He Never Deprives Me

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1 Corinthians 6:17)

This falls in the middle of a passage about the Christian and his sex life.
It goes on to say, "Flee sexual immorality."
I've known that for a long time.

But the other day, I started thinking about this,
which is just a few more verses in:
"Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her,
and likewise also the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body,
but the husband does.
And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body,
but the wife does.
Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time,
that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer;
and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you
because of your lack of self-control...
Now to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord:
A wife is not to depart from her husband...
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife,
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,
otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy."

The material part of this passage
has always seemed simple enough to understand to me.
But as I thought it over the other day, something else began to be clear.

In Ephesians 5 it says,
"Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
for no man ever hated his own flesh;
but nourisheth and cherisheth it,
even as Christ also the church;
because we are members of his body.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife;
and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church. 
Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself;
and let the wife see that she fear her husband."

When the mystery is brought into it,
the rendering of affection takes on a whole new meaning.
How He ought to be adored is far more than I have ever given Him.
But Christ has given Himself body and soul to me.
To be joined in one spirit with me.
And He never fails to render affection to me, though it is certainly not my due.
But it is His due, with all certainty.
And how often I am cold and unresponsive to Him.
And oh, how to even think of the authority He allows me with Him --
and my failure to reciprocate.

He gives Himself to me to withstand temptation,
knowing my lack of self-control --
and He never deprives me of Himself.
He makes Himself provision for my failure.
How stupid for me to depart from Him,
seeing He is my sanctification.
I am the 'unbelieving wife' in this little life-picture.
He is the one who makes my fruit holy, my 'children', in a sense.
In departing from Him, they're all unclean.

In loving me, Christ loves Himself,
because He has permanently joined me to Himself.
And He ministers to my needs as though they were His.
He cleaves to me.
And shall I not worship Him?

To Send Relief

"And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
Then one of them stood up and showed by the Spirit
that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world...
Then the disciples, each according to his own ability,
determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
This they also did, and sent it to the elders
by the hands of Barnabas and Saul."
~Acts 11:27-30

I read this with my kids the other day. This is contrary to the 'wisdom' your financial planner might offer. Being responsible means providing for yourself, you know. Having a retirement. Planning ahead for emergencies, and not ever allowing a famine to interrupt your prosperity. The predicted famine was not only going to affect those in Judea. It was going to affect Antioch. But the response of the Antioch Christians to this news was to give away their own sustenance.

I heard conventional financial wisdom summed up the other day: Get all you can, and can all you get.
But Jesus said, "They will know you are Christians by your love."

"There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
and there is one who withholds more than is right,
but it leads to poverty.
The generous soul will be made rich,
and he who waters will also be watered himself."
~Proverbs 11:24,25

"He who trusts in his riches will fall,
but the righteous will flourish like foliage."
~Proverbs 11:28

Trusting in riches is such a snare. It comes in wearing the clothes of 'wisdom': "It wouldn't be wise to spend money right now. I don't have enough myself." But quite often, it's the soul grasping at an anchor that cannot hold.

My heart and mind fight this battle sometimes every moment. I often have to say to myself:
"Some trust in chariots, and some trust in horses.
But I will trust in the name of the Lord my God."
Sometimes I change the words:
some trust in bank accounts, and some trust in paychecks -- 
but I will trust in the name of the Lord my God.

And I reason with myself regularly: if God can't save me with less than what I have, He also can't save me with what I have. If He isn't worth trusting, my money is even less worthy of that trust. Sometimes no one knows the battle I just fought. Maybe it's been going on for days, but I feel such a sense of relief when I decide, "I will trust the Lord." And I pray, "Lord, You see the choice I'm making here. You know what I need. Please take care of me."

I have many times heard the believers in Jerusalem faulted because they tried out 'Christian communism', and failed. Did they fail? Or did they make a conscious choice to trust Him with their upkeep? They had many widows among them, and those who had something gave what they had. They cast their bread on the waters, so to speak, and after many days, the Lord sent it back to them by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. 'He who waters will be watered himself.'

