Messages From Heaven: For Husbands Only

Messages From Heaven: For Husbands Only: Valentine's Day may be the one time each year that most husbands let down the macho exterior and actually demonstrate their lov...

For Husbands Only

Valentine's Day may be the one time each year that most husbands let down the macho exterior and actually demonstrate their love for their wives in tangible ways. You might shower your wife with flowers or candy, or take her out on a romantic evening. Some of you may even make greater sacrifices, such as cleaning the house, treating her to breakfast in bed, or buying some cherished gift. But once the day ends, so does Prince Charming, and you revert to your normal self and usual role.
Ask many Christian husbands to summarize their biblical duty in one word, and they will answer, "Leadership." Scripture answers the question with a different word: love.
There is no doubt that God's design for you if you're a husband includes the aspect of leadership. But it is a leadership that flows from love and is always tempered by tender, caring affection. The husband's proper role as a loving, nurturing head is best epitomized by Christ, who took the servant's role to wash His disciples' feet (John 13:3-17).
It is significant that before the apostle Paul instructs husbands and wives how to love each other that he calls for mutual submission. The New American Standard Bible renders Ephesians 5:21 this way: "Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." That's a general command to all Christians in all contexts.
Husbands are no exception to this rule. The love you are to show your wife involves submission. It is colored and characterized by meekness, tenderness, and service. It is a humble, servant's love, like that of Christ.
Submission is what sets the stage for Paul's instructions to husbands: "Love your wives" (v. 25). The whole idea of the husband's headship is a comparison to Christ. The husband's headship over the wife is likened to Christ's headship over the church. "The husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church" (v. 23). Therefore your love for your wife is supposed to be like Christ's love for the church: "Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (v. 25).
The sacrifice of Christ is the very epitome of what love calls for. 1 John 3:16 says, "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us." Jesus Himself said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13).
Without actually using the word love, the apostle Peter describes your love for your wife: "Husbands, likewise, dwell with [your wives] with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life" (1 Peter 3:7).
The headship-submission relationship is not about inherent superiority and inferiority. Many wives are frankly wiser, more knowledgeable, more articulate, and more discerning than their husbands. Yet God has ordered the family so that the man is the head. That is not because the wife automatically owes the husband servile deference as his inferior — for she is not to be treated as an inferior, but as a sister and joint heir. The reason for the divine order is that your wife is the weaker vessel — more to come about that in a moment — and you therefore owe her sacrifice and protection.
My challenge to you husbands is to make every day a Valentine's Day for your wives. Make the following three actions a daily priority in your relationship with your wife and you will be fulfilling your Christlike, sacrificial duty toward her.

Consideration. "Live with your wives in an understanding way," Peter says in verse 7 (NASB). He's speaking of being considerate. This is opposite the cave-man mentality some today would advocate. It's incompatible with the kind of independent, proud, self-absorbed machismo many seem to think epitomizes true maleness. It calls for understanding, sensitivity, and meeting your wife's needs. It involves a sincere effort to understand her feelings, fears, anxieties, concerns, goals, dreams, and desires. In short, you must be considerate.
Often it boils down to listening. You must understand your wife's heart. How can you express a sacrificial love that meets her needs when you have no earthly idea what those needs are?
That is frankly a struggle for most men. It is not something that comes naturally to us. Like our children, we wrestle against our own sinful tendencies and selfish desires. But God calls us to be models of sacrificial love in our families, and that begins by being considerate.

Chivalry. The wife is "the weaker vessel," according to Peter. In what sense are women "weaker?" This has reference primarily to the physical realm. Women are, as a class, physically weaker than men. Now, it is undoubtedly true that there are some men whose wives are physically more powerful than them. But that is unusual, and I believe that even in those exceptional cases, the principle still applies. You are to treat your wife with a gentle chivalry. You can do this in a thousand ways, from opening doors for her to moving furniture and doing the heavy work around the house.
A loving husband would not say to his wife, "After you've changed the tire I'll be glad to take you to the store." We serve them with our strength. We treat them as the weaker vessel, showing them a particular deference in matters where their physical weakness places them at a disadvantage. 1 Peter 3:7 actually suggests that God designed women to be under the protection of a man, benefiting from his strength. And serving our wives by lending them that strength is one of the main ways we show them a Christlike, sacrificial love.

