Ridgell's Originals

It is heartbreaking when Christians divorce.  God hates it.  And I have never known two faithful Christians that decide to break up their marriage.  They both may have once been faithful.  Maybe there will be repentance and they will be faithful again.  But someone -- or someones -- are not being faithful to Jesus for a marriage to end in divorce.

And I am not talking about two faithful Christians in a mess but trying to make it.  That's life in a fallen world.  Nor am I talking to the one doing all they can to save a marriage.  It takes two wanting to save it.  And you cannot control anyone else.  

So here are three things I tell Christians who want a divorce.

Your marriage is not about you.  When you were crucified with Christ in baptism you died and committed to let Christ live in you.  You became a voluntary slave to Jesus and committed to follow God.  So when you find the reasons you want to divorce start with the word "I"... you are missing the point of being a Jesus follower.

I need to be happy, I need to find myself, I, I, I, I,

My wife helped me figure this out in our marriage counseling as an elder and wife.  I used to start conversations with Do you love him/her?  But she figured out there was a more fundamental question.  We now start every discussion with one question.  Do you love God?

So understand your divorce is not just a rejection of your mate, it is a rejection of God.


If you will not forgive your mate, God will not forgive you.  I know the pain caused by sin in a marriage.  And I know the blessing of repentance and forgiveness.  We used to spend a lot of time trying to get people to repent (from adultery or addictions, or temper, or whatever), and work to save their marriage.  These days it seems we spend a lot of time trying to get people to forgive to save their marriage.  And we do call for repentance when they do not forgive.  I know how difficult forgiveness is.  It takes time and effort.  But if we refuse to forgive others, God will not forgive us.

That is serious business.


Divorce teaches your kids to quit on God.  When you walk away from your marriage,  you are teaching your children to quit.  You claim to want them to be Christians but your life message is now  to only be a faithful Christian until you are not happy with something.  Or until you love someone else more than your mate (and more than Jesus).  You are teaching that things have to be like you want them to be in this world to be faithful or content.  Not gonna happen in this world.  But that is the message of your life.  So you best hope that your abandoned mate, or someone in their church family, are giving your kids a clearer message about Jesus.  Or they will end doing exactly what you taught them to do.



Most people who have decided to divorce do not want to hear these.  But Christians walking away from the light often do not want to hear truth spoken into their lives.  But some do.  And they listen.  And they ask God's help.  And they make it.  Even if they don't, we must speak truth.

And by the way, as one of my readers reminded me... if you are going to expose the lies of Satan or tell the truth of God, be prepared to roll up your sleeves and go to work.  Healing marriages -- or lives for that matter -- is hard, messy, and dirty.  And exactly what family does.

Speak truth.   

Maybe it is just among people I know and not some kind of church-wide trend.  I pray that it all it is.  But I have been saddened by the number of divorces I am seeing among Christians in their 50's and 60's.  And when asking why, I continue to hear them repeat what I believe to be lies from Satan.

And let me point out that I am talking about marriages where both mates profess to be Christians and claim to be living under the Lordship of Jesus.  And of course I do not believe every marriage dissolves because the following reasons.  And yes there are reasons for divorce.  Jesus acknowledged that.  I am talking about something different.

Excuses used by Christians in an attempt to justify abandoning their mate.

And I believe them to be lies and contrary to God's call for faithfulness.

Here are three of them.

"God wants me to be happy in my remaining years."

Of course God wants you to be happy but I think as Christians we should recognize that he knows best what makes us happy, not us.  Maybe the thing to do is work on your marriage.  Or seek contentment in Christ.  Or quit listening to the world's definition of happiness.  And if you really are not happy in your marriage, maybe the call of God in your life is to be faithful in a hard circumstance.

It just seems this idea centers around what you want more than what God wants.  Christianity is not about us... but God.

"My mate is keeping me from doing the real ministry God has called me to."

When you married the two of you became one.  So when God calls you (as a family) to ministry, it should be a call you both hear and feel, not just one of you.  And faithfulness to your marriage is a higher calling than faithfulness to a particular ministry.

To dissolve your marriage to do better ministry seems contradictory at best and hypocritical at worst.  I cannot fathom a ministry that does not make following Jesus the core message.    

"I have lost my identity and need to find me again."

Seriously.  At 50 or 60 years old.  And married for 30 or 40 years.  It seems more like you want to find a new identity that will be "better" than the one you have now.

And as a Christian, you have your identity.  It is in Jesus.  And doing something God hates (divorce) is not compatible with who you claim to be.


I know marriage can be tough.  At 20 or at 60.  So is life.  We live in a fallen world.  Every marriage has pressure and battles.  You did not marry a perfect mate.  Neither did they.  The answer is not to quit.  It is to be faithful.

So when your Christian friends listen to the lies of Satan, speak God words into their life.  Call for repentance.

When our young families repeat these, speak truth into their marriages.

Hard times come, Jesus overcomes.  Be faithful.  To him and to your marriage.

That is what God calls you to in this life.

 

No I am not going to talk about why I love me am proud of me.  But I thought I would share a few reflections.

I am 63.  It sounds old when I see it or when I hear it spoken.  But I don't feel any different.  I just don't think much about growing old.  I just figure God is in charge and till he takes me home he has a job for me to do here.

