Erin Thiele is a wife and mother of four boys, Dallas, Axel, Easton, and Cooper, and three girls, Tyler, Tara, and Macy. Her stand for marriage was founded on the Rock of God’s Word during her struggle to restore her own marriage; Erin’s husband left her for another woman and eventually divorced her. Two years later her husband returned and their marriage was miraculously restored!
Restore Ministries began when Erin searched every denomination in her area but was unable to find the help that she needed. How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage was written to help those women the Lord sent to her. A Wise Women was written as the Lord led her to prepare her home for her husband’s return. Five years later How God Will Restore Your Marriage: There’s Healing after Broken Vows and A Wise Man were written for men. This couple’s experience is a powerful testimony to God’s promises and His faithfulness.
If you have access to the Internet, be sure to visit Restore Ministries Encouraging Women website at: RMIEW.com. On our website you’ll be able to read powerful testimonies of restored marriages, join our Restoration Fellowship, and find out more about our other resources such as a Wise Woman Bible Studies and other Online Courses and in our bookstore EncouragingBookstore.com
If you would like to be trained how to minister, please visit our website to find out more about RMIOU “Restore Ministries International Online University” RMIOU.com
The Testimony of How God
Restored Our Marriage
by Dan Thiele
Dan would like to share the testimony of the restoration of our marriage since the Bible says in Revelation 12:10-11, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.”
Our marriage was dead but by His shed blood it was made alive. It is our hope and prayer that our testimony will help you or someone you know to overcome the evil one. We give God all the glory for what He has done in our lives.
In January of 1989, I left Erin for another woman. However, the Lord gave Erin the heart and endurance to believe God could restore our marriage. It was during this fiery trial that Erin became a new woman. She studied the Bible concerning marriage and began to apply the principles in her life. She never told me, I could just see it.
Like the three youths who were thrown into the fiery furnace, Erin too became “loosed” of things in her life that had her “bound.” She also found herself walking with another, her precious Lord. (See Daniel 3:25.)
Everyone, even the most respected pastors in our city, told Erin that it was hopeless to fight against my desire to leave her and be with another woman. But Erin found in God’s Word that “nothing is impossible with God”! (Luke 1:37) It was during this time that she founded Restore Ministries to help other women who also wanted their marriages restored.
That’s when Erin began her ministry by simply sharing with each of them the Scriptures the Lord had shown her. Soon there were too many women to help individually, so she began to type out the Bible references on an old typewriter her mom gave her. Some of the women who came to her meetings had never held a Bible in their hands, so Erin began to type out entire verses and then make copies to minister to these hurting and abandoned women.
However, the more Erin helped other women, the worse her situation became. Her fiery furnace was turned up when I actually divorced her in October of 1990 mainly because the other woman paid for it. However, even after this I saw she had such a peace, the peace she needed to not fight or contest the divorce, but to trust in her Lord. Undaunted, Erin continued to minister to other women by sharing more of the Word of God. She later told me that she promised the Lord that if He would restore her marriage to the man she loved, me, she would devote her entire life to helping women in marriage crises. He did and she did.
Our marriage was miraculously restored a large part due to Erin’s obedience to not obtain an attorney. God delivered me from my mistake (that I actually immediately regretted once it was final) when it was discovered that even though the judge had granted the divorce on October 30, the papers that had been filed by my attorney had to be overturned due to an error in the paperwork! This, to me, was the first sign from God that He would “somehow” deliver me from the cords that had me bound to the adulteress. Had Erin had an attorney, or if she had fought me, the divorce would not have been overturned and I would never have come back.
Erin “hoped against all hope” (one of her favorite scriptures Rom. 4:18) and received her miracle on January 29, 1991 at 11:10 p.m. when I finally returned home to Erin and our four children. This was after my adultery, and after I divorced her, just a little over two years after I left her and more than a year after she began to minister to other women.
The Beginning of Restore Ministries International
Over the next five years, the Lord gave us both the desires of our hearts and blessed us with three more “restoration” babies as Erin continued to minister to other women. In 1996 the first version of How God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage was published locally and sent around the world. This book was made up of key chapters taken out of A Wise Woman Builds Her House: By A FOOL Who Tore Hers Down with Her Own Hands that Erin put together. These were simply the lessons she wrote for her Restoration Fellowship that began when I was gone and continued every week for years after I came back home.
That’s when thousands of requests for her book started coming in to our ministry Restore Ministries International and our publishers from all over the U.S. and from abroad.
