🙇🏻 Forgiveness Verbally Pronounced, Jn 8:10, Lk 23:17, Do Not Sin Again Lest Something Worse Befalls You, John 5:14, Go and Sin No More, Jn 8:11...

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name.

 

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer has been heard and we join with you before God with both compassion and clarity, asking for what is holy and true.

We thank God that you have chosen the path of forgiveness. You have forgiven your wife as you have been forgiven, even as Christ said Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, and as Stephen prayed while being stoned. This is the way of Christ, to release the debt and not count the sin against the one who harmed you, while still speaking the truth in love. Forgiveness does not mean calling sin good, and it does not ask God to bless what He calls unholy. It opens the door for repentance.

We pray with you for her repentance, not for the continuation of sin. Jesus showed mercy to the woman taken in adultery, but His mercy had a command with it, go and sin no more, and He warned the man He healed, do not sin again lest something worse befall you. The Scriptures are clear that sexual immorality and adultery are deceptive and those who persist in them without repentance will not inherit the kingdom of God. God cannot be mocked. What we sow we reap. For this reason we do not pray that God would bless any adulterous path, but that He would grant a new heart and a new spirit, that He would take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, that she would be born again and see the kingdom of God.

We ask the Lord to shine light into darkness, for the god of this world blinds minds, but God shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. We pray that He would grant her wisdom and revelation to know Him, that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom would take root, and that His kindness would lead her to repentance. God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, and He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that they turn and live. Yet repentance must be true. It is not only tears or words of regret. As we have taught, Esau sought the blessing with tears but found no place for repentance because his heart did not truly turn from his sin, and his later actions proved it. Godly sorrow produces a real turning from the old life. We pray for that real turning in her, a turning that bears fruit, that forsakes the deeds of the flesh and walks in holiness.

We also lift up your marriage before God. Marriage is a bond ordained by God, and what God has joined together is to be held in honor. An adulterous union is not marriage but a severing and corruption of it. Scripture teaches that marriage is honorable and the marriage bed pure, and that holiness in marriage means faithfulness, living chastely with one's own spouse and not giving oneself to another. This holiness preserves the grace given to us through faith. We pray that God would protect and sanctify your marriage according to His design of one man and one woman in lifelong covenant, where sexual union belongs only within that covenant. We do not pray for any relationship outside that covenant to prosper, only for it to be forsaken.

We hear your wrestling with what the Lord allows concerning divorce. Jesus spoke of the seriousness of the marriage covenant and the exception of sexual immorality, and Paul spoke of the case of desertion by an unbelieving spouse. These are solemn matters, not to be pursued hastily. Your desire to seek mercy first, to hope for repentance and salvation and a testimony of grace that displays Christ and His Church, is right and pleasing to God. We pray that you would continue to seek wisdom, that love would abound with knowledge and discernment, and that you would hold your request before God as Christ did in the garden, saying nevertheless not my will but Yours be done. May God grant you grace and discipline to continue in prayer and fasting, for fasting lends wings to prayer, and to remain steadfast in holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

We pray for protection over you, over her, and over the young ones, that none would be led to stumble, that you all would be kept from temptation and delivered from evil, and that you would be sanctified by the truth, for His word is truth. May you all give yourselves to the Scriptures, not only to have them on your devices but to do what they say, to be living letters known and read by all, to let the word correct what is wrong and train you in what is right. May the love of Christ be clearly seen in you.

Father, in the name of Jesus the one mediator between God and man, we ask for Your mercy. You were in Christ reconciling the world to Yourself, not counting our sins against us. Grant this woman a new birth, open her eyes to turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that she may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those sanctified by faith in Christ. Soften her heart, lead her to true repentance for the remission of sins, to refreshing and renewal by Your mercy, and to a life devoted to good deeds. Guard this husband in patience, purity, and courage, and let Your will be done in this family for Your glory. Amen.