I thought about what I did this last week when I was 62 and what my first week of 63 looks like.

A couple of sessions with people wanting to know about Jesus:  one teenager, one grandmother.  Spent time talking to a couple of brothers in my flock who are battling their demons.  Fighting the fight.  Looking for help and strength.  Seeing someone who made it.  Did the same thing with another brother from a different city.  Preached last night at my home church.  Spent last weekend in New York equipping and motivating people to talk about Jesus.  Will do the same this weekend in Tennessee.

Took Marsha's Dad to the Dr.  Visited with her Mom.  Talked to my Mom.  Heard from all the kids and grands wishing me happy birthday.  Jogged this morning at 5:30.  Marsha and I will get to hang out together this weekend and for a couple of days after.

Wrote.  Did lesson and sermon prep.  Worked on material for Summit at ACU.

Played with the dogs.  Think I'll get to squeeze in a dove hunt next week.  Gonna work at the farm.

And you know what?  I am a blessed man.  Doing what I love with people I love.

Been a hard road sometimes.  But the end destination is wonderful.

Not sure I'd change much about my life.  God can if he wants.  But for today, I am happy and blessed.

Happy birthday to me.

Thanks God.  

It is always going to be hard to have unity among God's people when we cannot tell the difference between:  I have to do something, I should do something, or I can do something.

I absolutely believe there are things that Christians have to do.  And I absolutely believe there are things that Christians can not do.  Ever.  But I have to tell you that my list is fairly short on those things.  The only things that make the list are those things that I have no trouble pointing out in Scripture and that God is crystal clear about.

I will not compromise on them.  When you ask how I can believe such a thing, I do not even have to explain it.  I just open the Bible and point. Several times in most cases.

I do realize that there are things in Scripture that are clear and definite to me but others hold a different view.  That is between them and God.  As are my convictions. These are things so clear to me that I will not compromise.  Things that I have no problem saying, "Don't argue with me.  Argue with the text."

These are the GOD SAID passages.  When someone begins to tell me that what God said is not what God means then we are not going to come to agreement.

Just as when someone begins to tell me they are sure what God means even though he did not say it.

Then there are lots of things that I think Scripture indicates we should do.  I can show principles, examples, and concepts that would lead to my belief.  But these are not "God said" issues.  I want to leave room for discussion and study,  We may not agree on all of these points.  These are things that may be important and even clear to me.  But others may take the same principles and examples and come to a different conclusion.  

We must allow room for disagreement.  We can agree to disagree on some things and still support, encourage, fellowship, and pray for each other.

Then there are those things that just are not that clear.  Things that different congregations choose to do differently.  Things that are matters of opinion -- maybe strong opinion, but still opinion.  We must never divide the family of God over these.  And we will divide if we confuse our opinions with things we should do.  And opinions must never be in the must do category.

Of course, the problem comes when someone thinks my essentials belong in the maybe category.  Or when they try to put their "should do" onto my "must do" list.

So how do we decide?  Obviously I am not smart enough to solve something that has divided the church for centuries.  But I think a couple of things might help.  And I believe we have to keep trying.

When we say "God says," we better be able to quote God.

Understand the difference between commands, examples, and principles.

Prioritize.  Not everything is of equal value.  What to do about salvation is different from what to do about worship.

But... don't compromise.  I am willing to sever fellowship over the things I am convinced God said.  But that is a frightening thing.  So I better be sure.  I do believe I answer to God above all.  But I also have an obligation to my brothers and sisters to live in unity.

We will have to answer to God someday.

God.  He is the one in charge.  And none of us are him.

Blessings.
 

It is one of those things you hear when someone is complaining about something at church.  Something is being started, or stopped, that they do not like.  Or something is not being started, or stopped, that they do like.  Most of the time these people are not even present.  But someone brings up their name and their concern.  And in the middle of the discussion, someone will say, "... but don't forget that they are really good people."  I have never understood why that is relevant to the discussion.

Here is the only reason I think that the "good people" statement should ever be used:  to remind all of us that faithful, active people can have different -- and very strong -- opinions about issues.  

And here are the reasons I cringe when this statement is made in the midst of making decisions...

How good (or active, or "faithful") someone is should not have any bearing on our church decisions.  I know lots of good people with horrible theology.  And I know lots of bad people with sound theology.  They just don't practice it.

As soon as someone says "but don't forget that these are good people," it is hard not to assume that anyone holding a different view may not be a good person.  After all, who opposes a good person?

Which of course leads to an assertion that there are good people on the other side of the discussion.  So what now?  Are we supposed to use some cosmic scale of goodness to determine what decision to make?  Do we go by the number of "good" people on each side?  Or do we give extra value to the really good?

Asserting that someone is a good person can quickly lead to a "that's not really true" moment if not careful.  Then the whole discussion is in danger of doing way more harm to the church than any perceived benefit.

And finally, if you really want to talk about good people, start by talking about the good God.  That will end the discussion pretty quickly.  Just ask the rich young ruler.

So maybe decisions on difficult matters should be handled without discussions of individual supporters or opponents of the question under consideration.

Easier said than done, I know.  But let's refrain from trying to sway the discussion by advocating the goodness of people on one side or the other.

After all, God is the only good one in the room.