Many books were sent to prisons all over the U.S. Men wrote saying they were so blessed and began experiencing restored marriages after reading the restoration book for women! That’s when Erin was led to write a version for men. Later she wrote a manual for men, A Wise Man Builds upon a Rock: By A FOOL Who Built on Sinking Sand to accompany the men’s restoration book.
Today, through RMI "Restore Ministries International" we now minister to men and women primarily over the Internet and through books, and videos. In 2005 RMI was divided into two ministries: Encouraging Women and Encouraging Men.
I have seen in my life, and in so many people we have helped, that God is more than able to heal and save any marriage! I encourage you to read, reread and read over again the books to learn the truth that will save your marriage and also all the testimonies to build your faith so you too will BELIEVE the Lord’s promises about restoring your marriage!
When you read the testimonies mark all the “seemingly” impossible situations that are similar to yours; but please, don’t focus on how your situation is different. Of course it is because God is looking, actually “roaming to and fro throughout the WHOLE earth, looking for those whose hearts are completely His. To STRONGLY support you” (2 Chronicles 16:9) to give you a testimony that is different, unique and “seemingly” impossible if it weren’t for GOD to help someone else.
Our first FAITH BUILDING By the Word of Their Testimony book has both first person and third person testimonies. Before we had a place to send in Praise Reports to our website, we received restored marriage testimonies through many different sources. All of us love to hear it right from the person’s own lips, so now we have first person testimonies in most of our other testimonies books. Whether in first or third person, all these testimonies give “glory to God”!
Erin told me that what got her through the divorce I filed against her (because of the fool I was) that her friend Sue (whom I once met), Sue’s husband told Erin, “If you are loving your husband like Sue loved me, and you are following all same things that Sue did with me—your marriage will be restored too. And one more thing, even if he says he doesn’t love you, he does.”
Let me say the same thing to each of you. If you follow what Erin teaches in her books and take to heart what she says in her videos, like letting your husband go (because that got my attention). And if you obtain the same quiet and submissiveness that I saw Erin had (and that I have seen in so many women who came to our ministry that now have a restored marriage). Then there is no doubt that your husband will come home too. And if he told you he doesn’t love you no matter what he says, he does. Just follow the Lord and fall in love with Him too and don’t get in the way of what God is doing. It took a lot for me to see the mistakes I made and the same is true for your husband.
One last thing before I end. Erin never heard of one marriage that was restored before she helped Sue and saw hers restored. Yet we get so many women who have all the hundreds of restored marriage testimonies from our books and posted on our site. And they have all the things Erin (and Sue) had to search for in their bibles (that are now in her books, videos and in our online lessons) and they still complain that their situations are too difficult. I don’t know how Erin did it, but I know that if you want what God wants to give you (and save your husband from where he’s headed) then do it God’s way by faith.
I never gave Erin a hint I would ever come back, but she looked to the Lord and became radiant.
~ Dan
"They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed”—Psalm 34:5
Erin has written other books with her distinctive style of using the Scriptures to minister to the brokenhearted and the spiritual captives. “He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions” (Ps. 107:20). You will find all of her books on one of the RMI websites:
Erin's Testimony was only the first of countless Restored Marriage Testimonies that we continue to publish in a series of By the Word of Their Testimony.
That continues to flow—as we continue to post Restored Marriage on our English blog each Saturday and in several other languages who have their own.
"For nothing will be impossible with God." Luke 1:37
Erin would have written and responded to your email herself but when these accusations were first thrown at her, she did as she always does, she stopped to get alone with the Lord and ask Him how she should respond.
James 1:5–8—
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Immediately these promises came to her mind:
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Prov. 15:1).
“The beginning of strife is like letting out of water, so abandon the quarrel before it breaks out” (Prov. 17:14).
“Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise . . .” (Prov. 17:28).
So she answered her accusers with a gentle answer but it was clear they were not seeking the truth but to stir up problems and spread lies in order to divide and destroy.
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Erin was heartbroken that women claiming to be ministers would hurt innocent women like you.
John 10:13 NKJV
“The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.
"I am the good Shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps…and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” 1Pet. 2:21-23.
As it says in A Wise Woman "On the Rock"
Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord. “And he spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men…'What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble, even the burned ones?… Even what they are building —if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!’ ” Nehemiah 4:2. Expect ridicule and mocking, even lies spread about you, as you begin to rebuild your house. Read the entire fourth chapter of Nehemiah for motivation and preparation.
