abandonment or marriage entered
into for other than honest reasons. Divorce is a matter of dissolution when a man and woman find it too difficult to maintain
constructive togetherness through applied grace and forgiveness.
As emotional attentions are symptoms of responsibility, sex is not making love. Love can be shared but it cannot be
made. Love’s expression is the celebration of the Love of God as His ordered communication of the strengths of glory
in daily moment-by-moment living. In that, the usual but misunderstood inclination people have about the afterlife as compared
to flesh living is that forever starts when we die. Such is not the case. The ‘forever’ and ‘everlasting’
of eternity does include living in the mortal flesh of now. It is why marriage, other than any other endeavor entered into
by men and women, is eternally held by God as His hand of authority through mortal life.
However, the permanence of marriage and its vows does have its grace in Christ’s forgiveness when the witness
of marriage has for some reason lost its viability. So, it can be understood annulment is not of a marriage that was a mistake.
No legitimate marriage is a mistake... even when one of the parties of the marriage dishonestly involved themselves in sacred
unification for hidden reasons. God in Christ is presently with us in His Holy Spirit, the creative Word of Truth (Jesus Himself),
that causes what is to exist by a Word of proclamation.
When in Genesis God said, “Let there be light.” or “ Light be.” The Gospel of John chapter
1:1-18 tells of the manifestation of the light of life in and of all things and situations. The Light of the Word of Truth
was and always is God’s expression of Christ, His Word. It is recorded
in the Bible that He is the Alpha – the Beginning, and the Omega – the End. All of time’s moments that transpire
continually start and finish without variance. Therefore, Christ is the ongoing reality from and in which everything emerges
and fades away. Marriage between a man and woman is the central and core foundation of all other human activities.
As marriage is intended for attentive committed fellowship in priority to any other personal associative bond, annulment
and divorce are not unforgivable sins. If honest and crucial separation is necessary to uphold better living unto God in Christ,
it would be a bind to sinfulness to force capitulation to “until death us do part”. Re-marriage brings the opportunity
to ‘side-step’ living in death-ness of mistakes for healthier sensibility through Christ’s Victory over
any difficulties that gives to men and women the graceful option of choosing to marry again.
Yes means No
A sub-culture’s response to technological
innovations and Madison Avenue’s psychological sway to purchase has been moving into mainstream social prominence for
quite some time that says, “Having sex is a way to get to know somebody.” Many years ago there were terms like,
casual sex, physical but not committed sex, and recreational sex that have taken on different words of description for irresponsibility
to one’s-self and the others of which a person may be involved. Mainly, this is because of modern birth control methods
and medical techniques.
Thus, there is a dividing line between the
prevention measures of abstinence and permission taken on by public education facilities. That dividing line is the age of
accountability that can be easily determined by birth date combined with parental authority. For those underage ladies and
gentlemen who are under their parent’s roof, the past ‘just say no’ rule still applies but with emphasis
in the “Yes” of temporal legal protections. It is shared with cautionary facts about what it means to share intimacy
with another including the dangers of disease and positive personal alterations of approach to living.
Self-respect can be found without trying to
identify with others not of an immediate family. One of the primary reasons young people ‘experiment’ with the
future of their responsible living with regard to tending to others is the desire to step out from under identification with
parents and those who have commanded their decisions and choices. As people grow into adulthood, identifying with separation
from the parental nest most often takes their attentions out-of-the-way from actual desires. Caretakers who have formed and
kept fashioned their own self-worth by living through their children’s accomplishments unwittingly destroy the very
reason they hope family strengths and securities will thrive.
In headlong retaliation, their children identify
their own world by distorted avenues of observance through experiencing those activities forbidden to common sensibility.
They do what it takes to make their own children to dominate as possessions – meanwhile following their nightmarish
dreams of personal fulfillment. Because overbearing protectionism has taken away the risks of trust and appreciative respect
the elders hold firmly, as a people we have embraced our own cultural and societal demise through population control devices
to trick awareness of sexual meanings toward mutual self-focused sensational experiences at the expense of others.
