March 2, 2010

Number 9

VIEWPOINT

It’s called “emotional adultery” — an intimacy with the opposite sex outside of marriage. It’s really an unfaithfulness of the heart.  When two people begin talking of intimate struggles, doubts or feelings, they may be sharing their souls in a way that God intended exclusively for the marriage relationship.  Emotional adultery is friendship with the opposite sex that has progressed too far.

Author Dennis Rainey lists several signs of a problem:

•      You have a need you feel your mate isn’t meeting — a need for attention, approval, or affection.

•      You find it easier to unwind with someone other than your spouse by dissecting the day’s difficulties over lunch, coffee, a ride home . . . or through E-mail correspondence.

•      You begin to talk about problems you’re having with your spouse.

•      You rationalize the “rightness” of this relationship by saying that surely it must be God’s will to talk openly and honestly with a fellow Christian.

•      You look forward to being with this person.

•      You wonder what you’d do if you didn’t have this friend to talk with.

•      You hide the relationship from your mate.

How do we protect ourselves to keep this from occurring?

Rainey continues, “Know your boundaries.”  Put fences around your heart to protect sacred ground, reserved only for your spouse.  Husband and wife must be careful to share the deepest feelings, needs, and difficulties only with each other.

I look forward to seeing you Sunday with a Bible, a smile, and a positive word! RA

Great Questions of the Bible

THE LORD GOD called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” . . .  Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” (Genesis 3:9, 13)

THEN THE LORD SAID to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”(Genesis 4:9)

IS THERE NO BALM in Gilead? Is there no physician there?  Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? (Jeremiah 8:22)

WHERE CAN I GO from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? (Psalm 139:7)

WHEN I LOOK at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3, 4)

TO WHOM then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high and see:  Who created these? (Isaiah 40:25-26)

WITH WHAT shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? . . . He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6, 8)

JESUS . . . asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” . . . He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27, 29)

THEN SOMEONE CAME to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Mathew 19:16)

FOR WHAT will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? (Mark 8:36-37)

WHAT then are we to say?  Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? . . . How can we who died to sin go on living in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:1-3)

WHO WILL SEPARATE US from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Romans 8:35)

Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman