Where Does Standing Come From?

“I haven’t heard God call me to Stand, so I am confused if this is what God wants me to do.”

In order for you to understand what you are being called to, you have to understand why we call it Standing!

Where did it come from?

When my marriage was restored and I went looking for others to help, and found Christian Marriage groups (not standing groups) I found many being told to give up and move on because of the rule “If they cheat, Jesus said you have the right to divorce.” I felt drawn to create my first group, and called it “Standing on His Promises.” I had never heard of the term Stander before this. I don’t know where it originated from as there are other ministries that were well established before us.

I think Standing is personally designed for each of us, changes over time, but the foundation of it is exactly the same for all. We all are Standing for the same truth, while some have not yet come to understand what exactly that is.

We are Standing for God to have His relationship fully restored to His children, and that does include the one doing the Standing.

For those who are Christians and had a mature relationship with the Lord before the Stand began, you will quickly discover everything you have learned is being tested and there is always room to grow. I learned right away, I was a Christian in name only, and had no substance to back it up. It was great that I could hear God clearly talking to me, but that didn’t make me a disciple. Dying to self is what does.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matt 16:24

When you understand the foundation of Standing, you will know that this is for ALL of us. Standing is about a person who is or has become separated in some or all of their heart from God.

King David was a man after God’s own heart, yet the sin of adultery came into his heart through a moral and ethical flaw in his heart, that created a separation from him and God, one that closed David off to truth and God had to send Nathan to repair that breach.

I have seen marriages torn apart where a strong spirit of delusion comes upon the spouse, no adultery is committed, but they believe the lying spirit is God and telling them to divorce their spouse. This delusion is so strong it can split churches in half, I know………I saw it happen in my church when I was a new Christian. The pastor’s wife was a very strong Christian, continued to pray, fast, and joined another church and got under the care of another pastor, yet the delusion of the lie never broke from her, she divorced her husband. They never were restored because he remarried and died a few years later.

I often wonder what if he had not been so hurt, so angry, so fed up with what she had done, and stood for her? Kept taking this battle into the spiritual realm and fighting for her to see the truth and the lying spirit to be exposed? I know why it had entered, God showed me her heart, what if he had stood and prayed for the places in her heart that opened the door to be lied to?

Time and time again we are seeing strong couples who are in ministry, serving the Lord together being deceived by the enemy because he found his way in. Somewhere in the heart, he found a crack, and he wasted no time exploiting it. Nurturing that hurt, that wound, the unbelief, that pride, that whatever, until it opened wide enough to slip in and change their heart, to make them chose to buy the lie. That is the hard heart that Jesus talks about when he says “because of your hard heart you divorce.” Matt 19:8

The enemy is cunning. He looks for the areas of our hearts that are easily lied to. That he comes and says “you poor thing, you deserve so much more than this. If you only had a better wife, a better husband. If your spouse only loved you, stopped ignoring you. Made more money. Appreciated this. They don’t care about you more than they care about their job, their friends, their motorcycle. They love the children more than you.” The enemy won’t stop. He will find a way to plant those seeds of “What about me.” and water and grow them until they become such a stronghold in the mind that you open that door wide when the “divorce” comes knocking. THAT is what we go into battle and pray for. That is what we are Standing for. Standing against. Standing on His promises about. TRUTH.

We have a cause. We have a reason why we do this. Our spouses have believed a lie. Our spouses have opened their hearts, for whatever reason, whatever lie they bought, whatever “truth” became their justification and ‘freed’ them. THAT is why we go to the Word and let it reiterate over and over what we are Standing firm for.

My brethren, if any of you should be overtaken by a fault, you who are in The Spirit should restore him in the spirit of humility, Galatians 6:1 ABPE

FAULT: 3900 paraptóma(from 3895 /parapíptō, see there) – properly, fall away after being close-beside, i.e. a lapse (deviation) from the truth; an error, “slip up”; wrong doing that can be (relatively) unconscious, “non-deliberate.”

How do we restore them in humility? We Stand firm on the truth, on the Word of God, on the fact that God wants them to come to truth, the knowledge of Him, become restored and fully made whole. We stand for whatever fault caused a deviation from God’s plan for them.

And this is what makes Standing personal as each spouse has personal reasons that were the crack that allowed the enemy in to tempt them. God can reveal to us what that is, how to pray for them. Even if He doesn’t, we can still pray for their hearts to turn to Him, be open to His calling to repentance. We can still pray for truth to set them free and for them to humble themselves and yield to Him.

Since being restored to God’s plan, His will is what we are Standing for, then marriage restoration is BIG part of that.

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger