Do We Extend Grace To The Wayward Spouse?
Very true. God does change hardened hearts, but nowhere in the Bible does He force anyone to change. Praying for an unrepentant spouse or a mentally ill one who refused help is not a guarantee that things will change . Sometimes God will not grant healing until heaven.
When one is “sick” and has not yet received their healing, do we disgard them? I can’t seem to find that passage anywhere in scripture, yet it appears some do believe they are perfectly entitled to PERMANENTLY get rid of a spouse who has mental instability? What will that spouse then think if/when the Lord heals them while they are still upon the earth? Will they have experienced the love of Christ through the love others have extended to them? I am sincerely asking this question: would any of us who may have a disabled child who is a HANDFUL, says derogatory things to us, etc, ever think to get rid of that child, or do we ENDURE because we LOVE them and have hopes that through our love and any other type intervention, that SOMEDAY they will be healed? In God’s eyes, are we more connected to our children or our spouses?
I find it sad that there are those who wish to usurp the authority of Jesus Christ Himself , who gives adultery as permission for divorce. It’s mind-boggling that some people are so caught up in their extra-Biblical beliefs that they put more stock in their own pet theories than in the words of Christ. I choose to give the same grace as He has.
If this is true, then would a spouse NOT give grace to an adulterous spouse in the same way Jesus Christ also gives grace to the adulterer telling them to “go and sin no more”? Would they be excused from loving like Jesus loves (I Corinthians 13)? The problem we see in those who say adultery gives right to divorce and then remarry—-Jesus gave the example of the “innocent’ in Matthew 19:9—-and she is NOT given permission to remarry. Whoever takes her as wife would commit adultery (because she is not free to marry). So in the so called “permission” passage, we see a prohibition to marry for the same sin. It must also be acknowledged that MOST people who divorce end up marrying other divorced persons (“whosoever marries one divorced from her husband commits adultery”)………..so the cycle of adultery just goes on and on. You can’t possibly think this is what Jesus envisioned when He gave such a supposed “permission”? Also, we can not forget that Jesus expanded the definition of adultery to include LUSTING with the eyes/heart. Are ANY of us innocent of adultery? Shouldn’t then ALL of us be divorced?