Jonathan Parfrey's

Lust for Peace

Today is

Rebuilding a Clear Conscience and a Forgiving Spirit

The Rebuilder's Guide is published by the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts (p.2), now called the Institute in Basic Life Principles. Many of the conflicts people experience in marriage are actually conflicts they have brought into the marriage from their youth. Over the years, I've heard stories about you and Rio that are classic examples of these conflicts which always have lasting effects on a marriage -- unless they are consciously resolved by following God's principles.

A wife offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and her contentions are like the bars of a castle.
Proverbs 18:19

As products of American "rugged individualism," we seldom think about how past guilt causes present bitterness and conflict. As products of the "sexual revolution" we seldom think about how the things we did before marriage can affect us after marriage. I will listen respectfully to the trendy psychologists, and I have listened with affection to what you and Rio have said, but I believe that deep down a bitterness is generated by premarital sex. We can say that the Bible is out of date ("These are human desires"), or we can minimize the harmful influence of our actions ("The past is the past"), but the hurts of the past often combine with the hurts of the present, no matter what we may say.

Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written [Ps. 51:4]: "That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged."
Romans 3:4

Dealing with guilt and bitterness is the third goal of a Rebuilder.

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