As I saw another Christian friend from my church on Facebook share her recent engagement to another man after her divorce only two years ago, I felt compelled to share this resource with my prayer group ladies. I hope these resources assist you in making sure your thoughts are from the Lord if you are contemplating a divorce. I’ve been hearing of too many Christians divorcing right now in my local area.

I recently read these devotionals about marriages and I thought they were really good and faithful to the scriptures. If you are struggling in your marriage and perhaps wondering if you can be released from your marriage, I recommend that you listen to Dr. Jeffress’ full sermon on “Good Grace Marriages” and also ask for prayers from mature believers, including your church pastors. This is a huge decision with very long-lasting consequences and so you cannot decide on your own with only your counselor’s input and friends/family. You need your church leadership and many good, mature believers to join you in prayer to discern God’s voice about your marriage.

I also think this message is very important for young people to listen too.  I’ve never heard a message like this in my high school and college church meetings that I used to attend regularly.  I knew the basics by reading the Bible and seeing the marriages in the church but it would have been very helpful if I heard a thorough message about biblical marriage from the pulpit during my younger years of following Jesus Christ.  I’m not sure if I would have adhered to the word of God about choosing my mate since when I met Howard I had completely given up on my faith, not to follow the pleasures of the world but I had just completely given up.  That’s why I don’t make light of “discouragement”.  Whenever I sense my discouragement go into a dangerous red zone, I ask for lots of prayers from many faithful believing friends and pastoral leaders in my life.  I purposefully surround myself with lots of people from the church community who I keep myself accountable to.  How do I know if I had entered a dangerous red zone?  My heart feels bitter and judgemental; my words eventually reveal my heart condition too.  Please be very careful when you sense any bitterness taking root in your heart.

By the way, once you have received God’s directions about your marriage through His word and prayers of the saints; then it’s very important to obey even if you suffer for your obedience.  God’s word promises us these outcomes for our submissive obedience (promises are bolded by me):

1 Peter 5:6-11 (ESV) 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he mayexalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Good Grace Marriages:

Moving forward in a marriage mistake- https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?e=576cfe2804&u=2caaeddae51fef7bcfd588871&id=2e788e642e

Good grace and divorce- https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?e=576cfe2804&u=2caaeddae51fef7bcfd588871&id=31a0211c5a

“Good Grace Marriages” full sermon –https://youtu.be/X6uV1pEbJvM

I recently heard a sermon from a Pentecostal pastor in Italy who said this one phrase that really stood out to me – “grace does not remove consequences.” Well, sometimes I think God removes the consequences of a sin because God is being merciful*. However don’t depend on this happening. Just stay safe and don’t knowingly sin. For example, if you sleep around and get a sexually transmitted disease perhaps God will be merciful and heal you completely after you repent. Or perhaps God will allow you to experience the consequences of your sexual sin by having you receive tough medical treatments for the STD. (FYI – OF THE 19,000,000 NEW STDS IN THE U.S. EACH YEAR, HALF ARE AMONG PEOPLE UNDER 25. I think our young people really need to be aware of these statistics too. It may spare them from tremendous pain. Please see this CDC report- https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/whatworks/what-works-overview.htm?mibextid=onnTyB&fs=e&s=cl)

Currently my family is traveling in Italy.  As I am visiting many beautiful historic churches I wondered if there are any evangelical churches in Italy since majority are Catholics by tradition.  I found this evangelical church in Rome, Italy.  Let’s pray for Italy to have a revival too.  Most Italians do not belong to any church community or read the Bible according to our tour guides.  

Here is the Italian pastor’s sermon if you are interested: http://m.iccrome.org/4/Home_3505847.html

Good article about the status of faith in Italy: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/asking-god-for-revival-in-italy

My family is coming to the end of our trip. It’s a challenge to be with my family members 24/7. I am grateful for the prayers of many friends and my church leaders when I was anxious and asked for their prayers for our family trip. It is so good and comforting to have these relationships. Please build up and surround yourself with these good relationships in the body of Christ. Because of my heavy involvement in the church community for the last 12 years, I now have a very good network of support and encouragement. Devil gets a heavy assault back when he attacks me and my family members. Do you have this network of support? If not, please make sure you are building your own network of support and edification in your local church community. It’s also not fair to just rely heavily on your believing family members too. That puts a tremendous burden on them. Besides that, parents get older and weaker too. You need to start building your own network of support in your local church community. With love and prayers from your “librarian”.

*Romans 9:15 – “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”