I see this pattern in all close relationships. First, people’s lives flow together. Second, they clash and struggle. Third, they choose to go deeper.
Some choose divorce. They believe they have a right to be happy, and marriage seems to be an obstacle to their happiness. They refuse the third stage.
God’s children will go through it. God uses the third stage to sanctify His children. All the things we learn in this process we would need to learn regardless. It is a required course, not an elective. Anyone who refuses cannot enter the Kingdom.
Some couples say that they tried reconciliation. They say that it didn’t work.
This isn’t something that you try out and see if it works. This is something from above to which you commit yourself, and you keep going until you reach the finish.
A couple that failed didn’t prove their marriage unsalvageable. They only proved that they could not hold their marriage together by their own efforts, according to the law.
When people fall out of love, they fall into a negative pattern of thinking. They find faults, keep score, and dwell on problems.
Reconciliation goes deeper than divorce. It looks beyond the sins, the mistakes, the faults and differences, and it sees the person.
Reconciliation is simpler than divorce. With divorce, a man works on a set of rules, and he writes a list of disagreements against his wife. With reconciliation, he tears up the list and seeks to know a person.
Reconciliation is required. It is a testimony to this fallen world that we have a hope in Christ. Leaving a way out sets people up for destruction.
Finally, God makes it happen. What is impossible for us is a sure thing for Him. Matt 19:26
Jeffery Ventrella said, “the gospel is not simply the ‘door’ to a new home, something quickly forgotten as one proceeds to the living room or the bedroom. Rather, the gospel is life itself and it is something that needs to be preached to oneself, even (especially) after one ‘gets saved.’” The gospel transforms and keeps on transforming.
“If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, and the new things have come. All of this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” God in Christ reconciled us and committed to us the word of reconciliation (the gospel). Therefore, as ambassadors for Christ we plead for people to be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5