But, for those who are of legal age, or rather
marriage age, the newer “Yes means yes” empowerment for men and women brings the awareness that marriage is what
sex is about… anyway. Consequently, the ‘free’ bumper stickers available in the social/health professional’s
office waiting rooms that say, “If you are not married, KEEP YOUR PANTS ON” traditionally would have been outside
proper ‘above board’ acceptance. Now, such encouraging devices of
behavior management are not only accepted – they are gladly necessary to turn the tide of social disarray and destruction.
That is, by and through the people who desire
self-validation and natural viable valued appreciation from others. In fact, “Yes means yes” to marriage and fails
in its attempts to solve a dire social situation when self-determined disregard for sexual reproductive meanings persist,
as the word ‘relationship’ means marriage. With earlier ‘under age’ abstinence established, leading
to ‘of age’ proper priorities with regard to what sex means for marriage privacy and societal strengths and public
protections.
The ‘redefining of marriage’ as
publicized by higher education’s administrative policy makers may be what is termed “the new pillow talk”
on college campuses across the USA. A general "affirmative consent" standard is now integrated as part of sexual assault prevention
policies agreed to in the public university system of California state. The assertions make clear for students that only "yes"
and not silence - or a lack of resistance is the accepted indication for sexual activity to be a mutually agreed decision.
What is expressed as a "Yes Means Yes" standard is in the position to broaden to private campuses by way of legislation favored
in places such as New York.
As states face pressures to improve their handling
of campus sexual assaults and the reluctance of young adults to marry, the surrounding communities are at the mercy of the
impending chaos of cost expenditures in many ways. Supporters say it takes away the ability of someone accused of assault
to claim confusion about the accuser's wishes, while reminding and empowering students to talk about consent before engaging
in sex. Traditionally, still today, and on into the future, legal marriage between a man and a woman has been, is, and will
be that consent.
1st Corinthians chapters 6, 7 & 9
Chapter 6
Lawsuits against Fellow Christians
1) If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead
of letting God's people settle the matter? Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to
judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters? Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more,
then, the things of this life! If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing
in the church? Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between
fellow Christians. Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!
7) The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely.
Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? Instead, you yourselves wrong one
another and rob one another, even other believers! Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not
fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts or who steal or are
greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God's Kingdom. Some of you were
like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord
Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Use Your Bodies for God's Glory
12 Someone will say, "I am allowed to do anything." Yes; but not everything is good for you. I
could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave. Someone else will say, "Food
is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food." Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual
immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body. God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise
us by his power.
15 You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body
and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible! Or perhaps you don't know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute
becomes physically one with her? The scripture says quite plainly, "The two will become one body." But he who joins himself
to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him.
18) Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is
guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who
lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. So use
your bodies for God's glory.
Chapter 7
Questions about Marriage
1) Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about.
A man does well not to marry. But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his
own wife, and every woman should have her own husband. A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill
her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs. A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is;
in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is. Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless
you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this
way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.
6) I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission. Actually I would prefer that all
of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.
8) Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to
live alone as I do. But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry—it is better to marry than to burn with
passion.
10) For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave
her husband; but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce
his wife.
12) To the others I say (I, myself, not the Lord): if a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever
and she agrees to go on living with him, he must not divorce her. And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an unbeliever
and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by
being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If
this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God. However, if the one
who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband
or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace.
16) How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be
sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?
Live As God Called You
17) Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God
called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches. If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try
to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised. For whether
or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments. Each of you should remain as you were
when you accepted God's call. Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free,
use it. For a slave who has been called by the Lord is the Lord's free person; in the same way a free person who has been
called by Christ is his slave. God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of people. My friends, each of you should
remain in fellowship with God in the same condition that you were when you were called.
Questions about the Unmarried and the Widows
25) Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord,
but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.
26) Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is. Do you have
a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife. But if you do marry, you haven't
committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday
troubles that married people will have.