Communion. We're to regard our wives "as being heirs together of the grace of life." Men and women may be unequal physically, but they are equal spiritually. Treat your wife as a spiritual equal. While you're legitimately concerned with the task of spiritual leadership in your home, don't forget the responsibility of communion before God with your wife as a joint heir of His grace. Your role as her leader does not mean you are her superior. Both of you are utterly dependent on divine grace, and you are heirs together of that grace.
In the Song of Solomon, the wife says of her husband, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend" (5:16). I love that expression. She rejoices in her love for him, but it is not just his romantic devotion that thrills her. It is not his machismo or his leadership that causes her heart to sing. What is it? She is glad that he is her friend. That’s the kind of relationship husbands should cultivate. It is a deep sense of intimate, equal sharing of spiritual things. It is a communion together like no other relationship on earth.
Here's a simple way of summarizing sacrificial love: The Spirit filled husband loves his wife not for what she can do for him, but because of what he can do for her. That is exactly how Christ's love works. He loves us not because there's something in us that attracts Him, not because He gains any benefit from loving us, but simply because He determined to love us and delights to bestow on us His favor.
Did you realize that love is an act of the will, not a feeling? It is a commitment to the welfare of its object. It is a voluntary devotion. It involves sacrifice, consideration, chivalry, communion, courtesy, and commitment. It is precisely the kind of love you owes your wife. And if you are willing to obey God, by the power of God's Spirit, you can muster that kind of love for your wife.

Messages From Heaven: Seeing Through the Pain!

Messages From Heaven: Seeing Through the Pain!: Each of us has a clarifying moment in our lives. Joseph’s clarifying moment occurred on the day his ten brothers filed into the throne ro...

Seeing Through the Pain!

Each of us has a clarifying moment in our lives. Joseph’s clarifying moment occurred on the day his ten brothers filed into the throne room, desperate for food, awed by the splendors of Egyptian royalty, and totally oblivious of his secret identity.
The ten men hadn’t changed much. Older now, faces showing wear and tear, hair thinner, stubble grayer, eyes duller because of long-harbored guilt. Genesis 42 says they came and bowed down before him with their faces to the earth. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but they did not recognize him.
He could have exacted revenge—or justice—on that day. He could have settled the score and balanced the books. But instead, he wept; and his tears washed away years of confusion, for he was beginning to see God’s end game. There was a purpose to the pain he’d endured.  God has reasons for our struggles, too, though we can’t always see them at the time. I can’t tell you specifically why certain things are happening to you; but through Joseph’s story, I can show you some of the patterns of God’s clarifying grace.
Problems Provide Greater Opportunities
For Joseph, the road to the throne wound through Potiphar’s house and Pharaoh’s prison; but every time a door slammed shut, it jarred another one open.
You may be imprisoned by a set of circumstances that aren’t to your liking, but problems are God’s way of providing us with opportunities that would never otherwise come. In every obstacle there is an opportunity.
Problems Promote Spiritual Maturity
Problems can make us better if we refuse to grow bitter. Few people have experienced worse treatment than Joseph. He was maligned, cheated, abused, and betrayed by one person after another. But there’s not a shred of evidence that Joseph grew angry at God. Instead, the circumstances matured him.
As we look back on Joseph’s life, we have the impression that he had a rather soft childhood. While his brothers were out working, Joseph was walking around in his fancy coat. Though younger, he was the favored son. But the Lord sent experiences to harden him up. Psalm 105:17-18 says that Joseph was laid in irons. The marginal reading says, in effect, that his soul came into iron. An old English translation says that iron entered into his soul.
When Joseph came out of prison, he was an iron-souled man, a man of strength, courage, and wisdom. He was ready at age thirty to carry his adopted nation through prolonged crisis without one sign of revolt. He was prepared for the hardship of famine because he had experienced the pain of prison.
God could spare us from hardship, but how would we learn? How would we grow?
Problems Prove Integrity
Our character, if genuine, is never altered by circumstances. Nothing exemplifies our moral fiber like the way we face difficulties. It’s a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the reality and the integrity of our character before others.
Joseph’s character was a steadfast compass in his soul, but it was put on public display because of the hardships he endured. Whether we realize it or not, the same is true for us.
Problems Produce a Sense of Dependency
Problems also teach us to depend on the Lord. Whenever I read about Joseph in the Bible, I’m impressed with a phrase that’s repeated several times: “But the Lord was with Joseph . . . . The Lord was with Joseph.”
Our sins can separate us from God, but never our circumstances. The secret of Joseph’s power was his consciousness of God’s presence.
Problems Prepare our Hearts for Ministry
Finally, problems prepare us for ministry. We comfort others with the comfort we ourselves receive from the Lord. Joseph was able to comfort his family and nation because he knew firsthand the faithfulness of His God.
Sometimes problems are God’s way of preparing us to help someone else. That’s what happened to Joseph. From his prison experience, he became a servant of the whole world. Joseph went from pasture to pit to prison to palace—and at every step God was with Him, causing all things to work together for good under the omnipotent hand of divine sovereignty.
If we’ll only step back from the distress and see beyond the pain, we’ll understand there’s a purpose to every problem and a reason for every riddle; and when we realize that, it is a glorious clarifying moment.