As more and more and more women began to believe the lies, Erin sought God's wisdom again when He brought her to this verse again from Nehemiah 6:3:
"I knew they were scheming to hurt me so I sent messengers back with this: “I’m doing a great work; I can’t come down. Why should the work come to a standstill just so I can come down to see you?”
When she chose to remain quiet and follow His example, pouring her time and effort into the women who had sought Him themselves, wanted to know the truth so they could be set free, and understood that the peace they felt finding Hope At Last.
When we choose to believe a lie or myth, which is defined as a falsehood, we keep ourselves from our abundant life. Our family, friends, the other women or husband may have planted the lie, but when we continue to believe it, we are the one doing the watering that keeps the lie alive.
Remaining Quiet
There are also other dangers in listening to voices other than God’s voice. We know from Scripture that Saul lost his crown by listening to the voices of the people, when they encouraged him to disobey God (read 1 Samuel 15:24). The young prophet lost even more by losing his life when he listened to the voice of the old prophet who invited him to dine with him instead of doing what God had told him (read 1 Kings 13:11-32).
Where would Jerusalem be if Nehemiah had succumbed to the mocking and had listened to the voices of the church leaders who wanted him to stop the rebuilding efforts of the walls and to come down to talk to them about it? (Again read Nehemiah 6:1-9).
All of us need to learn to listen to and obey God’s voice above anyone else’s, including our own. This begins with our day-to-day living and not just for the important decisions we make. And what will continue complicating our ability of hearing and obeying God’s voice are all the opinions or rumors or lies that we are hearing from everyone around us. People used by the enemy to steal our hope and our future.
Our ministry and Erin have instead continued to focus on doing the last thing that Jesus said before He left this earth.
Mark 16:15 NLT “And then He told them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.’” GWT Then Jesus said to them, "So wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News.
2 Corinthians 5:18— "And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
1 John 4:4—“You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”
John 16:33—“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Choose Life
The truth is, you found hope and a purpose when God led you here. Being here has helped you draw closer to God, to allow Him to transform you. You are here to discover and remain in “the peace that surpasses all understanding.” You are here to learn how to navigate your current marriage struggles, using His Word, His promises, His principles. The enemy comes only to lie, steal and destroy. God did not lead you here to follow Erin, but to follow God.
Again as it says in the RYM book…
This is the time to choose. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days . . .” (Deut. 30:19–20).
Dear sweet sister in Christ Jesus, God can and will restore your marriage: you have His Word on it. “And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done . . . but even if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea, ”it shall happen’” (Matt. 21:21).
Since you are here, we assume that you are in a crisis in your life because of your marriage. Has your husband left you? Have you left or asked your husband to leave? Perhaps you have [come here] before either of you has taken this drastic step of leaving. Even if divorce has been spoken of during an argument, divorce papers have been filed, or a divorce has gone through, you must believe that “all things [can] work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” (see Rom. 8:28).
As you go through the personal trials in your troubled marriage, if you really want things to work out for good, you must first love God and really want His purpose for your life.
Right now His purpose is for you to draw closer to Him, to let Him transform you more closely into His image. And take courage, for God has said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). God has not left your side: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me” (Ps. 23:4 KJV).
Only afterward will you shine forth as gold. “In this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold (which is perishable) even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory and honor” (1 Pet. 1:6–7).
The most important thing for you to do right now is “Be still and know that I am God . . .” (Ps. 46:10). Then follow God’s way. Make sure that everything that you do or say follows the Scriptures; be sure that it follows the Bible consistently.
The rumors and the lies have been sent to discourage you, to stop your faith is God’s ability to restore your marriage. Restored marriages are happening every day. Only a fraction of testimonies submitted are posted each week on our blog or what have been chosen to be published in our books.
Why throw that all that you've gained away on lies and rumors? Let peace be your umpire.
“And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always].” Colossians 3:15 AMP
Isaiah 30:18—“Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”
We hope you will remain in perfect peace and receive all He wants to give you. If you do choose to leave, we hope you will discover somewhere you can be spiritually fed and encouraged. We hope that you will put your faith in Him.
“In hope against hope he [Abraham] believed…Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; YET, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:18-21). Abraham didn’t ignore the impossibility of his having a son with his deadening body and Sarah’s dead womb; he didn’t pretend, but instead, it says he “contemplated” this fact, but then he determined to compare the facts to God’s promises, and His ability to perform what He promised!!
