Grain & Embers 11.9.25

There's a powerful truth that echoes through the centuries: If the presence of God inhabits the church, the church will draw the world in. But if God's presence is absent, the world will draw the church out. This tension defined the ancient city of Corinth, and it continues to define our lives today.

The Christians in Corinth faced a unique challenge. Their city was so culturally powerful, so morally corrupt, that it constantly pulled believers away from their faith. The pressure to compromise, to adopt the world's values instead of God's values, was relentless. Sound familiar?

The Danger of Missing the Mark

In addressing the Corinthian church, Paul confronted two equally dangerous extremes: legalism and licentiousness. Some believers had become so rigid in their rules that they'd forgotten about freedom in Christ. Others had become so cavalier about God's standards that they'd lost sight of holiness altogether.

Both missed the mark.

When we place more emphasis on a piece of doctrine than God does himself, we're being legalistic. When we say "no big deal" to a standard clearly given in Scripture, we're being dangerously cavalier. Both approaches represent worldliness—both allow the culture to draw us out rather than allowing God's Spirit to empower us to influence our cities.

The enemy isn't afraid of your doctrine. He isn't afraid of your giftedness. He only respects the authority you have in Christ. And Christians can only fully embrace that authority by rejecting both legalism and moral corruption.

The Truth About Marriage and Singleness

Paul addressed a controversy that had erupted in Corinth: some were teaching that marriage was sinful, that truly devoted believers should remain single to focus entirely on God's work. This teaching was causing confusion and guilt among those who desired marriage.

Paul's response was clear and compassionate: "If you marry, you have not sinned."

Yet he was equally honest about the reality: "Those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that."

These aren't just empty words. Anyone who's been married knows the truth of this statement. Marriage brings financial strain—the pressure of making ends meet, raising children, managing debt. It brings the challenge of intimacy—two broken people with different expectations trying to become one. It brings the complexity of child-raising—two parents trying to align on discipline, education, screen time, and a thousand other decisions. It brings spiritual challenges—the need to guard your home against darkness and keep your covenant holy.

The Supernatural Informs the Natural

Here's a truth that changes everything: what happens in the spiritual realm directly affects what we experience in the natural realm. Behind the curtain of our visible world exists a spiritual battlefield where forces of good and evil clash. The struggles we face in our marriages, our finances, our parenting—these aren't just random difficulties. They're often manifestations of spiritual warfare.

When pride takes root in a marriage, it fuels demonic attacks. When unforgiveness festers between husband and wife, it gives the enemy gasoline for his fire. The devil wants marriages apart at any cost, because marriage is a sacred institution designed by God to reflect His glory.

This is why alignment with God's Word is so critical. When couples seek to resolve their troubles with anything or anyone other than Christ himself, things don't get better—they get worse. But when husband and wife humble themselves, align with Scripture, and come together as a team, they tap into supernatural power that can overcome any worldly trouble.

The Divided Heart

Paul acknowledged a real tension: married people must balance pleasing their spouse with pleasing the Lord. One often demands more attention than the other in the moment. The interests are divided. The focus will be interrupted.

Yet Scripture never suggests that marriage is second-best or that single people are somehow deficient. In fact, Paul—himself single—wrote that "he who marries does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better."

Single people, divorced people, widows and widowers: you are not junior varsity. You are not damaged goods. You are not less valuable in God's sight. If you're enjoying the freedom of singleness, embrace it fully for God's glory.

The Call to Holiness

For those who are married, the call is clear: stay married. Work at it. Fight for it. But here's the perspective shift that changes everything:

Marriage wasn't designed primarily to make you happy—it was designed to make you holy.

When we believe the Hollywood lie that marriage exists to fulfill us and make us happy, we set ourselves up for devastating disappointment. But when we see marriage as God's tool for exposing our pride, revealing our unforgiveness, and forcing us toward holiness, we can embrace the discipline that comes with it.

Marriage has an inconvenient way of making us better—when it's working right.

Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church—sacrificially, completely, without harshness. They're called to live with their wives in an understanding way, recognizing that they set the temperature of the home. When a husband fails in this, his very prayers are hindered.

Wives are called to respect their husbands and to be the thermometer that tells the temperature of the household. They know when things are cold or warm, tense or peaceful. And they have the power to affirm their husbands when they're doing it right.

Double for Your Trouble

Remember Job? After losing everything—children, wealth, health—God asked him to do something remarkable: pray for his friends. In that act of focusing on others rather than his own pain, God gave him back double.

Perhaps some of us relate to Job's constant pressure and loss. But do we relate to the part where God asks us to pray for others?

When we shift from asking what our marriage can do for us to asking what we can do for our marriage, maturity bursts forth. When we stop demanding that our circumstances make us happy and start asking how God can use them to make us holy, everything changes.

The Promise of Grace

Here's the final truth to anchor your soul: God would never ask you to do something that His grace couldn't empower you to accomplish. If God's Word commands it, His grace will support it.

He doesn't set you up for failure. His mercy, His Spirit, His presence sustains and strengthens in your time of need—whether you're married, single, divorced, or widowed. Whatever troubles you face, His grace is sufficient.

The world will always try to draw you out. But when you align yourself with God's Word, when you allow His Spirit to inhabit you fully, you become a force that draws the world in toward His light.

stay salty. be bright.
Pastor Luke