SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/19/2019
8:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “Intro to the Role of the Husband”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:25-33
Message of the verses: “25 Husbands, love
your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26
so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with
the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and
blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as
Christ also does the church, 30
because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS
FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE
FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and
the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own
wife even as himself, and
the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”
We
have been talking about how marriage has been corrupted and the reason was both
the man and the woman twisted God’s plan for their relationship. What they have done is that the reversed
their roles, and marriage has been a struggle ever since. I believe that I understand the curse that
God gave to the woman and to the man much better than I have in the past. I can see in our society how the role of the woman
is in many cases directly the opposite of that which God has intended it to be,
and also in many cases the man is not fulfilling the role that God has for
him. This is all because of sin, sin
that began in the Garden of Eden and then the curses that God gave because of
the original sin. One of the things that
I have noticed in my family is that the marriage of my daughter to her husband
seems to me a good picture of what God has planned for marriage to look
like. Some will say that she submits
because of her husband’s patience, and although he is patience and makes it
easier to submit then that in and of itself is good, but women are to submit to
their husbands as this is the will of God for them. I heard a statement many years ago while
taking a class at my job and I believe the statement can help a marriage a lot
if only followed. The man said that we
have to “fact find” and not “fault find.”
Seems we always want to be right, and this causes many problems in a
marriage.
John
MacArthur writes “Throughout history the most dominant distortion of
relationships has been on man’s side. In
most cultures of the ancient world, women were treated as little more than
servants, and the practice is reflected in many parts of the world today. (1980’s)
Marcius Cato, the famous Roman statesman of the second century B. C., wrote, ‘If
you catch your wife in an acto fo infidelity, you can kill her without a
trial. But if she were to catch you, she
would not venture to touch you with her finger.
She has no rights.’ That reflects
the extreme of male chauvinism that comes out of the curse of the Fall and
reflects the perversion of roles and responsibilities that God intends for
husbands and wives.
“Even
in supposedly liberated societies, women are frequently looked on primarily as
sex objects who exist for the sensual pleasures of men. Because modern man is inclined to view
himself as merely a higher form of animal—with people simply as things, to be
used for his own pleasure and advantage.”
We
have said different things about the family, how it is what God desired to be
the building block of society, and I suppose that the truth is that Satan knew
this and that is why his initial attack of God’s creation involved the
corruption of the family. All you have
to do is follow the early chapters of the OT, and you will see how the family
began to crumble in many different ways.
We know for instance that man was only suppose to have one wife, and yet
we see David had many wives and Solomon had many more, and yet God allowed this
to happen and even worked it out for good in spite of the sinfulness of it. There are stories of homosexual acts in the
Old Testament as God actually destroyed two cities because of this. There are many more sinful things described
in the Old Testament as examples of how Satan attacked the family, and yet
through it all God still saves people from their sins as through all of the
sinfulness of the Old Testament times God brought His Son into the world to
complete what He had for Him to accomplish in order to bring about salvation.
John
MacArthur writes, and we will conclude with this quote: “In the first book of the Bible we see the
reversal of roles of husband and wife, fratricide, polygamy, perverted sexual
suggestions, adultery, homosexuality, fornication, rape, prostitution, incest,
and seduction—each of which directly attacks the sanctity and harmony of
marriage and the family.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Continue to relearn the roles of the husband
and by the work of the Holy Spirit fulfill them.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Humility is defiantly
an asset of being a better husband.
We begin today’s SD with the introduction
to a book entitled “Love in Action, changing lives with the Power of
Encouragement,” written by Dr. David Jeremiah and we will be quoting from this
book for a fairly long time.
“Dear Friends,
“It is truly amazing how the advances of
science, medicine, and technology have transformed the knowledge we have about
the world around us. What was once a
dirt road is now an information highway!
“But, if we look around at the people we
know, the people we pass every day on the way to work, in the grocery store or
in the bank, we realize there is one thing that hasn’t changed in all of
time. People still need love, and they
need to see love in action.
“Sixteen centuries ago Saint Augustine
asked, ‘What does love look like?’ And
the answer was, ‘It has hands to help others.
It has feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has ears to hear the sights and sorrows of
men.’ In other words, love is action.
“But how can we put our love into
action? As you will learn throughout
this book, encouragement can be a way that we love others. Encouragement is one of the most powerful,
life-changing forces in our world. And
no matter what advances we make in technology or medicine, nothing can improve
on the power of encouragement.
“In the following pages, you will find excerpts
from my book, The power of Encouragement. I am convinced that the contents will
challenge you to express the kind of encouragement that heals hearts, unites
lives, and renews spirits. May we learn
to have hands, feet, eyes, and ears that are willing to put love into action,
to change lives with the power of encouragement!”
As mentioned this quotation is from the
pen of Dr. David Jeremiah.
8/19/2019 9:39 AM
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