When Ray and I attended Roger and Laureen Traver‘s Mountain Top Marriage Retreat in Branson, MO, recently, one of the things they encouraged the married couples to do was to renounce spiritual strongholds, to pull strongholds down through the Word of God, and to repent of sin asking God (and others we sinned against) for forgiveness.
From the very beginning, there was the blame game. Adam blamed Eve for his sin, Eve blamed the serpent, and Satan (in the form of the serpent) just laughed, mocking and defying God.
God has the last laugh (“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.” – Psalm 2:4, ESV), and Satan will soon burn in the lake of fire, being tormented day and night forever. (Revelation 20:10)
Instead of blame and justification, we have to repent. The original Greek word for repent is the verb metanoeo, which means to change one’s mind or purpose – to change the inner man (particularly with reference to acceptance of the will of God. Source: BibleHub.com)
So often, we don’t want to repent. We’d rather justify our sin, blame someone else, and then we’re stuck spiritually. This is especially true between a husband and a wife.
In Psalm 51, David was confronted by Nathan the prophet, when he had the affair with Bathseba, another man’s wife. In this Psalm, David is asking God for mercy and forgiveness.
“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, and You only have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.” (Psalm 51:3-4)
The footnote in the New Spirit-Filled Life Bible says:
“This is quoted in Romans 3:4 to show the righteousness of God in all His ways. This does not mean that David’s sins did not offend others. It is God’s holy nature that makes sin identifiable and accountable, so sin is first and foremost against God. Even when we attempt to rationalize our “right” to sin against others, there exists no right to sin against God.“
God is holy, and we as His people are to be holy, too. (1 Peter 1:16)
The next time you want to justify your sin that does affect your spouse, remember that your sin is first and foremost against God, and you don’t have a right to sin against Him.
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