Lessons from Matthew 19: Relationships

A Relationships Illustration

Humor me if you will for a moment and place both hands out in front of you. Think of your thumbs as if they were your parents and put them together. Your index fingers represent any siblings; put those together as well. Next, your middle finger represents yourself; put both middle fingers down, Place your ring fingers together, representing a spouse if you have one. Or if not, let this be God, Christ in you. And think of your pinkies as your children.

Now take your thumbs apart as a sign of leaving and separating from your parents, something meant to happen. Do the same for your index fingers representing your siblings, again meant to be. Separate your pinkies as a sign of your children who will or maybe have already separated from you.

Now try to separate your ring fingers. You can’t! They weren’t meant to separate! And if you look at your hands, you will see that there is a shape of a heart in the center of this illustration.

The heart of God for a man and a woman and their relationships and the heart of a man or a woman for God!

The problem is that as men and women take God out of the equation, we fail to hold these people and these relationships up as God has called us to do.

And so the second question was raised by the religious leaders in Matthew 19:7: Why, if God designed a man and woman to remain faithful to one another, did Moses (who they thought was superior to Jesus) command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?

And Jesus replied that it was not this way from the beginning. It was because these men had hardened their hearts. The real issue was the heart.

Because a man or women refused to forgive and be restored, because they refused to walk in humility of heart and mind, God offered a way out for the protection of the wife and the children.

Divorce grieved God and it still grieves His heart today. In fact, Malachi 2:16 tells us that God hates divorce. He hates what it does to those who are touched by it. But, the scriptures do not tell us that God hates the divorced person. No, what God hates about divorce is the unforgiveness, the selfishness that comes with it.

A Tearing Away

He hates the severing of what God has brought together. Divorce is described as a tearing of the flesh, a heart-wrenching event, and every attempt should be made to avoid such drastic measures.

Now you might say, “I wasn’t a believer when I got married and neither was he, so our marriage doesn’t count. Of course it counts! Whether you understood it or not, it was a covenant between you and your spouse with God as your witness.

And God is able to make the wrong one the right one. I mean, He changed us didn’t He? He can transform them too!

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 7:10, He says a wife is to remain in her marriage and not separate from her husband who is not a believer (as if that were reason enough) if her husband is willing to live with her. She must not divorce him and visa versa.

Why? The unbelieving husband or wife has been sanctified through the other. Now this does not mean that they will be saved. Salvation comes through faith alone in Jesus Christ. It’s a personal decision which cannot be forced or imputed on another.

But it opens up opportunities for the unbeliever to see God at work in the believer and through their lives together.

And this may be the very means of salvation that God uses.

Now we don’t go and deliberately marry out of faith and test or presume upon God’s goodness. This type of thinking will only bring on challenges and consequences of its own!

On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse determines to leave, God says to let them go. This is on them and not you! But you are to remain single, unless the spouse dies or remarries, closing the doors upon the possibility of reconciliation.

Yet there is one concession Jesus gives for divorce, and that is marital unfaithfulness. Though this is a provision, it is not a command!

In fact, God has worked many miracles in the lives of Christians who have sought His help in this very area. My marriage is one of those that God restored after I, not my husband, failed to keep our marriage covenant holy and pure! Yet it was this very sin that God used to bring me back to the Lord.

Ladies, I am living proof that if we will declare in our hearts and confess with our mouths that we have sinned, that we have fallen short of the glory of God, He is faithful and just and WILL forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Only God can turn our sins into His glory and honor and praise!

Terri Hamman

Faith & Fitness Coach