Tuesday, October 27, 2015

3H: 7th Commandment

You shall not commit adultery.  It mostly means that if you follow the God who revealed himself to Moses and Abraham and then revealed himself ultimately in Jesus Christ, then you will not have a sexual relationship with somebody that you are not married to.  As a woman, I am only allowed to have sex with my husband.  Before I married him, I was allowed sex with no one.

But adultery goes deeper than that.  Jesus said in Matthew 5 that I only think sexual thoughts about anybody other than Tim, then that is the same as committing adultery.  Long before I knew Tim, I had those thoughts.  I am an adulteress on the inside.  It is the same as being an adulteress on the outside.

How does this tie in to co-dependency?  How do love affairs start?  If I was to try to help another person with her marriage or child-raising and it was destroying my relationship with Tim, would that not be an emotional affair?  I believe so.  I remember when I was a teenager and AOL instant messenger was still the thing, a married man would sometimes confide in me about his struggling marriage.  I had a penpal relationship with him before he met his wife at the time and married her, but I was too young to realize, that that is kind of an emotional affair.  Sure I want to help him and give him advice and pray for him, but to let a married man confide in me about his personal life is a kind of affair.

Women especially need to be careful when they try to help people, whether men or women, outside of their family.  God calls us to be witnesses and to love our neighbors, but we also must love God first and our husbands second.  I love other people, but I cannot help them in such a way that it would endanger my relationship with Tim or with God.  It's just something to think about.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

3H: 6th commandment

The sixth commandment is to not commit murder. 

The Westminster Shorter catechism is best to define this. 

Question 69
Q: What is forbidden in the sixth commandment? 
A: The sixth commandment forbiddeth the taking away of our own life,1 or the life of our neighbour unjustly,2 or whatsoever tendeth thereunto.3  

Question 68
Q: What is required in the sixth commandment? 
A: The sixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life,1 and the life of others.2 

How can this commandment apply to a codependent, someone who wants to fix everything and everybody?

I know I have not taken anyone's life.  I know according to Jesus, simply hating someone is the same as murder, and I have done that.  I have had anger toward people.

I suppose the best example of this is when you want to protect someone, that you would do anything to destroy whoever harms that someone.  Do I want to protect all the unborn children snuffed out in abortion legally every second in this country?  Yes.  However, I also oppose someone bombing abortion clinics or trying to assassinate our blood-thirsty president.

But I also will not hesitate to email YouTube if they run some ad from Planned Parenthood or other websites who have Hillary campaign ads.  I may sound like a fundamentalist, and I am one, but you don't need religion to know that killing unborn children is at least questionable when there are so many other and better options.

Did I support the execution of Saddam Hussein?  Yes.  I also support capital punishment.  Is that inconsistent?  I don't think so.  Was I dancing in the street when it happened?  No.  All death is horrible.  Especially for some fellow human created in God's image.  But I believe if someone takes a life then his life should be taken to prevent further murders.  And Genesis 9 practically commands it.  If you shed man's blood, by man shall your blood be shed.  But I am also grateful for God's mercy that he can save the souls of even those people and even their current lives.  I also believe that one day my Redeemer will come and bring all justice to fruition.  He's already done that through Jesus Christ's death on the cross.  He will do that for those who have not received that gracious gift and still insist on atoning for their own mistakes even though that is impossible for anyone other than Christ.  The cross was enough.

But back to my point.  Have I murdered in my heart recently?  Am I too willing to quickly sever relations with someone over one disagreement?  Is distancing myself from someone for fear of trying to be codependent the same thing?  I don't know.  If someone answers, I will be glad for it.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

3H: Honoring my Father

In CR, I got a blue chip in trying to honor my earthly father.  I think I can probably boil all my problems to not honoring my Dad properly and not forgiving his shortcomings.  This is not written to try to fix my Dad.  It's to fix me.  It's also to acknowledge that my Dad is human, but he raised me to be a Christian, still provides the roof over my head, paid for my vacation back in July/August, usually pays for my prescriptions, will give money if I ask him.

He's human, but he does care for me, my brother, and my husband.  Any flaw I see in him, I certainly see in myself.

So, yeah, I need to honor my dad and forgive him his flaws.  I find that whenever I have made a resolution to do so, it has stuck for the most part.  I have relapsed.  But the thing is, I need rely on God's grace poured out through Jesus to heal my sins.  Not a resolution that I made.  Praise God, he uses resolutions, too, but the true answers are not through meeting God halfway; if we had to do that we'd never make the first step.  No, the Holy Spirit has to come all the way, pick me up, and walk me to my goal.  The goal is not me honoring Dad.  It's His Glory alone.