Nothing is too hard for God

Judges 11; Jeremiah 24; Mark 10; Acts 15

For me, life with Christ began when I was in a very low place. For a long time I thought I could do almost anything but when my marriage fell apart, the feelings of failure brought me to my knees. Even though the crimes against our relationship were not mine, I felt if I’d been a better wife, my husband would have been a better husband. In that frame of mind and helplessness, Jesus came to me.

Lifted out of despair did not erase all sense of failure. After the divorce and after I remarried, God showed me the problem. First, divorce makes both parties in the wrong. The Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce and after He answered them, the disciples asked Him again about this matter. And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:10–12) It took a long time for me to admit that I had sinned against God by giving my first husband the boot and remarrying.

However, the question asked by the Pharisees unearthed a deeper issue. Jesus told them that marriages fail because people, me included, are stubborn and have hard hearts.

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mark 10:2–9)

I was a new Christian when God showed me that my remarriage was sinful. I’d been a Christian for several years when He showed me that my heart was hard. What was I supposed to do? There was no turning back, no solution, at least none at a human level.

Some people felt that what I had done was unforgiveable, at least in the sense of being included as an equal. The local church did not approve of me becoming a member, but the pastor rebuked those who opposed me. I was baptized but that same congregation felt I could not serve in any way. Years later, I was nominated to lead a national committee in another denomination but was rejected because I had been divorced.

I share this, not because I feel vindictive. For most of this and because I’d no knowledge of how ‘church’ worked or what the Bible said, I accepted it as ‘normal.’ Only later did God lift this off me. He did it by showing me that no matter what I had done and no matter what anyone has done; “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) 

This was a big help, yet at times I still felt that I was a reject. Then God gave me this:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, italics mine)

The truth of the matter is that sinners cannot be in the kingdom of God UNLESS they have been washed, sanctified and justified by Jesus Christ — saved and made new creations by His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. No one is left out. The only sin that keeps anyone from the kingdom is the sin of stubborn rejection of what God says and does. Saying NO is deadly. Saying YES changes everything.

APPLY: I didn’t want to write about this today, but it is good to be reminded that God set me apart for Himself, washed away my sin and guilt, and looks on me as just — all because of the sacrifice Jesus made by dying for my hard-hearted sinfulness and giving me His new life, great peace and incredible joy. Thank You!