Face To Face II

‘Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer…’ 1 Cor. 7:5

How have I defrauded and what should I pay? You get paid to work but instead you spend the time your employer is paying for playing games on your computer. Every day at work, you are on facebook checking for what is not missing when you are supposed to be working. Others spend the entire time at work chatting or making video calls. You are defrauding your employer and you need to ask God how to pay back. Restituting may translate to putting in serious over time for the next six months. For others it is in the institution of marriage that they are found wanting. A lot of people are choking the intimacy in their marriages for selfish reasons. Some women use intimacy as a bargaining tool. The Bible states that your body does not belong to you after you get married. Refusing to give your body to your spouse when they want sexual intimacy amounts to defrauding them. You are holding back what does not belong to you and it is called stealing. You need to ask God how you can pay your spouse back for the time lost. ‘Defraud ye not one another, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency’1 Corinthians 7:5 [KJV]. Again, you cannot guarantee your spouse’ reaction. On one hand, your spouse may be very happy to collect all that is restituted.  While on the other hand, it might just be the start of a healing process. In such cases, you need to give it time and trust God. There are some people who have defrauded other’s marriage by taking another person’s wife or husband. You also need to go to God today and perhaps get into counseling. For some, it is God that we are defrauding. However, the Bible says ‘shall a man rob God?’ Mal.3:8. Yet you are defrauding Him when you do not pay your tithe or bring your offerings willingly. It is a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. Ask God to show you mercy and how to pay back. Restitute.

Prayer: Father, have mercy on me according to Your loving kindness and Your tender mercies. I see  now what I have been doing wrong and I ask for mercy, in Jesus Name