2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
God is saying to me: I purposefully spoke existence into being. I lovingly crafted you in My image: you were created by Community, in Community, for community with Me and with one another. I intentionally initiated a way for you of walking in love with Me and one another…it is a way that is symbolic of the way I am committed to you. You are masterful at fabricating a way of life…a way of “love”…that is other than My way. Even so, I will not divorce you.
Here’s what I’m going to do. Today I am going to acknowledge and confess my infidelity to one other. I am going invite a friend to help me identify the fantasy that I have fabricated and am fabricating and chased that are other than the Way of God. Finally, I am going to invite a friend to remind me of God’s costly grace; grace that looks like the Father running to manure-stained me. Grace that proclaims with an embrace: “You, Jer, are worth My Son!”
Jer Swigart, Pastor
Open Door Community – Walnut Creek
9 “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
What are some situations and relationships that God has put me in, joined me with, that I have not been making the most of, or that I have kept myself separate from…distanced myself?
I hear God saying “steward well the things and the relationships with people with whom I have joined you.”
Today I will be ‘fully present’ with those I am in community with and see each situation as something God has appointed for me to take part in (in whatever way He sees fit), and not try to divorce myself from either.
Loving God well means Loving others well. Clearly my fidelity in relationship to others is both symbol and reflection of my faithfulness to God. The reverse is true as well. Maturity in relationship to God is not divorcable from my relationships with others.
My do today is to be a bit more faithful than yesterday.
I am so grateful divorce is not a word in our relationship with God! Today I will call a brother and tell him “you are wonderfully made and loved”!
I think this is a good reminder to pray for marriages. I will pray for at least 10 marriages today.