“Save the Man, Save The Fam!”

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said to those of old,^[c] ‘You shall not commit adultery.’^[d] 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell..

³¹ “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’³² But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality^[e] causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. Matthew 5

They say that one of the hardest topics to preach on today is divorce.  Usually it is not divorce itself that is the issue, but whether a divorced person can remarry. Almost all polls show that the national average for divorce among Christians is almost identical to that of non-Christians.  About thirty-three percent of Christian marriages end up in divorce. Christian leaders must be faithful to teach what the Bible instructs about divorce; however, I suggest that we are not spending nearly enough time trying to prevent divorce from happening in the first place. The church today does not properly disciple believers. Discipleship is instructing and encouraging people to live out the teachings of Jesus. If the church turned its focus back to making disciples, the divorce rate among Christians would drop significantly.

When I graduated from Bible College, the preacher who gave the closing sermon was a pastor from New Orleans that had done a restorative work in the city by holding to a slogan “Save the man, save the fam!” The idea was if you get the man to step up and be a disciple, the family has a much better shot at making it. One area that men can step up in discipleship is in the area of lust. If divorce is one of the harder topics to talk about in church, lust is the one almost never talked about. Make no mistake about it, lust is a killer. You may dismiss how important your thought life is, but Jesus doesn’t. He says that it would be better to gouge our eyes out than to do what amounts to adultery in the heart. Lust at the very least leads to dissatisfaction with our wives. It can also lead to pornography addiction and/or adultery, both of which often  lead to the end of a marriage.   Men take your thoughts captive, honor your wives, and help save your marriage.