Messages From Heaven: Out with Fear!

Messages From Heaven: Out with Fear!: You can dress fear up in all kinds of costumes, but for it's never very far away for any of us. Let's talk about what we fea...

Out with Fear!

You can dress fear up in all kinds of costumes, but for it's never very far away for any of us.
Let's talk about what we fear. One word says it all; we fear the future. No one's afraid of the past. The past has other problems. No one's really afraid of the present. We might be upset about the present, but we don't fear it because we know it. Fear involves the future. Fear involves the unknown. "Something's up ahead and I don't want it." Fear is about as accurate as the local weather forecast, but it's scary nonetheless.
When we think about the future, we fear loss and pain.
We're afraid of losing people. Will my spouse always love me? Will my kids walk with the Lord or go their own way?
We fear losing possessions and position. I'm barely able to make ends meet; will I be able to keep my house? Will I have enough?
We fear emotional pain. Somebody's not happy with me. They don't want me anymore.
We fear failure. I'm not happy with myself. I could have, I should have, I would have, I didn't, I'm not; I failed.
Let us agree that fear is a universal problem. It hits us like a wave, threatening to swallow us in its undertow. Scripture identifies the overwhelming emotion of fear almost 1000 times. The word fear is used 441 times; afraid, 167 times; tremble, 101 times; and terror or terrified, 121 times. The words dread, frighten, and faint are also repeatedly used throughout Scripture.
Fear is the opposite of all that Christianity is to be. Fear is the opposite of faith. Faith says, "Whatever it is, it'll be okay because of God." Fear says, It's not going to be okay, and doesn't think much about God at all.
Fear is the complete state of anti-God. God is seldom further from you then when your heart is filled with fear. An anxious, frightened reaction is never good and never from God. Romans 8:15 tells us, "You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear," and 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."
I think you get it. Fear doesn't belong in your life. Out with fear and in with faith.
2 Timothy 1:6-9 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

Messages From Heaven: Defined Purpose!

Messages From Heaven: Defined Purpose!: When Wayne was just six years old, his father built an ice rink in the family’s backyard in Ontario, Canada. Why? “It was for self...