RELATING WITHIN MARRIAGE - HUSBANDS

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Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

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

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself.

Ephesians 5:25-30, 33a

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

In first century AD society, husbands weren’t really required to show any affection or care for their wives or children. They were fully in charge within the household, the king of the residence and their spouses and kids were expected to worship the king. This meant giving the king all the attention and catering to his needs.

This is why the words we found the Apostle Paul sharing with the Ephesian believers, words requiring wives to submit to their husbands, wasn’t a radical departure to what was already happening. In most instances, the wives didn’t have any choice but to submit because their marital partner demanded it.

With this, we see Paul shift his attention to the husbands as he starts to close out Ephesians, chapter 5, and his commands were intended to create a drastic change within the marriage relationship, a change grounded in love.

Note here that the scriptures don’t just order husbands to love their wives but clearly defines what that love needs to look like.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Left to their own devices, a husband could easily choose to love at a minimum to meet the marital intimacy requirement but God’s word doesn’t allow for that possibility for husbands are to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church”.  

Think about that for a moment.

This is no ordinary, run of the mill love. Rather, this is love in its purest form, a love that is willing to die for the person being loved. Christ gave Himself up for the church in order to make it holy, which is just another way to say the church was set apart, washed clean to appear blameless before God when His judgment comes.

Jesus submitted in order to save and as we saw in verse 21, all Christians are expected to submit to one another out of reverence for their Savior.

Husbands are to take this submission up a notch and love their wife as Christ loves. Go to Paul’s love chapter in 1 Corinthians (verses 4 through 8), chapter 13, and we see this kind of love, the love of Christ, isn’t envious or boastful or proud. It doesn’t dishonor others or keep records of wrongs or delight in evil. Nor is it self-seeking or easily angered.

The love of Christ isn’t any of these things but it is patient and kind and rejoices in the truth. It always protects and trusts and hopes and perseveres. And ultimately, the love of Jesus never fails.

Did I mention how this was a call for major change in the ways that husbands functioned in marriage in first century AD?

Frankly, it is a major change in the way many husbands function within their marriages today.

Wives are to submit to their husbands and in turn, husbands are to love their wives as the greatest lover of all times loved, the perfect Lover of mankind named Jesus.

Marriages that function in accordance with the scriptures won’t just survive, they'll thrive because that’s the will of our Lord for every special couple He brings together in matrimony.

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

RELATING WITHIN MARRIAGE - WIVES

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

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

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.

... and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-24, 33b

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

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

In yesterday’s message, we saw where these words formed the foundation for healthy relationships because the Lord didn’t create us to be self centered people but rather self sacrificing, a people that genuinely care about others and their needs ahead of our own.

As we move to verses 22 through 24 and the latter part of verse 31, we find the Apostle Paul move the discussion about healthy relationships and submission into marriage, starting with expectations for the wife. Look again at his words here:

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.

... and the wife must respect her husband.  

Note how the word “submit” is woven through this passage and as we see here, it’s in the spirit of dedication and sacrifice.

God’s word makes it clear that the wife is to submit to their husbands in the same way they give themselves up to Jesus. This is because God has established the husband as the head of the marriage and therefore his spouse who is to put forward their all to their partner with respect.

The world likes to get up in arms over this passage and stirs up strife through creating its own model for marital relationships. This model is grounded in the ideal that there should be absolute equality between a husband and wife, an extension of a societal view that men and women should be equal.

This passage isn’t speaking about a societal viewpoint as it applies to marriage and how the husband and wife should function within its framework. No, the Lord here is isolating marriage and setting the standards it will operate under. On the wife side, the standard is to submit in every way and respect her husband.

Now, just in case you think this gives the husband the liberty to abuse his marital leadership privilege, think again. For tomorrow, we are going to see the Lord give the husbands their marching orders and trust me, their level of accountability is just as high as the wife’s, if not higher.

Just one more important point before I close...

A person can’t read these words from Paul and not consider the cultural context within which they were written. Let me explain.

In first century AD, men definitely carried themselves as the head of the household within a marriage. It was a very patriarchal in nature and women were expected to wait on the man, hand and foot, as were the children. Husbands would sometimes go away for long periods of time, leaving the wife to handle all the household affairs and child rearing but as soon as they returned home, they expected to be the center of attention. There was no submitting on the husband end. It was all on the wife side of things.

Do you see where I’m going here?

You see, this passage didn’t have much impact on the wives in first century AD. They were already in a position of submission within their marriage. But the husbands now, that was a different story. Just being commanded to submit to their wife would have been a radical shift in the way the husband normally functioned in a marriage.

Tomorrow, we’ll see how Paul totally rocks their world with what he writes next.

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

THE KEY TO HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

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

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21

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

We have a general problem with relationships today.

I’m not just talking about marital or family relationships. I’m talking about any and all relationships that include within the workplace, in the church, and just relating to other people in general.

I think a lot of the issues in this matter can be traced back to self centeredness. Everyone seems to be more and more to be looking out for themselves these days. It’s all about me, myself, and I, and yet, people still want to be in relationships with others and enter into them wanting to get their own way and have their own desires met first.

