Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer shows a heart that wants to follow Jesus in the way you forgive, even when the wound is deep. To forgive as Jesus did on the cross when He said Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, and as Stephen did while being stoned, is to reflect the kindness of God that leads toward repentance. That choice to release your wife from your own judgment and to desire her good is right and Christlike, and it also shows that you understand your own need to be forgiven as you forgive others.
It is important to keep a clear distinction here. Your forgiveness toward her is needed and good, but it does not in itself bring her forgiveness before God. Every sin is ultimately against God because it breaks His command, as David confessed after his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah when he said his sin was against the Lord. For that reason she must herself turn to God and ask Him for forgiveness. God has provided one way for sin to be forgiven and for a person to be saved, and that is through Jesus Christ alone. There is no other provision He has made. To receive Him by faith is to receive forgiveness, to reject Him is to remain without forgiveness in this life or the next.
That is why Scripture puts such weight on repentance. John came baptizing in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, calling people to confess and turn. Jesus came with the same call, saying He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, that those who are sick need a physician. That call did not stop with His earthly ministry. When He spoke to the congregations at the close of the first century in the book of Revelation, His word to them again and again was to repent and be changed. If He were speaking to us now, His message would still be repentance, to turn and become all He intends His people to be. True repentance is not only sorrow or words, it is a change that is seen in a new direction, in restoration where possible, and in bearing fruit.
This helps us pray in the right way. It is easy to pray only about the painful symptoms, for relief, for the marriage to feel better, for the tension in the family to ease. The deeper need is the root problem of sin itself. Pray that God would grant her repentance that leads to remission of sins, that she would see the deception of sin that excludes from the kingdom, that she would hear Jesus words to go and sin no more and to sin no more lest something worse come, and that she would pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Pray that she would receive a new heart and a new spirit as promised in Ezekiel, that the stone heart would be taken away and a heart of flesh given, that she would be born again as Jesus said we must be to see and enter the kingdom, that light would shine in her heart and open her eyes to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and that the word of God would take root and be lived out, not only heard.
God has not left us without hope in this. He desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but calls the wicked to turn and live, and He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The heavens rejoice over one sinner who comes to true repentance. That repentance is shown in turning from the works of the flesh which are plain to see, and in walking in the fruit of the Spirit, in honesty, in keeping the marriage covenant as God designed it from the beginning as a lifelong union of one man and one woman where faithfulness and sexual purity belong, and in the faithful love pictured in Hosea where restoration was tied to repentance and renewed faithfulness.
Continue to seek the Lord for wisdom and discernment, to be filled with the knowledge of His will so you may walk in a way that pleases Him, and to let love abound with knowledge to choose what is best. Keep praying with fasting as you are able, for fasting with prayer has long been understood to give strength and focus to prayer. Ask that God would guard her from deception and from the evil one, that He would protect the young ones in the family so they do not stumble, that He would sanctify you all by the truth of His word, and that your lives would be like letters known and read by all who see the love of Christ portrayed in you. And as you pray, hold your requests before Him as Jesus did in the garden, asking with confidence yet surrendering to the Father and saying nevertheless Your will be done.
We join you in praying that God in His mercy would grant her wisdom and revelation to truly know Him, that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom would take hold, that she would turn from darkness to light and from the power of the enemy to God to receive an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Jesus, that she would experience refreshing and renewal by His mercy and washing of regeneration, be justified by faith and made an heir with Christ in the hope of eternal life, and that if she has wandered from the truth she would be turned back, which is to save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. May the Lord give you grace to keep forgiving, to speak the truth in love, to model Christ and His church faithfully, and to trust His perfect will to renew the mind and make His way beautiful and clear. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the one mediator between God and man.
It is important to keep a clear distinction here. Your forgiveness toward her is needed and good, but it does not in itself bring her forgiveness before God. Every sin is ultimately against God because it breaks His command, as David confessed after his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah when he said his sin was against the Lord. For that reason she must herself turn to God and ask Him for forgiveness. God has provided one way for sin to be forgiven and for a person to be saved, and that is through Jesus Christ alone. There is no other provision He has made. To receive Him by faith is to receive forgiveness, to reject Him is to remain without forgiveness in this life or the next.
That is why Scripture puts such weight on repentance. John came baptizing in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, calling people to confess and turn. Jesus came with the same call, saying He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, that those who are sick need a physician. That call did not stop with His earthly ministry. When He spoke to the congregations at the close of the first century in the book of Revelation, His word to them again and again was to repent and be changed. If He were speaking to us now, His message would still be repentance, to turn and become all He intends His people to be. True repentance is not only sorrow or words, it is a change that is seen in a new direction, in restoration where possible, and in bearing fruit.
This helps us pray in the right way. It is easy to pray only about the painful symptoms, for relief, for the marriage to feel better, for the tension in the family to ease. The deeper need is the root problem of sin itself. Pray that God would grant her repentance that leads to remission of sins, that she would see the deception of sin that excludes from the kingdom, that she would hear Jesus words to go and sin no more and to sin no more lest something worse come, and that she would pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Pray that she would receive a new heart and a new spirit as promised in Ezekiel, that the stone heart would be taken away and a heart of flesh given, that she would be born again as Jesus said we must be to see and enter the kingdom, that light would shine in her heart and open her eyes to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and that the word of God would take root and be lived out, not only heard.
God has not left us without hope in this. He desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but calls the wicked to turn and live, and He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The heavens rejoice over one sinner who comes to true repentance. That repentance is shown in turning from the works of the flesh which are plain to see, and in walking in the fruit of the Spirit, in honesty, in keeping the marriage covenant as God designed it from the beginning as a lifelong union of one man and one woman where faithfulness and sexual purity belong, and in the faithful love pictured in Hosea where restoration was tied to repentance and renewed faithfulness.
Continue to seek the Lord for wisdom and discernment, to be filled with the knowledge of His will so you may walk in a way that pleases Him, and to let love abound with knowledge to choose what is best. Keep praying with fasting as you are able, for fasting with prayer has long been understood to give strength and focus to prayer. Ask that God would guard her from deception and from the evil one, that He would protect the young ones in the family so they do not stumble, that He would sanctify you all by the truth of His word, and that your lives would be like letters known and read by all who see the love of Christ portrayed in you. And as you pray, hold your requests before Him as Jesus did in the garden, asking with confidence yet surrendering to the Father and saying nevertheless Your will be done.
We join you in praying that God in His mercy would grant her wisdom and revelation to truly know Him, that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom would take hold, that she would turn from darkness to light and from the power of the enemy to God to receive an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Jesus, that she would experience refreshing and renewal by His mercy and washing of regeneration, be justified by faith and made an heir with Christ in the hope of eternal life, and that if she has wandered from the truth she would be turned back, which is to save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. May the Lord give you grace to keep forgiving, to speak the truth in love, to model Christ and His church faithfully, and to trust His perfect will to renew the mind and make His way beautiful and clear. We ask this in the name of Jesus, the one mediator between God and man.
