HOUSE RULES (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.

Colossians 3:18 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today, we begin a four part series titled “House Rules”, as in rules for the household. For just as the scriptures provide instruction for what we need to know to live life as the Lord expects, it also provides guidance behavior within the family.

Here’s the direction that will guide this message in Part 1:

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. Colossians 3:18 NLT

Now, this verse might sound familiar and that’s because this letter to the Colossian Christians isn’t the first time that the Apostle Paul addressed how a husband and wife should relate to one another. Here’s what he wrote in his letter to the Ephesians:

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything (5:22-24).

Note here that the matter at hand is submission and the call to submit for wives is to submit to their husbands as they do to the Lord who is the Head of the church. This isn’t negotiable.

Submit means submit.

So what does Jesus require in regard to how much anyone is to submit to Him, whether a man or a woman?

Well, it’s not just in part, that’s for sure.

Indeed, think about how much Jesus submitted Himself for His Father.

Didn’t He sacrifice everything, even to the point of giving up His own life?

We know He did and if we’re going to truly be like Him, then we need to do likewise, whether we are a husband or a wife. We need to be willing to surrender ourselves fully within a marital relationship as Christ did for us.

So the first house rule is for wives to submit to their husbands as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord, the only One who lived in perfect submission. For if we’re going to be truly Christ-like, which is the essence of being a Christian, then we must be willing to go as far as Jesus did in the way He submitted himself to save His beloved, the church. When we look at submission through this lens, we realize we’re not being asked to do anything that Jesus hasn’t already done.

Tomorrow, we look at the second house rule, this one for husbands.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com