His, Hers, and Ours

"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said unto them, Have you not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wive and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matthew 19:3-6)

On a farm in Kansas, a man had a serious heart attack. His coworkers carried him to the house to wait for the ambulance. His wife refused to allow them to bring him in, demanding that they take him to the barn and bathe him first. The man nearly died as a result.

The coworkers were upset and followed up after the ambulance arrived. They learned that the wife refused to allow the man to enter her house until he had taken a shower and changed clothes. After all it was her house, and she didn't want to have to clean up after him.

How many times have you heard similar possessive comments by those you know. A man or woman who speaks of their money and refuses to use theirs to help pay bills. The wife who doesn't allow her husband to have his friends in the home, or the husband who refuses to allow his wife to do the shopping all fail to live in accord with the description of marriage Jesus has given.

The term one flesh is the same as saying both your arms are one flesh. Most people use one hand to do certain things, and the other for others. For example, the right may be used to write, and the left holds the paper still. The right may be used for throwing and the left for catching.

Such specialization makes the body more adept at many jobs. Fortunately, the body doesn't separate itself. It continues to function as a unit. Rarely does a person leavew one hand outside while the other goes into the house. What belongs to one belongs to the other.

People rarely chop one hand off or put out one eye deliberately, simply because the hand or eye does not have any right to what the other hand has.

A marriage based on God's standard connot focus on individual desires to the exclusion of those of the other person. Such a focus definitely reveals an ungodly selfishness. It also indicates a rejection of God's plan. The house belongs to both of them. The money and otherbelongings also belong to both.

Just as chopping a hand off to prevent it sharing the other hands belongings would hurt the body, rejection of the mate hurts the one doing the rejection. As Ephesians 5:28 tells us, "... He that loveth his wife loveth himself." Verse 33 commands "Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

That selfishness is clearly in direct disobedience to God, and as such, is sin. It is a major factor in many marriage problems, frequently resulting in divorce. As Matthew tells us, divorce is deliberately destroying what God has done. Divorce is not pleasing to God.