Monday, September 29, 2014

Marriage: Decide Today

I have a column in the Sistah, Sistah Newsletter where the editor-in-chief is Catherine Tukes. My column is called The Marriage Circle. I wanted to share this issue with you all. If you would like to subscribe to her newsletter, please leave your email address below and I will give it to her to add you to her email list. Enjoy!



The Marriage Circle

“Decide Today”

Eph 4:17-18
“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;”

As I thought upon the newsletter’s theme for this month, the song we used to sing at my old church came to mind; “Where are you in Christ? Where are you in Christ?” I have to ask, where are you in Christ? Your marriage doesn’t have to be in “trouble” to do a self-examination but you can always make it better by doing one. Decide today to take your marriage to another level. 

Reading Ephesians chapter four (and I suggest reading it all) reminded me of how I can apply these teachings to my own marriage. In verses one through six, I realized I was called (as we all are as wives) to walk worthy of the invocation of being a good wife to our husbands. I was called to Douglas Lapsley…LAWD have mercy and what a wonderful calling it is!!! Praise Jesus! Sorry, I had to take a praise break. You are called to yours, whether he is saved or not, whether he does everything right or not, or whether he has hurt you or not. Let’s be real for a moment anyway, all of us have hurt somebody and somebodies more than once in our lives. Let’s stop hanging onto the song, “He hurt me. He did this. He did that,” because so have you. You have spoken words that cut him to his bone and in the natural when a bone is broken sometimes it never heals the way it’s supposed to. 

When we hurt God, He doesn’t throw us away or sings the song we sing. I can’t even remember a time AT ALL that God brought back up something I did wrong and kept rehearsing how it hurt Him. He doesn’t even speak of it. That’s the kind of God we serve! We should serve our husbands in that same way. Our relationship with Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) should be so sound and secure in Him that we don’t rehearse with our husband how they hurt us. It just should not be. If it’s something that you have to keep rehearsing, then again I ask, “Where are you in Christ?”

Today, we have a choice to make and that is to decide to no longer walk as others walk in the vanity of their mind, a darkened understanding, being alienated from God through ignorance because of the blindness of their hearts concerning their marriage. No, YOU be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man in your marriage. You can do this by putting away: lying, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, malice and evil speaking, speak the truth (in love), be angry but do not sin, don’t give place to the devil, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, be kind to him, tenderhearted, forgiving, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you (Eph 4:23-32).

Be blessed and cause your marriage to ever increase in Christ!
-          Keisha Lapsley

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