Not Hiding God

 In Psalm 78, Asaph contemplates passing on faith. He says: the things which our fathers have told us, we will not hide from our children; telling to the next generation what we praise God for; the amazing works He did for our parents and for us. We will make them known to our children that the generation to come might know them, that the ones yet to be born might tell their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God.

Something Asaph thought necessary to pass on:

They spoke against God; they said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Can He give bread also?  Can He provide meat for His people?"

This is an essential lesson that we must pass down to our children. God can prepare a table in the wilderness. He can give bread. And He can provide meat for His people.

How will they learn to set their hope in God if they are not brought to see that God is not limited by wilderness resources? I can't prepare a table in the wilderness, but He can. I cannot give the multitude bread, but HE can. I can't get enough meat to feed the family in places the animals run from, but He can. We must not only set our hope on Him, we must tell our children about His works so that they will, too.

"They did not believe in God, and did not trust His salvation." Let this not be our epitaph.

It says he rained food down on them -- bread and meat. "In spite of this they still sinned, and did not believe in His wondrous works. Therefore their days He consumed in futility, and their years in fear."

Do you realize this is what comes of not believing God? Of refusing to hope in Him? All our days become futility and fear. Everything we do is useless -- like wandering for forty years in the desert, killing time until it kills us, because what He said we would not believe.

Fear. Through the fear of death, all their lifetimes they were subject to bondage. Subject. Their necks were under the foot of fear. Their lives were being ruled by death because they would not hope in God. Christ came to deliver us from that. God is our refuge and hope. Therefore will not we fear though the mountains be removed and thrown into the sea.

The Psalm describes how often He forgave them, being full of compassion. He turned His anger away. But how often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert. "Yes, again, and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power; the day when He redeemed them from the enemy." Does the word 'limited' jump off the page at you like it does me? They limited God. This is why we tell our children what He can do, what He does do, and what He will do. Because unbelief limits God.

He would not take them into the land because they would not believe His promises. That entire generation died in the wilderness. And the wilderness will claim us, too, if He is not our hope.

Our goal as parents is that our children would set their hope in the Lord. That they will believe in Him, and trust in His salvation. That training sometimes requires a trip through the wilderness. So that they can see that He can prepare a table in the wilderness. He can give bread. He can provide meat for His people.

When I was a young teenager, my family was in a financial wilderness. There was not enough money to cover the bills, and my parents were scared. But my mom was in the habit of reading the Word to us in the mornings, and praying with us. After reading, we seven children would sit and she would distribute to us the needs we had to pray for. Because she let us see the wilderness, hear the Word, and participate in the requests to the Lord for provision, our faith was built up as we saw God answer. One morning my little brother, who was six or seven at the time, insisted that he wanted to pray for $1000. Mom kept trying to get him to just pray for the needs that we had, and the tug of war between them brought him to tears. Mom said, "Fine. It's okay if you want to pray for $1000." He bowed his head and asked the Lord to send us $1000. We all indulgently waited through his prayer. That day in the mailbox there was a check for $1000.

It was humbling. The Lord prepared table after table after table for us, and it wasn't because of our great faith. He cares for us. And our children need to see that. They need to see me trusting Him with nothing. They need to understand that HE IS OUR HOPE AND OUR REFUGE. So they can teach their children, too.

I was talking with a lady last night who is 87 years old. A man asked her how long she had been walking with the Lord. She told us that she had believed in Jesus when she was 11 years old. Her mother had been very sick, and they thought she would die, so she had to go live with her grandmother. Her grandmother had to tell her about her mother's condition, and when she sat down with her, she told her about Jesus. She told her about who He is, and about His love and His power. Her grandmother taught her to pray. And the Lord spared her mother's life. When we sit down to break the news of death and destruction and loss and wilderness to our children, let it be accompanied with hope in the Lord. With the truth about who He is, and what He's done before. So that when our children are 87 years old, they can tell someone new what God has done.

"I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also." (2 Timothy 1:5)