© 13 Colin Melbourne
Condoms or Nothing?
Q: My husband and I were in agreement not to use contraception, or any sort of family-planning, when we married last year. I became pregnant, and three months ago, had a daughter. It was a beautiful natural birth, but a very difficult healing. Almost four months later I am still healing, but able to “come together” with my husband.
I have asked him to use a condom for fear of becoming pregnant too soon, but he refuses, and would rather practise abstinence than “be with me”.
I’ve sought the Lord, and am at peace with using a condom temporarily, until my body is in a position to handle another pregnancy, if it occurs. He wont budge, claiming that a condom is “unnatural between husband and wife”. To which I reply that it is more unnatural to not come together for close to a year (I was on bed-rest during pregnancy, and unable to come together due to pre-term labour risks).
I’m not asking who is in the right, but would like guidance how to move forward. Sandra
A: Thank-you for a good question, with a straight-forward biblical answer.
Tension has developed in your relationship over a tiny matter, and it is distracting you from following God’s Spirit.
This is a period in your marriage when you ought to be enraptured with love for God for blessing you with a child.
This situation would not arise if you were both Spirit-filled, and in-step with Him.
Therefore, your first move should be to receive the Power Baptism Jesus promised to believers: You and your husband.
Tongues is the initial Bible evidence of being filled with God’s Spirit. But He brings a whole lot more besides.
God-Filled
Believers are to walk in the love of God for all people.
The flesh-man cannot love enemies with God’s love.
We are powerless to obey Christ’s command (Mtt. 5:44, Lk. 6:27,35) without God’s Spirit empowering us all the time.
Contemplate the wonder of being filled with God’s Love; your heart overflowing with the divine principle, directing your thoughts, motivation, words, emotions, and actions.
Could the carnal urges of the flesh then override the leading of His Spirit?
Could the small matter of condoms then become a stumbling block in a godly marriage?
Could selfishness then dominate selflessness? Gal. 5:16 KJV
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Being filled with God, and following Him, will solve all your problems.
God’s Counsellor
It’s not a case for marriage counselling, discussion, and compromise: It is time to get filled with The Counsellor-Comforter, and obey Him wholeheartedly.
Your future happiness, ministry, and fulfilment depend upon it. Jn. 16:13-15 KJV;
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
The believer who is filled with God, never has to struggle to crucify his flesh.
Jesus already did that for him. Rom. 6:6, Gal. 5:24, Col. 3:1-3 KJV;
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
The ones who struggle are doomed to fail, simply because they are relying on their flesh to crucify itself.
Once you’ve received Jesus as Lord, Receive the Power that makes the death and resurrection of Christ real in your life.
Dr. T.L. Osborn explains why the Lord allows apparently bad things to happen to people. Why: Tragedy, Trauma, Triumph: T.L. learned these precious lessons from personal experience throughout his astounding ministry.
© 13 Colin Melbourne