“Successful marriage is always a triangle: a man, a woman, and God” (Cecil Myers).

Think about it — is your marriage “successful”? Is God the important leader in your marital relationship? Even if your spouse isn’t walking in spiritual obedience, have you invited God to be a leader in your relationship, even if He is the silent partner until your spouse spiritually wakes up? Think about it.

This week we’re focusing on the subject of spiritual responsibility in marriage. I (Steve) will address the husbands and Cindy will address the wives. So first off:

HUSBANDS: Spiritually bathe your wives. I’ve been told many times that a HUGE concern expressed by women is that their husbands are contributing little, if anything, to the spiritual health of their marriage. They say things like, “He’s a great husband but he doesn’t give me what I need spiritually.”

There are two things I’ve come to understand about this subject (through my own struggles in this area):

(1) One of the hardest things for husbands to remember when it comes to our bride is to do what Christ showed us by His example: “to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of the water from the word” (Ephesians 5:26).

For some reason many of us husbands neglect doing this. But each day is a new beginning so today could be good day to start. It’s better late than never! [Read more →]

“Do you dare release the person you are today from the shadow of the wrong you did yesterday? Do you dare forgive yourself? 

“To forgive yourself takes high courage. Who are you, after all, to shake yourself free from the undeniable sins of your private history —as if what you once did has no bearing on who you are now?

“Where do you get the right —let alone the cheek —to forgive yourself when other people would want you to crawl in shame if they really knew? How dare you?” (Lewis B Smedes, from the book “Forgive and Forget”)

Have you felt this way? Sometimes we can accept God’s forgiveness (and even that is hard to understand), but we have a difficult time forgiving ourselves! We play different scenes from our past over and over again in our minds that we wish we were never involved in, and could erase forever from our memories.

If only life were constructed so that we could hit a “delete” button and make certain events go away! But unfortunately, that’s not the real world in which we live.

Just like any act of giving or accepting forgiveness —even forgiving ourselves, it seems that it involves a journey to get to the place where you are free from its imprisonment. Some journey’s are shorter than others and some take a lot of years, and tears, and involve a lot of work, soul-searching, reading, praying, and intentionality to get through and beyond the search.

But for any one of us who has reached that place of peace, we can tell you that it is worth the journey to get to the other side of the restlessness that unforgiveness can dump upon your very being. It can poison your soul and who you become in the future. That may be one of the reasons why God tells us throughout the Bible to forgive.

A few examples from God’s Word are:

• “If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).

• “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).

• “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).

God also tells us throughout the Bible to admit and confess our sins —the wrongs and iniquities that we have done, and God will forgive us. A few examples are:

• “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)

• “I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I confess my transgressions to the LORD’ —and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

• “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

So the question comes to mind that if God has forgiven you, what could be holding you back from extending yourself the gift God has willingly handed to you? A man named Bruce wrote the following concerning that question: [Read more →]