Posted on 09/27/2009 5:20:51 AM PDT by GonzoII
CBN.com – In my book Divorce Proofing Your Marriage, I expose ten common lies people embrace that eventually leads to divorce. This book confronts our thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that influence how we behave and the choices we make. So if you want to strengthen your marriage or stop the slippery slide to divorce, first check your thoughts and ask, “Are my thoughts reflective of the secular culture or the Bible?” You may be surprised how far your thinking has strayed from the Bible's restorative theme.
Here's a brief overview of the ten lies that can lead to divorce. Do your own self-check.
Lie #1: Marriage is a contract. Yes, marriage is a legal contract, but in God’s eyes it is much more. The truth is marriage is a covenant, an unbreakable promise. It is life commitment. It means “for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” It means loving someone when you don’t feel like it, staying faithful, and working through difficulty and bad times.
Lie #2: I married you, not your family. The truth is you don’t marry just your spouse; you get her family as a package deal! Don’t kid yourself and think the outlawed in-laws don’t matter. Your spouse grew up in a family that taught her how to be who she is today. Yes, there are other influences and people can change, but family is a primary force in the development of any individual.
Lie #3: I can change my spouse. Wrong! The fact that she's continually late or her apartment is a mess is not likely to change because of your undying love. Pay attention to the red flags you see during the dating relationship...
(Excerpt) Read more at cbn.com ...
Lie #11: I didn’t leave the seat up.
This is true love.
Lie #12: Lawyers.
Until death!!
I’ve practiced law for 33 years. My firm, though not I, handles a large number of divorces. Every single one of these ten lies do indeed lead to divorce. This is a valuable list.
Here’s a valuable sermon I was given before my marriage and which I have recommended to engaged and married couples:
http://www.fisheaters.com/homilyxx.html
Guys, don’t hijack the thread.
Sorry.
When I first read this I thought it was from CNN.com. Talk about a double-take!
I guess cleavage is verbotten
Another:
I don’t need to give my spouse the same degree of common courtesy that I would give any other friend.
Another:
Manners do matter. The Japanese might say that ‘when all else fails, be polite.’ Treat your other half and family with the best of the manners you display for those situations and people whom you admire and respect.
No problem. If messages need deleted, please go ahead. I’ll respect your thought.
I have always wondered why women have so much trouble lowering the seat. Men have to raise it. ;o)
It is not the trouble. The seat is the antenna to the mother ship of females. When it is up the downloads do not work properly and take longer to load.
In my ministry of 33 years, I have always declined to officiate weddings where one or both have a divorce in the past, unless the divorced one has also since become a widow or widower, and other things are also in correct order. This is just our stand on the life-longness of marriage, and a repudiation of the easy divorce society that we live in.
Of course, that has limited to a very great degree the number of peeople who actually ask me to officiate their wedding, as my views are published.
33 years ago, I wrote a three full page set of “Marriage Altar Standards.” When approached to officiate a wedding, I first require that the couple study those standards. most never return after reading it, because they see that I would make them vow things they really don’t want to vow.
I am cconvinced that people really don’t take public vows seriously, and they just want a wedding to be some sort of party. I know don’t appreciate my seriousness.
But, my own children and many Christian people have respected these high standards, and have incorporated them into their marriage views. By holding my views consistently over a generation, my own children and many of their friends really take marriage as seriously as I do.
The very first point I make in my “Standards for the Marriage Altar” is that the Bible does not list performing wedding ceremonies in the “job description” of any pastor. He is not mandated by Scripture to do it to begin with. Therefore, any couple approaching me, asking me to officiate their wedding, finds that they are in my jurisdiction, on my territory, and must study my terms.
I don’t allow couples to write their own vows. I tell them precisely what they are going to vow if they want me to hitch them up. If they don’t care to-—if they want to treat my ministry merely as a utility option in a drop down window-—then they can just go some place else, and I tell them that directly.
It works down to this....the couples I have hitched up have all been young people that have been under my ministry, and fully understand my seriousness in the matter(s) of marriage. Their parents also fully understand. I have watched the growing up of these young people, have observed the things that become important to them, and I know how they are likely to respond in certain given situations. I don’t help people I don’t know get married.
None of the young couples I have hitched up were ever taught to, or allowed to “date” in the modern sense of the term. All had had chaperoned courtships supervised by both sets of parents, and under pastoral counsel, advice, and scrutiny when required by the parents. I will not offciate the wddings of any couple who violate their parents’ rules of courtship . . . and I help them make the rules, when they so request.
Young people who just date around unsupervised and make their parents wonder(???) might as well just go to the justice of the peace as far as we’re concerned, and are not allowed to cheapen either our ministry or the testimony of the church.
This is a Religion forum thread, and we try to keep a ‘G’ ratng for the Religion forum. Beyond that, the banter was steering the thread well off-topic.
Well, you’re entitled to the opinion you have about marriage, but you cater to a minority. People ought to be able to choose their partner w/o fear of judgement, and being free to all but reason, they ought to experience divorce and all its goryness. After all, why bother w/ marriage if you can’t fear divorce?
I first read two strategic words in your second sentence as one, giving it a slightly different meaning.
Hats off to you!!
Isn't it funny how we don't treat family as well as non-family at times?
Well, you’re entitled to the opinion you have about marriage, but you cater to a minority.
John Leland: It’s usually the minority that get’s it write.
People ought to be able to choose their partner w/o fear of judgement, and being free to all but reason, they ought to experience divorce and all its goryness.
Pro-divorce. Oh. Even recommending it. Oh.
After all, why bother w/ marriage if you can’t fear divorce?
Because marriage was not designed by man for man, but by God for man.
So, what is the standard? Is it to glorify Jesus, or a personal desire to stand fast in the face of your views on divorce? Is divorce a different sin from any other? I say not, and I believe the Scriptures will agree with me.
God intends a lot of good things for our lives. Marriage is a blessing, but is not part of God's final disposition for us, according to Scripture. Jesus is not quite as judgmental, but Paul explains it best of all. Through the Samaritan woman, many heard the Gospel. Through Christ, ALL sin is forgiven. Prove me wrong.
Matthew 22: 29 Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
...
John 4: 7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
33 Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
****
1 Corinthians 1: 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
He is risen.
bttt
I guess i need to work on my delivery. I was trying for irony. I’m Not pro-divorce. On the contrary, I think marriage is the atomic bond that holds our society together (man + woman not gay). Ease of divorce trivializes marriage as it allows either party an easy way out when they don’t want to work at it. It’s become a fad, a joke to be married. What a shame! Noted: violence + other abuse is the exception.
Would you post a link to your “Marriage Altar Standards”?
My three kids are approaching that age. I would like to share this with them.
;-)
Give me some time to dig those out. I’m not sure they are on line any place, and I’m on the road at the moment. If you don’t see anything from me in the next day or two, don’t be afraid to send me a remider, and make it bold. Ha!
I’m in China, and this could be a good shove for me to translate the material into Chinese. I’ve actually officiated one wedding here. Would you believe that I’ve had more divorcees in China ask me to perform wedding ceremonies than I ever had in the States? I don’t do it; I just don’t. Others might do it, and I’m not taking any surveys. But I just don’t do it.
A very high percentage of marriages in China are for status only (”something wrong if you don’t get married”) When the status is no longer useful, people just get divorced. Women don’t take their husband’s name in China since 1950. Often is is for political advantage or because older parents or grandparents are just pushing the kids into marriage.
I’ll get back with you, and if it seems a long time, please remind me. Don’t feel embarrassed to remind me-—got a lot of irons in the fire. But I do want to get that to you.
#6 is debatable.
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