And when you get two people together who want themselves to be first, you can see where this works against the very concept of being relational. I’m convinced it’s the reason why we find so many marriages ending these days, sending divorce statistics soaring.

Well, as we turn to the scriptures, we find the Lord always providing solutions to the problems we see in life. Look at what He says is the key to healthy relationships:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21

There is no question that we are to honor our Lord with the way we live our lives. We have just spent nearly two weeks looking at the qualities a Christian should display, qualities that show they are no longer living by the world’s sinful standards but rather the holy and righteous expectations of God, holy and righteous expectations that were perfectly carried out by Jesus as He lived His life.

Christians are to be like Christ. It’s as simple as that and as they live like their Savior did, they honor Him and the Father God who sent Him to save.

In today’s verse, we find that we can show our respect for Jesus one more way by submitting to one another.

Now, to submit is to surrender, to yield, or to give in to another. It is the polar opposite of living in a way that is self-serving.

In any relationship, submission is putting someone else’s needs in place of your own. It requires a person to set themselves aside and even give up something they desire if it will help the other person in the relationship. Compromise is always in play within a healthy relationship and all parties have to be onboard if it’s going to work properly.

In other words, relationships only stay healthy when all people in the relationship agree to submit to the other or others. This applies to our relationships with one another but it also applies to our relationship with our Lord.

In one simple verse of nine words, the Bible gives us all we need to have healthy relationships with others and honor Jesus through them. All we need to do is to submit to one another.

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

QUALITIES OF A NEW SELF (PART 13)

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

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

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:18-20

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

Today, Sunday, is designated as a formal day of worship, a day when Christians will attend the church of their choice and dedicate time to their Lord.

It’s a day that is to be focused on reverence, on bringing honor and glory to the Maker and Master of all created things and His Son who saved us. It’s also a quality expected from anyone who has believed in Jesus as Savior and, as a result, is required to put on a new self.

Look again at these words from the Apostle Paul as he writes to the Christians in Ephesus and concludes sharing with them the behaviors associated with becoming a new creation in Christ:

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:18-20

Before coming to Jesus, people worship all kinds of earthly, worldly things.

Some worship other gods. Some worship other people like famous actors or singers. Some worship themselves, an exercise in extreme narcissism and self centeredness.

Drinking to the excess must have been a big issue in the Ephesian culture because we find Paul mention it specifically.

“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.”

The Apostle’s point was that certain behaviors had to stop once a person placed their belief in Jesus. Worshiping alcohol to the point of drunkenness was no longer acceptable because as a person put in their new self, their worship was to change. You see, Christians are called to party but in a different way. They are to drink in the Holy Spirit and allow Him to lead you to righteousness and holiness, the exact opposites of debauchery.

If you’re a Christian and still getting drunk on wine (or any other alcoholic beverage, for that matter), you are still living in your old self, the self that viewed sin as acceptable.

Conversely, living in your new self in Christ is to lead you to draw near to your Savior every day and bring Him the greatest measure of praise. Paul gives us various ways to do this which include:

1. Speaking to one another with Psalms.

On the Twitter ministry the Lord called me to, The Christian Walk (@ThChristianWalk), I make daily posts that simply say, “Blessed words from the Psalms”. I follow this from verses from that Old Testament book. It’s one way that we can speak the Psalms to one another. We can also use the words from the Psalms to pray for our world and one another. I would encourage you to do so in your daily spiritual devotion.

2. Sing hymns and songs, making music from your heart.

Our worship service this morning was chock full of wonderful songs of praise and worship to our Lord. These songs were composed by people who let the Holy Spirit lead them to write the words and notes that the Lord wanted others to sing and play. There is a conveyance of the Lord’s will for worship passed down from composer to praise vocalists and accompanists to the congregation, and this conveyance threads together the people of God with their Maker and Master as they all make music with their hearts, either vocally or instrumentally.

3. Giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of Jesus.

True worship, worship we should engage in every day, is centered on reverence but it is also focused on thanksgiving. All that we have materially and spiritually, to include the hope that salvation brings, is only because of what God has done for us.

He is the Creator of everything.

He is our Great Provider.

He is the Great Physician.

He is the Mender of every broken heart.

And He is the Author of our salvation, the One who loved us so much that He didn’t wish for us to perish but rather have eternal life with Him and the Son He sent to save all mankind.

Anyone who has truly put on a new self, donning the very identity of Jesus, will naturally come to a place of worship and that worship will lead to bringing honor to the Lord in everything we think, say, or do.

We’ve spent 13 days looking at expected behaviors of a Christian. If you’re falling short in regard to any of those expectations, turn to the Lord, repent of your sins, and worship Him through psalms, songs and hymns while making music with your heart, and adopt a chronic attitude of gratitude toward the only One who can do all things in your life.

Glorify Him fully and uncompromisingly with the way you live your life and you will always be conducting yourself in a way that is pleasing in His sight as you put the qualities of a new self on full display.

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