Hebrews 12:1-2, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Thousands of people are leaving the failing state of California for many reasons. Taxes are insanely high in California. There are now over 100,000 homeless people in the state. The state's leadership is bedeviled with political corruption, selfish leaders and criminal reckless misappropriation of federal funds entrusted to the state to help it's poor and needy population.
I read that many Californians are feeling to other states like Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee and North Carolina. People who sell their home in California for $1.5 million are moving to Idaho where you can get a bigger home for only a fraction of the cost at $450,000. Homes in Idaho are difficult to purchase, because dozens of potential buyers are placing their bids on the home. Since there are less homes than people wanting move to Idaho, people are making wild offers.
I read about one family wanting to leave California, to move to Idaho. They saw a home that they really loved in Idaho, but new they'd likely never get it. So they did something amazing. They told the seller that they'd give them the asking price, plus buy them another home of equal or lesser value of their choosing. Wow! They were willing to pay DOUBLE what the asking price of the house was, and they got the house! That family in California didn't focus on all the money they had. Instead they focused on buying the nice house that they could raise their children in in Idaho. I think that is a perfect true illustration of how our wrong thinking can limit us. Now, that family could have moved to someplace in Ohio, and pocketed all that extra money. But they didn't focus on the money, they focused on what was best for their family. I admire that.
I'll give you another real life example. I have been counseling a lady for a couple years. She is engaged to her boyfriend, planning to tie the knot in several months. But she keeps emailing me to tell me that she is having emotional issues with his impurity in the past. She is a virgin, but he had multiple intimate relationships with women before she met him. She gets upset toward him when she thinks about his previous fornication. But he has repented and now wants to marry this young lady. They both attend a local church in their state. No matter what I say to her, she can't seem to break loose of her feelings of anger, resentment and jealousy about the woman in his past sinful life.
So I told her that she either needs to let the matter go, because her boyfriend cannot change his past; or she needs to be honest to tell him that she cannot marry him. Personally, I told her that from all she has shared with me, he sounds like a good guy. He works to pay the bills. He has behaved himself toward the opposite sex while dating her. She told me that she is worried that he will cheat on her after they get married. I kindly told her that she is focusing on the wrong things. He is a sinner. If she thinks he won't make a good and faithful husband, then I told her she shouldn't marry him. But it is wrong to judge someone based upon an evil that they haven't even committed yet. You see, she is bitter over the unchangeable past, and worried over an uncertain future. So many people make themselves miserable by thinking about the wrong things.
So my most recent advice to her is to stop focusing on her fiancé's past, nor the uncertain future. I told her that there is no guarantee that he won't cheat on her after she married him, nor that she won't cheat on him (or hurt him in some other way). We are all vulnerable sinners! I kindly told her that she needs to focus on her love for him, and nothing else. Does she love him enough to give herself as a gift to him, even though he has a tainted past when he sinned in fornication? That is something that only she can answer.
I also kindly advised her not to marry this man until she feels perfect peace in her soul about the matter, because if she does their marriage will have a lot of trouble. It is not fair to either of them to marry someone that you feel anger and resentment toward. Whatever it is about someone that irritates and annoys you before you marry them, it WILL be magnified ten times over after you get married. What you see is what you get, and a whole lot more!
So if your boyfriend has an explosive hot temper while dating, he will likely be a monster after you get married. You shouldn't marry anybody who has anger issues! Even Jesus got angry in the Bible, flipping over the moneychanger's tables, but Jesus didn't have an anger issue. You have to size somebody up while dating them, to determine if that person is right for you (and you for them). It has to be mutually beneficial. The chemistry needs to be aggregable.
That is the reason why after 17 years I still refuse to marry my ex-wife. She decided to divorce me in 2006. I begged her not to, but she didn't listen to me and filed for divorce anyway. It was her choice alone. When she finalized the divorce in 2007 she gave me a choice. I now have a choice to either stay single, remarry her or marry someone else. No one is Biblically obligated to remarry someone. She is not permitted to remarry, because she was the one who quit her marriage vows (1st Corinthians 7:27). I have never remarried, simply because I have never met anybody. American women are scary nowadays. They are covered in tattoos. They like to hang out in bars with their girlfriends. Stay away from me! In church it is hit and miss trying to find someone to marry. I haven't been that lucky.
