Written by: Bob Flynn
5/22/2009 3:16 PM 

Bob Flynn, President/CEO

We frequently awake from the bed of our own choosing into the often grim reality of a life full of pain and regret. We think there is no way out from under the weight that holds us there.  We seem destined to be the last one to see that eagles wings await all who would wish to soar!  Were it not for this negative propensity, there would be no need for encouragers.

There continues to be an innate force, perhaps written upon our DNA, that leads us as though we are predestined to look for the fulfillment of life in all the wrong places.  Our culture inculcates in us expectations that climb to unachievable heights!  One glance in any direction within our world and it is plain to see that is exactly who we are ─ self-centered, selfish, and fallen, the proud possessor of a mind deemed reprobate!  A decayed papyrus upon which we wish to write the wonderful stories of life as if we were the masters of our own fate!  The liberal tries to write a decayed story on the decayed paper and succeeds.  The conservative tries to write a righteous story on decayed paper and always fails.  After all we have successfully armed ourselves with all the wisdom of the ages that we have gleaned from the “Christian How-to books” we have read in endless streams.  We suppose that we will change our plight by the numerous cause and effect actions applied in our midst.  However, manipulation is not a fruit of the Spirit but rather a sin of the flesh.  Instead of removing the lumber yard from our own eye, we intend to mold our mate into our own image and of course as a result, the marriage lies in piteous ruin while drowning in the pool of blood coursing from self-inflicted wounds.

We would argue on our behalf whether marriage is a covenant, sacrament, ordinance, or contract, that we might escape its stifling hold upon our dreams of a better life with another not our spouse.  But here is the unvarnished truth announced:  If your marriage SUX so does your faith! “Do not be deceived, you reap what you sow” (Galatians 6:7 paraphrase mine).

My oldest and dearest friend, CDR Jerry Bruce, CHC, USN (Ret), oftentimes told me that apart from Christ, people will make the same mistakes over and over ad nauseam.  We will flutter between relationships as a bee between flowers intoxicated by the nectar while dragging along the disease from our past failures and thus dooming our present.  I speak of my friend Jerry, because he has the gift of mercy.  I have been blessed to see firsthand the mercies of Christ flow through him to save more lives than the emergency room at the local hospital.  I have seen a risen Savior and Lord turn the impossible into the possible with such regularity that a reasonable person would conclude that this is the “Normal Christian Life.”  How can this be? Because Christ's Mercy is the perfect blend of His Grace and His Truth!  Were all the other spiritual gifts absent, the body would flourish still because Grace and Truth needs nothing else.

We probably have all heard the exhortation from Ephesians 5:25 that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church.  However, we fail to consider that it is an extension of verse 21, “out of reverence for Christ”!  If you have no genuine reverence for Christ, then the rest becomes the wood, hay, and stubble of life lived in the power of the flesh no matter how sacrificial the actions may look!

Noah Webster gives us cause to ponder this word in our hearts:

Reverence — Fear mingled with respect and esteem; veneration.  The fear acceptable to God, is a filial fear, an awful reverence of the divine nature, proceeding from a just esteem of his perfections, which produces in us an inclination to his service and an unwillingness to offend him.

Respect — That estimation or honor in which men hold the distinguished worth or substantial good qualities of others. It expresses less than reverence and veneration, which regard elders and superiors; whereas respect may regard juniors and inferiors.  Respect regards the qualities of the mind, or the actions which characterize those qualities.

Veneration — The highest degree of respect and reverence; respect mingled with some degree of awe; a feeling or sentiment excited by the dignity and superiority of a person, or by the sacredness of his character, and with regard to place, by its consecration to sacred services.

Esteem — To prize; to set a high value on; to regard with reverence, respect, or friendship.  To hold in opinion; to repute; to think. To compare in value; to estimate by proportion.  High value or estimation; great regard; favorable opinion, founded on supposed worth.

Does this really describe the soil in which today’s believer sows in holy matrimony?  You decide! You reap what you sow! Remember, though, that throughout the passing of each moment of your pain, you are one cubit from victory (the distance from standing in sin to that of kneeling in penitent prayer) and one second from Christ’s amazing and wonderful Sabbath Rest!  That prayer might go something like this: I confess today, dear Jesus Christ, that my heart knows not what it is to truly revere you in the way Paul describes.  My heart is full of me and I do not know what it is to grieve over my sin, let alone repent of it.  Yet I continue on day after day in my own might and see failure in my marriage, the most cherished estate that you created from the beginning for me to live within.  Forgive me because of your great mercy and lead me today into your Sabbath Rest.

If you desire help in finding the blessings that are yours in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, give us a call! (800) 798-7875

Copyright ©2009 Robert Flynn

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