Grace in Action

Proverbs 5:15-23

“Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.  Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?  Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.  Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.  Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.  Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?  For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths.  The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.  He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.”

I’m seventy-six years of age and have been married to one lady for 52 years, she is the love of my life, but as a young man, I was very foolish, with no concept of love.  I married my bride when she was only 18, and I was 23 and without a relationship with the Lord.  I had no idea what love was but it came after I came into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  My flesh had learned how to get its needs met outside of Christ, and at the time I was not teachable because I took the role of teacher when but I was the one that needed to be taught.  I broke my vows to God and man to honor my bride.

That is the bad news, but she allowed God’s grace to work in her and forgive me, and today I am intoxicated by her love.  Both God and my wife extended Grace to me, and for over 40 years we have worked to build a home where Christ is center stage.  If you make a mistake ask for forgiveness, and earn your wife’s trust and seek, study and apply the word of God in your life.

Remember and put to memory verse 31: “For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice