Daily Articles

When Only One Spouse is Willing to Work on the Marriage – Part 2

See Part 1

What do you do when only one spouse wants to work on saving the marriage; or what can you do when your spouse wants a divorce and you don’t? Or how can you save a marriage when a spouse says they are not in love with you anymore?

Don’t give up on the marriage!

Don’t give up just because someone tells you to find someone new or thinks you should leave your marriage. They don’t know what you need—only God can fill your needs. No matter what, you’ll still be married to your first husband or wife, so don’t get any funny ideas in your head such as remarriage because that is not going to solve the real problem. Divorce does not solve hardened hearts or a faithless walk.

Sometimes the spouse that thinks they want out of the marriage is going through troubling times at the moment and regrets ever saying that or doing things that are damaging to the marriage. Don’t give up! Pray about it and ask Jesus Christ to bring you contentment and peace.

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Impenetrable to Temptation

God is our Refuge and Strength [mighty and impenetrable to temptation], a very present and well-proved help in trouble. Psalm 46:1, Amplified Bible

What trouble am I having in my life right now? Lately, I have been struggling with a great deal of anxiety. One of the reasons for this is my lack of intimacy with God and His Word, just being still with Him. I desperately need to take time with Jesus each and every day — at least once a day — to just sit with Him and really talk to Him, and then spend time listening. Daily, I read His Word. But it is vital to me that I Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that [He is] God. Psalm 46:10, Amplified Bible. Psalm 46:1 shows me clearly just how beautiful and profound the results of doing so can be! Will you walk with me through what I discovered when I spent some time with Jesus and this verse?

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Are You Being Forced to Wait?

“I’m sorry, but you’re fired,” Pete’s boss told him. “You’ve missed too many days, and you’ve come in drunk or high just as many.”

Pete cringed, gathered his tools, and left. The bills continued to come. He heard plenty from his wife about the lack of money and the other jobs he lost.

He had to stop drinking and drugging. He couldn’t go through this agony again. He couldn’t go to the same places or hang around the same people. He’d give in to the pressure and drink or use again.

Pete told almost everyone he knew he needed a job. Hopefully one of them could help him obtain one. He and his wife prayed and waited.

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God’s Will for Us

God’s Will is for us to:

    1) read His Word,
    2) Consume His Word,
    3) Participate In Communion,
    4) Worship Him,
    5) Pray Daily,
    6) Share the Gospel With Those Who Have Not Yet Heard,
    7) Care for the sick and elderly,
    8) Exemplify Jesus in our life,
    9) Do everything we do as if we were doing for God alone,
    10) Obey the laws of our land,
    11) Meet with other believers on a regular basis,
    12) Prepare for the return of the Lord Jesus,
    13) Love our friends AND
    14) our enemies,
    15) Love God with your heart, soul, mind and spirit,
    16) Follow the golden rule and likely many more things I cannot alone think of.

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Do You Know the Meaning of “God’s Steadfast Love?”

Psalm 89:1-2 (NRSV)
I will sing of Your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all generations. I declare that Your steadfast love is established forever; Your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

There is a great deal wrong with our society and within each person (since social ills begin within the individual heart). As a believer who lives in an extremely secular (and sinful) society (California), I could spend my days focused upon how much is wrong with all around me, bemoaning my fate and wondering what shoe will fall next. Or, I can choose with the psalmist to focus instead upon the Creator and Master of all, trusting that God is going to work out and win out in the long haul.

Father God’s love is steadfast. The Hebrew word checed translated thus is interesting. Vine’s expounded on its meaning:

    “In general, one may identify three basic meanings of the word, which always interact: ‘strength,’ ‘steadfastness,’ and ‘love.’ Any understanding of the word that fails to suggest all three inevitably loses some of its richness. ‘Love’ by itself easily becomes sentimentalized or universalized apart from the covenant. Yet ‘strength’ or ‘steadfastness’ suggests only the fulfillment of a legal or other obligation.

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Remnants

I’ve destroyed everything that was good in my life.
I’ve broken each vow that I made.
I’ve disgraced my two children, my friends, and my wife
For this mindless, relentless charade.

Think of the worst person you’ve ever known,
And I’ll wager he’s better than me.
Hell is a place I would hate to call home,
And yet it’s where I ought to be.

As a youth, I was favored, a virgin to sin,
A light to the wavering soul.
My thoughts were perverted and wrong now and then,
But I kept them in constant control.

In bad times, they’d soothe me and take me away
Like a Heroin dose to my brain.
I’d yield to their lure more and more everyday,
And my heart grew more selfish and vain.

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Why is Faith Important?

Faith

    1. DEFINITION: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
    2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
    3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one’s supporters.
    4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.
    5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
    6. A set of principles or beliefs.

Why is faith so important? Some leaders of the Christian life say that faith is the foundation of our beliefs and life.

Faith has the power to heal us when we ask Jesus and trust Him.

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When You Have Nothing Left

“We have nothing left,” the woman told me. “Absolutely nothing.” She looked at the floor and shook her head.

Her husband, Chip gambled at the horse races and bought countless lottery tickets. He blew his paycheck, their money in the checkbook, and their retirement fund.

“My parents lent us money, but he gambled that away too.”

She dabbed her eyes and continued, “Chip returned to the horse races to win back his losses, but of course, he didn’t.” She held her hand to her forehead and sobbed.

“We’re going to lose the house.”

When I asked if her husband would see me, she said she would ask him. “He probably won’t come.”

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Are You Willing to do What is Right?

Isaiah 5:20 (NRSV).
Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Over the years, I have learned to try to analyze my thoughts and actions, to discover why I think the way I do or act the way I choose. I say “try” because I’m not always successful at doing it. I am greatly influenced by the society around me, a society which isn’t trustworthy and which, if I were wise, I would ignore when it comes to making choices.

I look back over my life and see many places where I should have made different decisions, where I could have made better choices. I see so many times when I have been (and still am) self-indulgent rather than obedient to God’s will. Just this morning, I read a snippet written by a dear Christian sister. It said, “Will I cooperate [with God’s plan] despite emotional pain?” Will I take the hard road?

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