29) What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people
should live as though they were not married; those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they
were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought; those who deal in material goods, as though they
were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.
32) I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work,
because he is trying to please the Lord. But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please
his wife; and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because
she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she
wants to please her husband.
35) I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead,
I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.
In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not
acting properly toward the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they
should get married, as he wants to. There is no sin in this. But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made
up his mind not to marry, and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do—then
he does well not to marry the young woman. So the man who marries does well, but the one who doesn't marry does even better.
39) A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she
is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian. She will be happier, however, if she stays as
she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.
Chapter 9
Rights and Duties of an Apostle
1) Am I not a free man? Am I not an apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus our Lord? And aren't you the
result of my work for the Lord? Even if others do not accept me as an apostle, surely you do! Because of your life in union
with the Lord you yourselves are proof of the fact that I am an apostle.
When people criticize me, this is how I defend myself: Don't I have the right to be given food
and drink for my work? Don't I have the right to follow the example of the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Peter,
by taking a Christian wife with me on my trips? Or are Barnabas and I the only ones who have to work for our living? What
soldiers ever have to pay their own expenses in the army? What farmers do not eat the grapes from their own vineyard? What
shepherds do not use the milk from their own sheep?
8) I don't have to limit myself to these everyday examples, because the Law says the same thing.
We read in the Law of Moses, "Do not muzzle an ox when you are using it to thresh grain." Now, is God concerned about oxen?
Didn't he really mean us when he said that? Of course that was written for us. Anyone who plows and anyone who reaps should
do their work in the hope of getting a share of the crop. We have sown spiritual seed among you. Is it too much if we reap
material benefits from you? If others have the right to expect this from you, don't we have an even greater right?
12) But we haven't made use of this right. Instead, we have endured everything in order not to
put any obstacle in the way of the Good News about Christ. Surely you know that the men who work in the Temple get their food
from the Temple and that those who offer the sacrifices on the altar get a share of the sacrifices. In the same way, the Lord
has ordered that those who preach the gospel should get their living from it.
15) But I haven't made use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this now in order to claim
such rights for myself. I would rather die first! Nobody is going to turn my rightful boast into empty words! I have no right
to boast just because I preach the gospel. After all, I am under orders to do so. And how terrible it would be for me if I
did not preach the gospel! If I did my work as a matter of free choice, then I could expect to be paid; but I do it as a matter
of duty, because God has entrusted me with this task. What pay do I get, then? It is the privilege of preaching the Good News
without charging for it, without claiming my rights in my work for the gospel.
19) I am a free man, nobody's slave; but I make myself everybody's slave in order to win as many
people as possible. While working with the Jews, I live like a Jew in order to win them; and even though I myself am not subject
to the Law of Moses, I live as though I were when working with those who are, in order to win them. In the same way, when
working with Gentiles, I live like a Gentile, outside the Jewish Law, in order to win Gentiles. This does not mean that I
don't obey God's law; I am really under Christ's law. Among the weak in faith I become weak like one of them, in order to
win them. So I become all things to all people, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible.
23) All this I do for the gospel's sake, in order to share in its blessings. Surely you know that
many runners take part in a race, but only one of them wins the prize. Run, then, in such a way as to win the prize. Every
athlete in training submits to strict discipline, in order to be crowned with a wreath that will not last; but we do it for
one that will last forever. That is why I run straight for the finish line; that is why I am like a boxer who does not waste
his punches. I harden my body with blows and bring it under complete control, to keep myself from being disqualified after
having called others to the contest.
1st Corinthians chapters 6, 7 & 9 (TEV)
An ancient fable has it that Truth and Falsehood both went for a swim in the
Sea of Humanity, leaving their clothes ashore. Falsehood came out of the water first and put on Truth’s clothes. Truth,
refusing to don the clothes of Falsehood, went naked.