We hope and trust His plans are to do that for you!
God’s purpose is not to discourage you, but to encourage you. You came here and found hope. The email you received discouraged you. That's because, “The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.” "The hired hand runs because he works only for wages and does not care for the sheep." John 10:13
John 10:10-42—"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them"—which is what is happening now to you.
The hireling "flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
Acts 20:24—"But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God."
Philippians 1:6—“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."
Once again as it says in the RYM book…
This is the time to choose. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days . . .” (Deuteronomy 30:19–20).
We hope and pray you will Choose Life.
And if you do leave, leave holding the hand of your First Love.
Your First Love
But I have this against you,
that you have left your first love.
—Revelation 2:4
Have you left your first love? Who is your first love? Was your husband your first love? Is your baby or your children first in your life, above your husband and the Lord? Has your career been first? Who is really first in your life? “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37). The Scripture in Revelation says: “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4).
What is our Lord saying to us? He is saying that any time we put someone or something ahead of our love for or our relationship with Him, then we are not worthy of His Love.
Seek first. You are to put Him first in your priorities, first in your day and first in your heart. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).
Dirty rags. Ask yourself these questions: Do the things I put first have eternal value? Will what I do today help to increase His kingdom? Am I seeking after His righteousness or trying to muster up my own righteousness? Remember, our righteousness is like dirty rags! (See Isa. 64:6.)
What happens when you put someone ahead of the Lord? What does He do to draw you back to Him? If you have put your husband ahead of the Lord, then it was the Lord who has taken your husband from you. “You have [God has] removed my acquaintances far from me; You have [God has] made me an object of loathing to them. You have [God has] removed lover and friend far from me; my acquaintances are in darkness” (Ps. 88:8, 18). Don’t make marriage restoration first in your life; you must make the Lord first in your life!
Does this mean that we are not to care about what our husbands want and need? Are we to have the attitude that “We serve the Lord, not you”? God teaches us a perfect balance in His Word. “Wives, be subject unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:22). “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as is fitting to the Lord” (Col. 3:18). When we are subject to our husbands, we’re doing it for the Lord! Even, and especially, if we feel that our husbands don’t deserve the honor we show them, we can rest knowing we submit graciously to our husbands for the Lord who deserves our submission to Him and to His Word!
Word of God may not be blasphemed. The Lord even gives us a warning that not obeying or not honoring our husbands will dishonor, even blaspheme, the Lord and His Word: “. . . being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored” (Titus 2:5). In the KJV, it reads, “. . . being subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.”
Pleasing to the Lord. We are to seek to please the Lord, rather than trying to please our husbands. Then the Lord will cause us to have favor with our husbands. “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7). “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Prov. 31:30). “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).
Obedience Rather than Sacrifice
To obey is better than sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you . . .” (1 Sam.15:22–23). “To do righteousness and justice is desired by the Lord rather than sacrifice” (Prov. 21:3).
Your outward appearance. Even if your outward appearance deceives others into thinking you’re submissive, God knows your heart! “Do not look at his appearance . . . because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). My husband and everyone else thought I was an extremely submissive wife. I was even deceived. God knew that my being abandoned was what I needed. (For more encouragement in this area, listen or watch the “Esther” video available through our ministry office.)
There is a story of a little boy whose father continued to ask him to “sit down.” Finally, the little boy did sit down and the father smiled. The boy quickly exclaimed, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but on the inside—I’m standing up!” Many times we are standing up on the inside. Many times after you do the right thing and go along with your husband’s plan, you exclaim, “But I don’t agree!” or your attitude tells him that you don’t. Have you done this? Has this been your type of “mock” submission to your husband?
Also you will reap what you have sown. If you were a rebel with your parents before you were married, you are probably still a rebel with your husband. To top it off, you married a rebel. Now your husband has become a greater rebel since you married, just like you have. He now rebels against all sound wisdom and has even taken the rebellion as far as to rebel against his commitment to be faithful to you!
Nothing is impossible. “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife” (1 Cor. 7:14). Yes, it is true. Obey now and watch as the Lord sanctifies your husband. Does this seem strange? Does it seem impossible, because he is so bad? It’s because you are one flesh: “Consequently they are no longer two but one flesh” (Matt. 19:6). “Neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (1 Cor. 11:11).
