WHY ‘GROWING APART’ IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR DIVORCE…

God intends for marriage to be a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, no matter how much our modern society makes and accepts excuses to ‘get out of it’. Especially what we call ‘irreconcilable differences’ or ‘we’re just growing apart’.

Malachi 2:16 (NKJV)

¹⁶“For the Lord God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”

Matthew 19:4-8 (NKJV)

⁴And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who ^[a]made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.”⁷They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” ⁸He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

God knows that no matter how much you love one another, that no two people will be the same after 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 plus years of marriage. It’s impossible. Yes, you will grow apart in some areas of your lives. But, that doesn’t have to come between you.

Think about this. If God expected the arranged marriages to last in the bible days, He expects us to stay with the spouse that we choose.

How can we be ministers of reconciliation for God’s Kingdom if we can’t even reconcile the differences in our homes?

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NKJV)

¹⁸Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not ^[a]imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

In the words of Al Green, “Let’s stay together”