Stating the not so obvious within the obvious
The moral in the above fable is this: Whatever
it is, do not mess with what belongs to someone else without their consent. Marriage between a man and a woman is the structural
deciding factor in all societies. All situations, without exception, can be properly decided by honoring who is married to
who by upholding the integrity of created purposes of general and personal responsibility in their decisions. We are usually
blind to it by our diversions; what we steal mostly from each other is our attentions to attend to our intentions.
Adding a mission to living, or the admission
of faith-ful commitment to marry, is taking on for oneself a deliberate responsibility to another. The joy of freedom to decide
one’s way before God and man demands a natural respect in ways where neighbors and the wider community can be safely
assured of protective stability. Also, the ongoing proclamation of married liberty to keep privacy private in a household
provides admiration in commerce to stabilize financial hopes in building a strong economy. A man and a woman each need to
positively know what it is they are working for.
On the other hand, the married bond is not
a ‘ball and chain’ of submission, a giving of the will unto another for their use without recourse, that requires
a man or woman to hold to resentful bondage against personal priorities hidden from the other. When others or events tempt
people to go that direction realignment is necessary to bring them on track together. As the patterns of married unity are
designed to reflect the patterns of faith in Christ unto God, a woman is not in submission unto a man just as the collective
church of humanity is not in submission unto Christ.
“And the law is not of faith, but he
that hath done them shall live in them. Nevertheless, Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law. Having become, in
our behalf, a curse; because it is written, “Cursed, is every one that hangs upon a tree.” In order that, unto
the nations, the blessing of Abraham might come about in Jesus Christ; in order that the promise of the Spirit we might receive
through means of the faith. Brethren! in human fashion am I speaking, yet still, a man's confirmed covenant no one sets aside
or adds unto.” (Galatians 3:12-15)
The church, or marriage household, is an intentional
admission of delightful acceptance of God’s Truth of Being, in appreciation for His gift of living awareness through
shared personal appreciation. The admission of married intent is in honor to the strengths of purposeful viability through
faith. Because of that, whether others do our thinking for us, or we do the thinking for ourselves, is the deceiving internal
ever-present question. It ignores everyone’s personal responsibility to respect why we have the choices we have to decide
the pathway(s) we enter into and travel.
Any actions, or inactions, we may take are
affected by our attentions in trust combined with desire. Everyone is interconnected-ly involved in ways where what happens
is derived from who is sharing their beliefs, concepts, and risk of faith with whom. When we put mood ahead of loyalty there
is no structure for loyalty to adhere. Conversely, when we put loyalty ahead of mood, mood spontaneously has a foundation
of freedom in the course of stability loyalty provides. Role playing others ways in attempts to relieve insecurities increases
impulsive internal prompts to see what others possess; as reason to take for our own use what belongs properly to them.
We worry about what others may think of us
and therefore forget who we are unto God in the things we allow. Living a marriage is a much more fulfilling undertaking than
the give-and-take of simply being married by contract. In order to get a hold of why we choose to do what we do it is necessary
to see that our motives must be less scattered and more focused toward those to whom we are responsible. And, those to whom
we are responsible are also those who are responsible to us. In this, anyone who believes Jesus Christ is not interested in
working His salvation through marriage and subsequently the family, in that order of authority under His Authority, is fooling
themselves.
Freedom of self determined rights to experience
against free rights of determined personal responsibility is why many people are reluctant about marriage commitment. Any
person’s will of determination, his or her motivations of inspirational strength of character is at once separate and
independent from anyone and everyone else, and dependent in and upon anyone and everyone else. This is because anybody’s
gift of personal will is dependent upon respect for others’ gift to decide their own direction of faithing their expectations
unto God’s reality.
Marriage is the balance of maturity that brings
the senses of order to hapless alliances and is the unity which forms the necessary organizing disposition for any society
to establish sensible constraints against uncertainty. Without godly leading, of which marriage is created, there are hazy
allegiances to worldly wisdom founded in opinion and varying instinctual interests. What one or another holds as true for
their personal ways to interact with their surroundings, his or her personally convoluted positions of contradiction and defenses
of personal rights to choose, most often is based in general social rights without specific reasons that represent responsible
attention to the well being of self and others.
