It's Friday but Sunday's coming!

I'm struggling as I prepare for Sunday...I don't really want to preach the sermon I'm preparing. Yet I feel compelled to do so. I've been preaching a sermon series entitled "Hot Potatoes" in which I'm bringing a biblical perspective to some of the more controversial issues Christians face. I've preached "Should a Christian Use Alcohol or Drugs," "What's the Harm in Gambling," and "The Christian Guide to Sex" thus far. This weekend I'm preaching on the divisive issue of divorce.

Maybe you heard about the billboard that went up in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood this spring that read “Life's short. Get a divorce.” On either side of the words were sexually-charged images of a man and a woman. The advertisement for the law firm Fetman, Garland & Associates targeted the young, wealthy, married couples who populate and frequent that area.

The flippancy with which such a billboard could be erected is symptomatic of much larger problems in our nation. The sanctity of marriage is under attack from every direction. I know that I'm going to be misunderstood and misrepresented as I seek to address this hot topic from a Scriptural viewpoint, but I think people may well be surprised at what the Bible actually says about divorce.

Malachi 2:16 (NASB)
"For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously."

Matthew 5:31-32 (NASB)
It was said, "WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE"; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Luke 16:18 (NASB)
Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.

When most Christians read verses like these (especially Jesus' words on the subject), they're reading them as if they're legal codes on divorce and adultery. In otherwords, Christians often prooftext such verses to "prove" their divorces have God's blessing.

I think they're missing the point of Jesus' words. They're reading them in order to find the loopholes allowing divorce (as if marriage were some kind of contract) instead of hearing Jesus' emphasis upon the principle of marriage, namely that God intends it to be a lifetime commitment and covenant.

My goal for Sunday is to lift high the wonderful gift of marriage and its sanctity, not to beat up anybody who's been divorced. In fact, I can't think of any Christian who can legitimately recommend divorce as smooth-sailing and pain-free. Divorced individuals usually bear the most effective testimonies of the pain and devastation of divorce. So with all this being said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

My All for God's All

I've been influenced by some of Christianity's greatest thinkers--C.S. Lewis, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Richard Foster, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, Dallas Willard, Brother Lawrence...just to name a few. You might say that I'm DUI...Developing Under their Influence. Obviously, there's no substitution for the perfect Word of God, but I'm so grateful for the impact godly men and women have had in my life...even those who went to heaven long before I was ever born.

I've chosen to call my blog "My All for God's All," based on a statement Brother Lawrence made, as recorded in the Christian classic The Practice of the Presence of God. That book records the thoughts and habits of Nicholas Herman (later known as Brother Lawrence), who determined in his own life to be an experiment of living every moment in "an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God." In other words, Brother Lawrence desired to remain always in the "actual presence of God." That desire has captured my heart, too...

I hope for my blog to challenge readers to connect real faith to real life in the real world. I expect that I'll write about most anything (well...not anything, but you get the idea) and seek to find some spiritual truth along the way.

Let me leave you today with this parting thought from Brother Lawrence:

I imagine myself as the most wretched of all, full of sores and sins, and one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his king. Feeling a deep sorrow, I confess to him all of my sins, I ask his forgiveness, and I abandon myself into his hands so that he may do with me what he pleases.

This king, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastening me, embraces me with love, invites me to feast at his table, serves me with his own hands, and gives me the key to his treasures. He converses with me, and takes delight in me, and treats me as if I were his favorite. This is how I imagine myself from time to time in his holy presence.

I'm seeking to give "my all for God's all"...