8/13/2004 08:15:24 AM|||Laura|||
Imagine attending your office picnic with your husband. He spends the entire time ogling Mr. Smith's secretary (who may have nice legs, but is a vicious gossip, has slept with just about all the men on the staff, and isn't even smart.) He insists that you both sit with her at lunch, and then tells you that he'd really rather do the three-legged race with her than you, because he'd have a better chance of winning the ribbon. At the finish line when they win, she plants a big sloppy kiss all over him, in front of your coworkers, and he enjoys every minute of it. When you express your displeasure with this behavior, he is hurt and offended. Don't you love him? Didn't you want him to have a good time at the picnic? You're the one who's married to him - he's going home with you after the picnic, not her. There's no grounds for divorce in this; he didn't commit adultery. As long as he stays married to you, what's wrong with a little harmless fun?

I don't know about you, but to me adultery is about a lot more than intercourse. This is unacceptable behavior in a spouse. Yet I am guilty of it myself.

The bible is rife with analogies of the church (Christians) being the bride of Christ. On many occasions I have been guilty of spiritual adultery; loving the world more than I love the Lord and taking Him for granted. In the book of Hosea, the adulterous wife even gave credit to her lovers for that which her husband provided - talk about adding insult to injury!
For she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. (Hosea 2:8) And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, They are my rewards that my lovers have given me. And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. (Hosea 2:12)
Over and over again, God's mercy calls me back.
Come and let us return to Jehovah. For He has torn, and He will heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up. After two days He will bring us to life; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then we shall know, if we follow on to know Jehovah. His going out is prepared as the morning; and He shall come to us as the rain, as the latter and former rain to the earth. (Hosea 6:1-3)
It's not a matter of behavior. Sinning and prayerlessness are not the problems. They are the symptoms of my lack of love for my Husband, the "lover of my soul." From Charles Wesley's classic hymn, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul":

Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace.




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