Because of self-centeredness, without attention
to who each of is in our naturally born duties of responsibility to created humankind, it is near impossible for any two intimately
concerned individuals to sort out each their own messes of misunderstanding to find what is termed “common ground”.
True togetherness of ‘us’ can only coexist in who a man and woman are in God’s attentions where faithful
trust is realizing that two agreed as one is a greater “entity” than each is alone. Holding onto what is ‘me’
by trying to mold another into compatibility denies that other their ‘me’ they are also trying to hold onto in
the same way.
Hiding
one’s most cared about motivations, to keep them from being manipulated, manipulates another to defend his or her own
motivations by hiding from alteration the desires others have to form attentions their way. In all intimate unions there is
always one of the two who is more focused in their ‘me’ concept of existence than the other. Trying to figure
out which it is, though, causes each to increase their attentions into realizing a more complete ‘me’ and there
is a battle to identify what a relationship means by who it is that holds control over which persona rules decisions.
“We just can’t seem to get along!”
is not about whether either, or both, involved gets their way concerning what is more right and beneficial than the other
- who is accused as selfish if he or she appears not to comply with the will of the accuser. Most often the one accused as
accusing is not the accuser. When one takes responsibility to openly be honest to uncover the bowels of misunderstanding to
find workable solutions, as each day brings situations that create circumstances that need tending to, he or she is necessarily
in the position of confrontation with regard to any issue.
This is why a man is responsible to God through
his promises to his wife in marriage and a woman is responsible for her husband in the same way – with respect to who
each is in the order of God’s will. When the wedding vows are kept forefront in a couple’s attentions, through
faith in Who Christ is unto them, the higher purposes of togetherness intervene to lift any conflict of interest into His
graces of covering. “What do you have against me that you don’t have against yourself?” properly becomes
an affectionate, “What you have against yourself I also am suffering, for Christ’s sake!”
Accepting one’s personal responsibilities,
(spiritually intercessory acknowledgement of who each is for the other in Christ) for their partner is the priority to each
their own personal expectations. Personalizing and internalizing another’s expressed desires to risk trust enough to
give up self-protective attitudes, backfires when fear of discovery threatens to expose a secret agenda. Secret agendas usually
are not about hoarding internal righteousness to protect one’s sensibilities from corruption.
The blindness the word procrastination represents
is not addressing duties put off till another time as much as it signifies applying attentions to activities, or inactivates,
aside from responding to the duties of will based in commitment. When honor is ignored in lieu of resentful determination
to force appreciation because of real or imaginarily perceived disregarded concerns for one’s place of prominence in
the heart of romantic acceptance from another, there arise negative motivations to retaliate.
Furthermore, secret agendas that feign a front
of ultra sensitivity (to convincingly mimic actual natural ultra sensitivity to things right and true) are methods to use
others to cause those to believe their decisions came from their own ideas and/or are spontaneous ‘just-happened-that-way’
occurrences. Many times a man or woman left holding the bag of derision as an unbending culprit against better living is the
one who is most concerned with unraveling standoffish spiteful belligerence.
So, there is thought to be a battle between
the sexes where men use women while they run them down for joining them in their carousing (wandering attentions) and women
do the same in retort. As one leans necessarily on the other to help establish what they are together they usually enter into
disputes about what works and does not work to attain or retain personal securities, well being, and the joys of accomplishment
that many times is very different from the joys of discovery.
This erroneously directly leads to “conflicts
of opinion” that deny the common ground already established between a man and woman who love each other to do as they
can to be who they are together. Marriage vows give to both the man and the woman the cohesive foundation of equal footing
to rely in God through their promises connected to His that opens avenues of solution for better living that not being married
cannot provide. Conceptual reasons (reasons that work to reinforce self-focused impressions) are based in emotionally protective
desires for personal gain.