Sadly, my former wife still chooses to look at all the wrong things. Even after 17 years she still refuses to apologize for anything. A couple cannot get back together when one of them is too proud to face her demons, repent and determine in her soul to do better. She wants to blame it all on me and get back together on those terms. Hell will freeze over before I remarry someone who refuses to humble herself to apologize. I told her that I couldn't care less about the apology; but rather, it is the condition of her heart that I am concerned with. Will she make a good wife? The answer so far is, hell no!
I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than remarry someone who talks over my words, laughs in my face when I'm being serious, badgers me when in tears I attempt to rationalize with her, talks in a condescending manner to me in ways that she wouldn't talk to her dog, and has no respect for me as her former husband. Everything about her thinking is all WRONG! That makes me sad, because I would like to remarry her, but I'd be a fool to do so until she repents. Ever since the divorce she has become a totally different person, so that I don't even know who she is anymore. We are distant friends. She lives 1,000 miles north of me, and that's about the right distance. That is how far her heart is from God.
Kindly said, there are seven layers of hubris and pride that need to be stripped away before I will remarry her. One day at a time. I have often kindly tried to lead her to start thinking differently toward things, but she refuses. I am afraid to remarry her, plain and simple, because of her emotional craziness. Four days after having my gallbladder removed in 2015, she was yelling at me on the phone. I started to cry, because I had 17 stables in my belly and was recovering my major surgery, and she was giving me a hard time on the phone. She couldn't have cared less if I had dropped dead. I still remember her excuses that day when I told her that I just underwent surgery and didn't need her verbal abuse... "Well, I'm a sinner just like you" and "Well, sometimes you get upset at me."
You see, she is using any excuse she can find to harass me, when she fully knew that I just had major surgery four days earlier. Who would want to marry someone like that? When she divorced me, she gave me a gift, sad to say. I love my ex-wife with Christ's love, but marrying her is something entirely different. I have been lonely for 17 years and want a wife. I have been thinking for a few years now of marrying a younger Filipina woman, from the rural countryside, one with traditional family values. I see hundreds of their profiles. I search for Baptists. I have been super patient, like Hosea. But unlike Hosea's wife Gomer, she was still his wife. My former wife ceased to legally be my wife in March of 2007. So I am free to remarry whomsoever I choose, but only in the Lord (i.e., she must be a born-again believer).
The biggest problem with people is that they focus on the wrong things, and it hinders them from being blessed. I am guilty of doing it too. I should have found a wife a long time ago, but I haven't diligently pursued it. Life is messy because people are messy! I am no more righteous than my former wife, but we think very differently toward our sins and failures in the past, so that we are not walking in agreement. She has no respect for me as her former husband, and that is really a bad warning sign. I will keep praying for her. I am her friend.
Divorce is probably the most heated and controversial of all topics in the churches today. People can be so cruel, hateful and self-righteous (like the wicked cult at Pensacola Christian College, where divorced people are shunned, belittled and looked down upon). Only a cult shuns people, like they have done to me. I have been banned in writing from attending Campus Church at PCC. They are rotten hypocrites at PCC, and sadly they couldn't care less about hurting people. What uncaring jerks!!!
I think that is what God means in Proverbs...
Proverbs 3:5-7, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.”
What does it mean to acknowledge God in all our ways? I think it means that we should be focusing on people, life, situations and things from a Biblical perspective. That means we need to become familiar with Scriptural principles, so that we will acquire the knowledge and wisdom to make the right decisions in life. Albeit, I don't care who you are, YOU WILL make some poor choices and bad decisions in life. God knows that I sure have!!!
I cannot tell you exactly what you should be thinking about, but the inspired King James Bible is a perfect place to start. I can tell you from the Bible that money should never be an issue when making life's big decisions. Money will grow wings and fly away. For example: It would be unwise to move to a city where you'll get paid a lot of money, but there are no good churches; versus taking a less paying job elsewhere, but your family will be a good church. Of course, that is an oversimplification. In real life there are always dozens of considerations, so that no one has any right to condemn someone else for where they choose to move to live. So don't worry about what someone else is doing, I am preaching TO YOU!
When we all get to Heaven, we will be required to give account to God as INDIVIDUALS (Romans 14:10-14). I truly dread that day at the Judgment Seat of Christ. I have a lot to answer for, and so do you friend. We all do! The good thing is that unlike the heathen world that judges Christians only by our sins, faults and bad decisions in life; God will judge us by the good we have done as well. God looks at the big picture, not just the negative. That is exactly what the Bible says in 2nd Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”
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