From Dream to Deliverance
Friday, September 17, 2004
My Prayer Today
Heavenly Father, thank You for designing families as the basic unit of relationship for living. From the time You created Adam and Eve, You have made it clear that You created us for relationship first with You, and then with one another. Thank You for being our Heavenly Father, and thus making us part of one, eternal family. Empower us in our living that our biological families will reflect Your divine plan for them, and also that our church family may look more and more like You intend. I pray for an outpouring of Your Holy Spirit, a fresh anointing, that we may live and serve boldly in Your name. I pray that we may be empowered to not only read and understand Your Word written to us in Ephesians 5 and 6, but also to live it in our families. God make us role models for families in our neighborhoods. Heal the sicknesses of body, mind and spirit that attack our relationships and threaten to destroy them. Bind Satan and his work in our lives that we may live the abundant life that Jesus promises us. All this I pray in the strong name of Jesus who died, and rose and lives forever, that we may live also. Amen.
God's Word For Me Today
Ephesians 5:21-28a; 6:1-4
21And further, you will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord. 23For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior. 24As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything.
25And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her 26to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God’s word. 27He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies.
1Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2“Honor your father and mother.” This is the first of the Ten Commandments that ends with a promise. 3And this is the promise: If you honor your father and mother, “you will live a long life, full of blessing.”
4And now a word to you fathers. Don’t make your children angry by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction approved by the Lord.
Reflecting on God’s Word
How do you picture the “ideal” husband?
Thoughts...Husbands, Love Your Wives - Revisited...
As a husband, I have read these words many times. I have read them in my own devotional reading and study of the Bible. I have used them many times as the central passage in wedding homilies. Each time I read the words, “And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church,” I think, “Wow! Being a husband is an incredible responsibility!” How in the world can I or any husband love our wives with the same love that Jesus showed the church. As I watched the movie, The Passion of the Christ, last year and reflected on it, one of the thoughts that came to my mind was, “Would I be able to go through that for Nancy, or my family?” Jesus paid the ultimate price, because of His love for us, and He didn’t just die—he suffered an excruciating death, one that almost no one can even imagine. That’s what we husbands are called to be ready to do for our wives. With all the leftover selfishness in our lives even after we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, that seems like an impossibly tall order. In one sense, it is. It is impossible for a husband to love his wife as Jesus loved the church in our own human power. We may make every commitment and have the deepest resolve as husbands, but unless we have the Holy Spirit living in our lives—and ruling in our lives—we will return to the selfish understanding that our wives are supposed to provide for our every whim, and when we feel like it we will do something for them.
In premarital counseling I always offer a “money back guarantee,” to the couple. This is a little tongue-in-cheek, since I don’t have a set fee for officiating at weddings, but the point is this: if the husband will love his wife as Jesus loved the church, and if the wife will submit to her husband as if he was Jesus, then I guarantee that the marriage will last. I also guarantee that it is impossible for them to do this unless Jesus is at the center of their marriage, and is the power source for their marriage. Every marriage goes through times of delay, difficulty, and dead-end. This is not unusual. This is normal. What is unusual in our day and age is when husbands and wives decide that they will allow God to provide the deliverance. What is unusual is when a husband actually decides to love his wife as Jesus loved the church and gave Himself up for her. It ought not be all that unusual if we believe what we read in God’s Word, and if we rely on the Holy Spirit. We live in an era in American history when all sorts of folks are pointing to Christian marriages and saying, “Where’s the difference?” Where is the difference between Christians and the world? Statistically, Christian couples are just as likely as non-Christians to be divorced, and apart from that appalling statistic, many Christian families are just as miserable as their secular counterparts. How can this be? At least part of the reason is that we have bought our culture’s understanding of “happiness,” and doing “what’s right for oneself,” instead of following our scriptural mandate to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. There’s a whole lot of selfishness being passed off as doing what’s right for oneself in our culture today. For non-followers of Jesus Christ, that’s to be expected, but for those who say that Jesus, the one who said, “I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many, is their Savior and Lord, selfishness is not a viable long-term option. With each passing day we must become more and more like Him, more willing to give regardless of what we receive. We must realize that our happiness is no one else’s responsibility, that we must take responsibility for our own joy and happiness by responding to whatever life throws at us with the love of Jesus. As we husbands do that the world WILL see the difference! Amen.