A Conversation With Jesus About Divorce Part 3

By Andrew Williams – June 21, 2022

But Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart [your condition of insensibility to the call of God] he wrote you this precept in your Law.
Mark 10:5 AMPC

Good morning fellow disciples.

Is it lawful for a man to dismiss and repudiate and divorce his wife?

Yesterday we realized that there was a stipulation in the law of Moses that allowed a man to divorce his wife. There were requirements that needed to be met for the divorce to be legal. However, if God gave you the perfect wife why would you want to divorce her?

As the conversation continues, we see Jesus giving the reason why this amendment was made to the law. God knew that the Israelites were not obedient to Him and that they would not follow Him wholeheartedly. They were hard-hearted! They would not be sensitive to the call of God on their lives.

God wanted them to be a nation of priests who would show the rest of the world how to live the Godly life, however they wanted to do things in ways that would please themselves.

Isn’t that the way that we are nowadays? We do things mostly out of selfish gain because we are sinful by nature. We don’t want to surrender and submit to the will of God for our lives, and when it comes to marriage we don’t want to do the hard work.

Because of the hardness of our hearts it’s easy to find fault, and it’s easy to want to run away from a marriage that seems to need work to maintain.

Are you insensitive to the call of God on your life? Are you divorced, considering divorcing your partner or, are you planning to get married but you reserve the right divorce your partner if things don’t go the way that you plan?

In this sinful world where the hardness of the heart of man is prevalent and it is lawful for one to divorce his or her spouse, you can find many reasons to divorce your partner.

However, as a child of God living by His Kingdom rules, your heart is no longer hardened and you can now live sensitive to the call of God on your life. Now that you are living for God you should want your marriage to follow His stipulations.

Today, let us look at our motives for wanting to be married, for wanting to remain married, or for wanting to divorce our partner. Let us examine ourselves and see if we are living in right standing with God. Let us examine ourselves to see if we are surrendered and submitted to the will of God for our lives and our marriages.

As we examine ourselves may we find where we have strayed from the will of God for our marriages, confess them to the Lord and to our partner, repent and, begin to live the way that God requires.

Prayer: Father God, soften my heart! Make me sensitive to the call that You have placed on my life. For the marriage that You have for me, be it past, present or future, help me and my spouse to live fully surrendered and submitted to Your will so that our marriage will be pleasing to You. Amen