The Lord—he is God!

I had to call down fire from heaven after these last few days -in response to a satanic onslaught against me. I tried everything: forgiveness, humility, accepting blame and painful honesty but I couldn’t drive my demons off who were once again aiming to torment me with my past sins and misery.  I realized that I had to do as Elijah did when he was outnumbered by four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. 

I got up the nerve to pray something bold like, “Lord Jesus show these tricksters (my tormenting demons) that you are God!”  Right then I felt their oppression lift off from me and I knew that God had given me another victory.

This is an example of knowing whom to ask, what to ask for and why. I love this passage about the God whom I serve that's found in 1 Kings 18:38-39 “Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.  When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Reconciling Love in Marriage

You hurt your spouse deeply by (________________) fill in the blank or you hurt each other. Is this the end of the marriage or is there hope? Yes, there is hope because God can fix it if you are humble enough and honest enough. The first step is to stop the behavior. The next step is to face reality and honestly admit to yourself and to God your part in whatever hurting thing that took place. After this breakthrough you will need to have strong faith because now you must forgive your spouse's part in whatever happened between you.  

You must say the words, "I forgive you!" Then begin treating him or her as if they had never sinned against you. I’m not talking about being in denial nor about simply forgetting what happened. I’m talking about what I call active forgiveness. The making of a firm decision to treat your spouse as innocent of wrongdoing, the granting of a full pardon to your spouse. Keep repeating this active form of forgiveness every day until the hurt you feel is gone from your hearts. This could take awhile, but don’t quit  just minutes before this miracle happens for you.

Part of the healing process you’ll experience is the softening of your hearts which allows the stirrings of love to begin again or should I say to begin anew. This will be a beautiful and a divine thing. Then you will experience and understand what God means in  
1 Peter 4:8  where he says, “Love covers over a multitude of sins." 

Finally, learn to love God’s way as in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. In this passage God gives us an amazing blueprint for how to love your spouse. Own this passage of the bible. Substitute your name in all of the place where the words, 'love' and 'it' appear then imitate those actions. 

It is my hope and my prayer that God will bless your marriage with the incredible reconciliation that he has blessed mine with. God went a step further than to just restore our relationship. He gave us an even better relationship and a greater love than we had before. For these gifts, we will forever be grateful.