The decisive use of purposeful manipulative
functions are imaginary, as opposed to the matter-of-fact reasons that are based in the created purposes a man or woman knows
any natural functions hold, for what is that has been and is that will be. Decisions from perception about what was are different
from matter-of-fact decisions about what was because of what should be or should have been. Leading to new decisions about
what to believe to think to do is not an extension of the decisions about what was, unless conceptual reasons lead or overshadow
one’s created matter-of-fact reasons.
Matter-of-fact reasons (faith is based in Christ’s
finished past while hope is based in His finished future) for making decisions about conceptual reasons to decide a course
of action, help guide the purpose(s) a course of action takes. The other way round loses the stable foundation that supports
the strengths of validation a course of action requires to thrive and continue. It causes striving against negative nuances
present in the separating distance from the inherent purposes of the matter-of-fact reasons conceptual considerations have
to give appreciation for why an action may be viable.
As purposes lose their proper purpose to other
purposes the false guide negative nuances take through concept over reality causes considerations for matter-of-fact purposes
to become overblown and override right reasons by conceptualizing the matter-of-fact reasons into abstract perception. This
overload of natural sensibilities naturally causes pushing aside reality in matter-of-fact reasoning. Then, an attempt is
made to make the new ‘me’ of abstract manipulation a ‘me’ of factual persuasion over matter-of-fact
realities where fantasy reasoning distorts proper reasoning.
As applied to marriage, if one is not married and
actively with one who he or she is intimately familiar, the choices are to either get married, or disband and ‘start
over with someone else’ through repentance unto God in Christ for mishandling His most important of unions; or if one
is married and astray from their spouse, God’s expectation is for both to repent together unto Him in Christ to reunite
in spirit and in truth through the faith promise exercised during the wedding vows. A man’s position of accountability
in intercession is in fact what makes men, and not women, the party who is most often the 'problem' in relationship.
The ‘blame game’ finds no positive
chain of healthy sequence when the Created order of respect is forgotten (or unknown). No matter how beguiling and insistent
a woman may be, if a man is weak enough to fall for a woman’s charms to dishonor, disrespect, and causes a woman to
betray her God designed values to honor marriage in her heart by holding his own decency in check, a woman cannot be blamed
for responding to a man’s naturally God given authority to exercise his will to take as he wishes what he wishes to
take. When a man is confused about what being a man is, and a woman is confused about what being a woman is, it still is the
responsibility of a man to avoid the pitfalls pre or un married sexual union causes.
The ‘surf to find a suitable partner’
manner people use to experience self invigorating pleasures, without commitment, in order to hopefully work into having a
lasting commitment (or not) play into fault finding by rating whether someone one is giving themselves to is worthy of the
gift. This causes a wandering eye of comparison where no one can ever measure up to the standards of perfection necessary
to have the best of the best a man or woman may feel is their right. This feeling of the right to have the best is both due
to knowing that God wants the best for us and our very existence says to us that we deserve to live as best we can.
But, we are not living as best we can when
we are using others to uphold our own personally derived standards of behavior we are reluctant to uncover for fear our cared
for partner will realize the scam we are perpetrating against their own desires “to have and to hold till death us do
part”. When positive situations and pleasant circumstances become the measured hurdle to jump in order to be accepted
as one who is marriageable, or one who is acceptable to remain married, there exists an onerous judging of the one one most
loves in ways where he or she cannot be accepted unless they perform to certain criteria.
While divorce is not the unforgivable sin,
and remarriage to another is blessed by God as representation of His grace and mercy to defend His own Word, the new marriage
is, through His forgiveness, mercy, and grace in Christ considered His witness of His way of righteousness through faith unto
salvation. There are most always loving committed reasons a man and woman originally get married and tolerance to respect
the open honesty needed to reunify a faltering marriage is found in faithfully appreciating, for God’s sake, all a husband
or wife was, is, and is to be.
