Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer reflects a heart that wants to obey God in a painful place, and that desire to forgive while still calling sin what God calls it is right before Him.
Scripture constantly presses the need for a forgiving spirit. Jesus taught us to pray forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us, and He modeled it on the cross when He said Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Stephen followed that same pattern. You are right to verbally release your wife from the debt she owes you, not counting it against her, as God in Christ did not count our sins against us. That forgiveness is how we show we have understood how much we have been forgiven, to be kind and tenderhearted and forgiving toward one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. Forgiveness however does not mean calling evil good or asking God to bless what He calls sin. It opens the door for grace to work toward repentance.
That repentance is essential. Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery and then said go and sin no more. Luke records that repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be preached in His name. Without holiness no one will see the Lord, and the works of the flesh including sexual immorality and adultery are plainly said to keep those who practice them without repentance from inheriting the kingdom of God. God cannot be mocked. What is needed is not only sorrow but a turning back to God that brings refreshing and renewal, the washing of regeneration and a new heart. God promises to take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh and to put His law within us, and Jesus said we must be born again to see or enter the kingdom. That is why your prayer for light to shine in darkness is so fitting, that the god of this world would no longer blind the mind, but the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ would shine in the heart.
God's design for marriage helps clarify your path. From the beginning He made them male and female, and for this cause a man leaves father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh. What God has joined together He intends to be a lifelong complement, where the two become one complete whole. Within that covenant sexual intimacy is holy and proper, given for mutual love and benevolence. The husband does not have authority over his own body alone, nor the wife over hers alone, but each belongs to the other, to satisfy and care for one another and not to withhold except by mutual consent for a time. When that oneness is broken by adultery, it tears at the very purpose of marriage.
Because of the hardness of hearts Moses permitted a writing of divorcement, but Jesus brought us back to the divine ideal. He taught that whoever puts away his wife except for sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery and whoever marries her commits adultery. That exception shows how seriously God views the breaking of the covenant, yet it is a permission not a command. Paul adds that if you are bound to a wife do not seek to be loosed, and if you are loosed do not seek a wife, living in light of how short the time is. He also says the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies she is free to marry whom she will, only in the Lord, and that we are not to be unequally yoked. He reminds us that God has called us to peace, not to warfare in the home, and we do not know whether we as a believing spouse may be the means by which God draws our partner to salvation.
You have rightly noted those allowances in Matthew 5 and 19 and in 1 Corinthians 7, yet you are asking for mercy and for her salvation rather than for an open door to leave. That is Christlike. God desires that none perish but that all come to repentance, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that they turn and live, and He desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. James says if someone wanders from the truth and another turns him back, it is counted as saving a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins. So to pray, to fast as a help to focused prayer, to seek wisdom generously as James 1 promises, and to ask for love to abound in knowledge and discernment, is good. Pray it as Jesus prayed in the garden, nevertheless not my will but Yours be done, trusting the wisdom of the Father.
Continue to walk in love and in truth. Let your life be a living letter that displays the love of Christ. Keep praying that she and those close to her would be kept from evil and from temptation, sanctified by the truth of God's word, and that the word would not only be heard but done. Let no one deceive her, but pray that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom would take root, and that she would come to know Him in truth through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. As you do, keep your own heart guarded, forgiving, and steadfast, leaving the outcome in God's hands while you remain faithful to your covenant as long as God gives you strength to do so.
Scripture constantly presses the need for a forgiving spirit. Jesus taught us to pray forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us, and He modeled it on the cross when He said Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Stephen followed that same pattern. You are right to verbally release your wife from the debt she owes you, not counting it against her, as God in Christ did not count our sins against us. That forgiveness is how we show we have understood how much we have been forgiven, to be kind and tenderhearted and forgiving toward one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. Forgiveness however does not mean calling evil good or asking God to bless what He calls sin. It opens the door for grace to work toward repentance.
That repentance is essential. Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery and then said go and sin no more. Luke records that repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be preached in His name. Without holiness no one will see the Lord, and the works of the flesh including sexual immorality and adultery are plainly said to keep those who practice them without repentance from inheriting the kingdom of God. God cannot be mocked. What is needed is not only sorrow but a turning back to God that brings refreshing and renewal, the washing of regeneration and a new heart. God promises to take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh and to put His law within us, and Jesus said we must be born again to see or enter the kingdom. That is why your prayer for light to shine in darkness is so fitting, that the god of this world would no longer blind the mind, but the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ would shine in the heart.
God's design for marriage helps clarify your path. From the beginning He made them male and female, and for this cause a man leaves father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh. What God has joined together He intends to be a lifelong complement, where the two become one complete whole. Within that covenant sexual intimacy is holy and proper, given for mutual love and benevolence. The husband does not have authority over his own body alone, nor the wife over hers alone, but each belongs to the other, to satisfy and care for one another and not to withhold except by mutual consent for a time. When that oneness is broken by adultery, it tears at the very purpose of marriage.
Because of the hardness of hearts Moses permitted a writing of divorcement, but Jesus brought us back to the divine ideal. He taught that whoever puts away his wife except for sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery and whoever marries her commits adultery. That exception shows how seriously God views the breaking of the covenant, yet it is a permission not a command. Paul adds that if you are bound to a wife do not seek to be loosed, and if you are loosed do not seek a wife, living in light of how short the time is. He also says the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies she is free to marry whom she will, only in the Lord, and that we are not to be unequally yoked. He reminds us that God has called us to peace, not to warfare in the home, and we do not know whether we as a believing spouse may be the means by which God draws our partner to salvation.
You have rightly noted those allowances in Matthew 5 and 19 and in 1 Corinthians 7, yet you are asking for mercy and for her salvation rather than for an open door to leave. That is Christlike. God desires that none perish but that all come to repentance, He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that they turn and live, and He desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. James says if someone wanders from the truth and another turns him back, it is counted as saving a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins. So to pray, to fast as a help to focused prayer, to seek wisdom generously as James 1 promises, and to ask for love to abound in knowledge and discernment, is good. Pray it as Jesus prayed in the garden, nevertheless not my will but Yours be done, trusting the wisdom of the Father.
Continue to walk in love and in truth. Let your life be a living letter that displays the love of Christ. Keep praying that she and those close to her would be kept from evil and from temptation, sanctified by the truth of God's word, and that the word would not only be heard but done. Let no one deceive her, but pray that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom would take root, and that she would come to know Him in truth through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. As you do, keep your own heart guarded, forgiving, and steadfast, leaving the outcome in God's hands while you remain faithful to your covenant as long as God gives you strength to do so.
