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Laura,<BR>Your choice to divorce him can only be based on you having a hard heart and his infidelity. In a way your pastor is right because if you are the Christian that you profess to be you would have won your H over to God because you would have been showing your H God's love as opposed to yours. It is God's desire that reconciliation be achieved but not at any cost. He wants you to seek Him for guidance rather than rely our feelings because our feelings are easily manipulate by Satan.<P>I am not putting you down. I am merely stating what the Bible says only paraphrased to get to the crux of the matter. However, it is your choice whether you do what God asks you to do. I could easily use your logic and divorce my W because she tries to be emotionally abusive as her mother was to her in a weird kind of way and she has committed adultery 9 times by my count. Yet, I continue to show her God's love. My W also professes to be a Christian; only God knows for sure.<P>As far as love does no harm depends on how you want to look at it. I married my W because God asked me to do so. Yet, it has hurt me as well as helped me because I am much closer to God now than before. I don't look for others to tell me what is right. I look for the Holy SPirit using others to tell me what is right. We must get off the kick that it is a personal relationship between an individual and God. If any of us truly has the relationship that we profess to have with God then we are able to see that the other person is hurting and that God wants to use us to help heal the hurt that is there.<P>I am certain that I have angered you by this post. I did not intend to do so. I just have to share what God has revealed to me. It is now time for you to study the scripture that the others have presented for God to complete giving you the message that He wants you to understand. Please listen to Him rather than seeing the messengers He uses opposing what you are trying to justify. <P>I have found that what we see in others is more times than not what we don't like in ourselves. We must look at what the other person has gone through and understand that more than likely the response they are giving is out of frustration or an attempt to control the pain they currently are experiencing. Does it seem that way? No, because it is masked in language that says they are attacking you.<P>------------------<BR><B><I>God Bless,<BR>Rob</I></B><BR> regilmor@swbell.net <p>[This message has been edited by professorg (edited July 13, 2001).]

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Whoa, ProfG .... "if you're the Christian you profess to be you would have won your husband over?"<P>HELLO?<P>Surely you realize that the Holy Spirit has to be at work in a person's heart for them to experience change and come to Christ ... and this man has a hard heart .... all she can do is live Christ's Love .... and he will have to make a choice in his own life.<P>It's not HER fault he's not saved yet. She's very possibly the seed planter ... you DO know that parable, right?<P>Not everyone that lives with or converses with a Christian will come to Christ. And for you to accuse her of not being enough of a Christian to have already saved him does quite alot of damage ... you might wanna re-think what you said.<BR>

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Laura,<P>I am not a bibical scholar either, so I went to my paster about this same issue for some guidance.<P>Background:<BR>My husband left me 1 1/2 yrs ago. He is not interested in reconciliation. He is seeing other women. I tried with all my heart to help him and to repair our marriage before and after he left me. Now the children and I very rarely see him. But he does not mind staying married legally indefinately. It is inconvenient and expensive to go through the divorce process and he would rather use those funds for himself. After 1 1/2 yrs of seperation and no progress, I decided to file for divorce on the grounds of adultry. In one way I hope this will jar my H into seeing what we both will be losing. I have been faithful through all this. <P>I did not know what to do. To be alone and lonely the rest of my life? To never love again? I was tortured by the thought that my only choice was to be alone the rest of my life, otherwise I would be committing adultry. To never again recieve love from another person filled me with despair.<BR>And the end of my marriage was NOT MY CHOICE.<BR>My minister relayed to me that he interpreted the bible that if you in good faith lived by your marriage vows, but your spouse refused, that God wasen't looking to punish you. He wants us to be happy and to love and be loved by others. He said that the God he knew wouldn't judge me or punish me for the sins/wayward actions of my spouse. That meant alot to me - because the thought of never being hugged or shown mature affection again made me wonder if my life would ever have joy again.<P>I think it is one thing if we decide to leave our marriages because we are just tired of trying. But if our spouse does not want us anymore and seeks another, what are we to do? It felt like I was going to be punished even though I was not the one to give up on my marriage. I feel better now. I still hope that by some miracle that my H wil return to us. But now I feel that if he does not, that God does not expect me to live the 2nd half of my life alone and lonely.<P>I hope this is a help. I think all the posts here have been excellant and really make you think. These are such gut wrenching decisions.<P>God Bless You<P> <P>------------------<BR>SoSad.59

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double post<p>[This message has been edited by professorg (edited July 13, 2001).]

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maya:<BR><B>Whoa, ProfG .... "if you're the Christian you profess to be you would have won your husband over?"<P>HELLO?<P>Surely you realize that the Holy Spirit has to be at work in a person's heart for them to experience change and come to Christ ... and this man has a hard heart .... all she can do is live Christ's Love .... and he will have to make a choice in his own life.<P>It's not HER fault he's not saved yet. She's very possibly the seed planter ... you DO know that parable, right?<P>Not everyone that lives with or converses with a Christian will come to Christ. And for you to accuse her of not being enough of a Christian to have already saved him does quite alot of damage ... you might wanna re-think what you said.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>It is the Holy Spirit who does the winning. Yet, it is her responsibility to not be selfish which is where she is. I know because I go there from time to time. But when I am there the Holy Spirit tells me not to be the FOOL Satan wants me to be and which I become when I start acting on the foolish thoughts that Satan has whispered in my ears. It is when we believe the lies that cause us to err as her H ans and she are doing. No, none of us is perfect. But He is not done with any of us until we die and can't ask His forgiveness.<P>We have to be in tune with the Hol SPirit speaking through everyone. Yet, we have to be very careful because Satan goes around mascarading as an angel of light which he used to be but is no longer.<P>------------------<BR><B><I>God Bless,<BR>Rob</I></B><BR> regilmor@swbell.net

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<small>[ August 05, 2004, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: laura_lee ]</small>

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LauraLee,<P>From your posts, I get the impression that you are a pretty stable person - not easily swayed by self-serving or emotional arguments.<P>I believe that first of all God loves us. He does not condemn us to suffering without purpose. Jesus said to his detractors who critisized the deciples for violating some technical sabbath law "The sabboth is made for man and not man for the sabboth." The same principle can be applied throughout the law. God did not make the law to restrain us simply as an assertion of his power and authority - but to bless us as the law is a guide to the best possible life. Jesus himself never condemned anyone but the self-important "religions authorities". He did not condemn even a prostitute. We are all saved by grace, and not by works. We cannot make ourselves perfect in this life, and must rely on God's grace.<P>Jesus made plain the highest law - the law of love - and said that all the rest of the law is derived from it. The question is, "who is hurt by you remarrying." I personally don't see that anyone is - and thus I don't see your remarriage as a violation of the law of love. Rather, I see those who condemn you as clearly being in violation of that law.<P>I myself married very late - at age 40 - and struggled with the question of whether I should date divorced women. For various reasons I did not - tho I knew one or two who I believed were simply victims - who's husband's had left them. I thought (as if I were some catch [Linked Image from marriagebuilders.com] ) tht it was unfair to those ladies that I would not date them - but on the other hand, I think my level of emotional/relational maturity would have made it difficult for me to date them anyway. So, now, since my W left me, I've begin to think about it again. At first, I thought that if she divorces me, I'll just be alone - and learn to be happy with that. I'm not sure now. Anyway, I think you've got things together LauraLee.<P>May God bless you,<P>-AD

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