But, after one is married to a second person
it is most against God’s desire for him or her to reunite with the first. Reunification with an original partner after
one has vowed the vows of matrimony with a second – considering that proper repentance finds its strength in the ceremony,
places a man or woman in the responsible position with God to faithfully honor the new marriage. Any past patterns of manipulation
by deception that bring the betrayals of trust a woman is apt to indulge when teasing men into having a good time become part
of the new husband’s responsibility to take before the throne of God for both their reconciliation and his own consolation.
To think to imagine that the past makes the
present not the past, so any engrained unsolved sinful matters are forgotten simply because there is a new person instead
of the past person, is a false faith in situational ethics where an ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind’ philosophy steeps
hatred for the “way things were that need not be mentioned” into avoidance to discuss and be open with all a man or woman is with each other in their marriage where no hidden regrets and emotional
piles of frustrations and hardship seethe below the surface.
The “just forget about it” attitude
that undermines naturally created responsible growth is why many people hope to hide their self defeating ways by transferring
their attentions to someone who does not know their patterns of using a loved one to please themselves. If for some reason
there arises a third marriage; God is still God and Christ His Word is still His Word, and repentance is still repentance…
But, there comes a time where working of repentance to get one’s freedom of self-willed expression is understood as
“playing the system” and God is Himself bound to His own Word to not bless such activities when hurting distressed
and committed spouses (and others) are most likely left in the wake of this false using of His grace.
The reason a situation like this might occur
is a person is so disgusted with themselves for being so disgusted with others who led them to be disgusted with themselves
that they search the horizons to find “that one” who will relieve their disgust. Problem is, they usually load
their new prospect with the disgust they wish to rid themselves of; and then, they usually leave in a disgusted huff over
having found another who became their disgust for them to relieve their miseries. And most men are glad to do it by blaming
the woman they used as another “one of them”. Then, what choices does a man or woman assume they have afterward
but to repeat the same?
This vicious loop continues to continue because
the process makes the process when things are not properly cleared, and kept cleared, with God’s wisdom of endurance
for one’s loved ones instead of division against the wrongs they may or may not be responsible for doing. Either way,
the wrongs one does that a person is intimately involved with are the same as the wrongs of the one who believes they have
been wronged – because they, by God’s decree, are involved as one. It is a reversing into the negative of the
natural intercessory responsibility a man has for his wife.
Aside from social stability found in honoring
a family name, a woman’s maternal yearnings is why, throughout the centuries and in many cultures still today, only
a man was or is allowed to acquire a divorce. Desires to be loved and fulfilled are not a wrong or bad thing and the desperation
(desperation can manifest itself in many calloused forms where adversarial forces take advantage of one’s good intentions)
that leads one or another to go against their position of trust with their mate carries an empathy with a married partner
because each is of the other as the other is of the each. Shame and guilt increase the ‘strength of the barrier’
of separation dark pressures use to solidify presumptions about delayed reconciliation.
Most people get too angry enough about personal
troubles, and transfer the loads of inconsistency onto their spouse in opposition, rather than realizing their thankfulness
that their spouse is glad to be the one to be responsible as one with them. Lovingly shared explanations about indiscretions
with one’s spouse, because a man’s body belongs to his wife as a woman’s body belongs to her husband, can
never be perverted into disgust with voyeuristic vicarious fantasy (as the secrecy of infidelity with an intruding personality
causes a false release of those very spiritual traumas through mockery of one’s spouse) when healing through faith in
Christ’s active guidance is kept forefront.
Because nobody is perfect except in Christ,
the knowledge of the good that offsets the knowledge of the evil of situations looks to find a physical focus to dump the
overwhelming disgust one has for things not right onto the man or woman one is married to - to attempt to overcome the evil.
The very things people often fight over are what, through faith active witness, they enjoy about each other in the purposes
they originally were married, again unto God Who still stands in His purposes they are married. And, most people are not unfamiliar
with the fact that the devil does what he can to get people to dishonor their promises to move onto another, who they can
dishonor their promises with… and so on.
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