Can only half a body go one way and the other half go the other? Even if you go separate ways for a while, God will eventually bring you back together. It can happen because “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
He who walks blameless. Once you obey, God will turn your husband’s heart. “He turns it (the heart) wherever He wishes” (Prov. 21:1). Remember, only “he who walks blameless will be delivered” (Prov. 28:18). If you say you don’t want to obey your husband, then he won’t obey the One who is over him either! “Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:3). Don’t give the excuse that your husband is not a Christian therefore you don’t have to obey him. There is no Scripture that tells a woman that she does not have to be subject or submissive to a non-believer!
Don’t excuse your present rebellion by saying that your husband is not around, so how can you obey someone who is not there? You obey what you know you should do and what you should have done when he was still there! If you can’t remember, then ask the Lord to bring to mind all those things your husband asked you to do when you weren’t listening or obeying. Then do them. It is not a matter of your husband seeing those changes, but God seeing that you’ve changed.
Suffering unjustly. And what if my husband is mean or even cruel? “Be submissive . . . with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin [disobey] and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right, and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (1 Pet. 2:18–20). The Word goes on to say that we women have an example in the Lord and His life. He asks us to follow in His footsteps as we’ll see below.
Ladies, Lose the Rebellious Spirit!
I’m not young, and I wonder how I could have lived so long by my own understanding. I thought wrongly, and did not know it. I was not a bad person, but I was rebellious in spirit, and tried to be the master of the house. Unfortunately, I succeeded.
My husband came for a visit last evening. Now that I really listen to what he has to say, he (the silent one) is talking nonstop! It has taken much preparation, study, and time alone listening to my Lord, to Whom I eagerly returned.
Ladies, what we read in RMI may initially seem foreign. If we have a rebellious spirit, we need to deal with that first. I now take my issues to God so I am much easier to be with. After that happened, my husband has offered me solutions I never thought of, and help he once withheld.
I know God is smiling! —Karen, NC, Separated
“If You Love Me—Obey”
After you put God first in your life, and begin to obey those in authority over you, you must then cast down the false doctrine that says “you are saved by grace, so it’s really okay to sin, because we are no longer under the Law.” Let’s search the Scriptures:
Do your deeds deny Him? “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed” (Titus 1:16).
Do you do what His Word says? “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1–2). “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” (Rom. 6:15).
Faith without works is dead. “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead” (James 2:14, 26). Good works are the “fruits” of our salvation. These are the questions we must ask ourselves: Do my deeds deny that I follow the Lord? Does grace give me a license to sin? Am I, as a believer, to produce good works?
I never knew you. Many believe that you can live any way you wish and then enter into heaven once you die. Is this true? “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:22–23). The answer is then “no!”
Confess your sins. If this is the mind that you had, prior to learning these Scriptures, do as Scripture says: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed . . .” (James 5:16).
Obedience to His Word
Seek wisdom! “Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: ‘How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you” (Prov. 1:20–23).
“Because I called and you refused; I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof; I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you” (Prov. 1:24–27).
“Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil” (Prov. 1:28–33). Seek wisdom!
Obedience comes from the heart. “. . . You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Rom. 6:17). Again, “for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam.16:7).
Obedience needs testing. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial which comes upon you for your testing” (1 Pet. 4:12). Obedience purifies your soul. “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls . . .” (1 Pet. 1:22).
Obedience gives testimony of who your Father is. “Obey My voice and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way in which I command you, that it may be well with you. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward” (Jer. 7:23–24).
Your disobedience actually praises the wicked. “Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive with them” (Prov. 28:4). The prayers of the disobedient go unheard. “He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Prov. 28:9).
Our Example of Obedience Is Jesus
He was obedient even unto death. “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8).
He was obedient and submissive to His authority. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will. My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done” (Matt. 26:39, 42).
Our submission to our authority. “Wives be submissive to your own husbands, as to the Lord . . . But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22–24). “For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God” (Rom. 13:1).
The secret to success. “All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him” (Ps. 25:10–15).
Turn aside to myths. Instead of searching for the truth, many want others to agree with their wrong ideas or decisions: “But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and . . . will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
Obedience to His Word. “Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you” (Ps. 32:9). If you don’t obey, He will discipline you. “The Lord has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death. I shall not die but live, and tell of the works of the Lord” (Ps. 118:18, 17).
God is faithful to His Word. “If his sons forsake My law, and do not walk in My judgments, if they violate My statutes, and do not keep My commandments, then I will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes” (Ps. 89:30–34). If you continue in rebellion to God’s Word or your husband’s authority, God will continue to punish you.
Read and pray Psalm 51 aloud: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise.”