Late to the prom

To say that I have an obsession with Galatians 5 may be an understatement.  I have found myself coming back to this chapter time and time again.  The area in my life where I can say I have been more than hesitant to relinquish control to God is in the area of loving others.  I know I know.  It is what all of Jesus’ teaching can be boiled down to.  That is why I am late to the prom. 

source

I have read it. 
I have believed it. 
Now God has led me to implement it. 

I have found ways to love other people that have a tendency to be difficult to love.  There is one person in particular that I should be able to love for at least one giant reason.  I cloaked my concern for this person’s faith walk in love but it wasn’t love at all.  I was annihilating this person.  I was living not in freedom but in complete bondage of conditional love.  I was harboring years of resentment and worse using God’s word to release venomous words not for this person’s good but to hurt them as I felt hurt. 

For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion not disregard of religion amounts to anything.  What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.    Galatians 5:6 MSG

You would think my faith was alive and thriving but if my faith is expressed in love then my faith is dead.  If my faith pulse was measured by how well I love this one particular person it would be staggeringly slow.        

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.  Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom.  Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.  For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence:  Love others as you love yourself.  That’s an act of true freedom.  If you bite and ravage each other, watch out-in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?  Galatians 5:13-15 MSG

I know everyone has ATLEAST one person in their life they have found themselves withholding love.  Withholding this love is ultimately growing your bondage and keeping you from the true freedom the verses above speak of.  How do we do love?  How do we actively love those not easily loved?

The first thing I have done is to stop focusing on all the reasons I have come up with not to love this person.  I made a list of 100 reasons why I should love this person and every time my thoughts start to think negatively I look at the list or remember one of them and start saying it over and over again.  Then when the person does something you view as questionable give them the benefit of the doubt.  I am not talking about a sin here.  I am talking about the things this person says and does that makes you sin by not loving.  Then begin praying about the things God would have you do to show your love to this person.  This means actually doing things for them.  Try to do at least one thing a week.  Make a phone call, send cookies, anything to deliberately show your love.  Watch your heart, freedom, and love grow. 

We can give Him our time without handing Him our heart.  Withholding love is just that.         

Me-Itis

I was sick yesterday. I had and awful day. I was grumpy, grouchy, and had an infection called me-itis. I am so tired. I have a headache. I have so much to do. I don't have enough time to do it all. It was infectious and spreading fast. Thank God for His good word and the ability for me to look intently on the law and get some spiritual medicine. All I had to do was be so taken up with Him, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory to realize it is not about me. My day, my tasks, my children have nothing to do with me. They are all about Him and His gifts He has given me. It is about His glory, the glory, the Lord of glory. How is He my glory in every situation even the ones I think are negatively affecting me in some way.


When I am taking out the trash, how is He my glory?


When I am tested with children tempers, how is He my glory?


When I haven't slept through the night in over a half of a year, how is He my glory?

The one thing I forgot to realize is the Bible is not a self-help book. It is not merely for my benefit. It is ultimately for His glory. It has nothing to do with me. It is about His glory, His perfection, His word, and His perfect plan. Right about now you might be thinking isn't this month and this week about submission and our husbands. Yes, yes it is. I wasn't sure what He wanted me to do. I had been praying about it and feeling very empty. The Spirit wasn't prompting me to do anything and I was feeling concerned. Maybe I had misread what He wanted me to do. Maybe I had gotten it all wrong. I was still waiting with the expectation that He would let me know when I was sure to not miss it. I have read 1 Peter 3:1-6 and Ephesians 5:21-25 over and over. I have read the commentary on them everywhere I could find. I found nothing I could use as a practical application as to what I could do to apply this to my everyday life.


Then I was taken up with Him, His glory, the glory, the Lord of glory. Just amazed at His word and His perfect plan and realized it completely relates to Ephesians 5:21-25. Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. v. 22 The experience of being in awe of Jesus and what He did for me is one that is indescribable to me. I am to have that same experience and reverence for my husband. Wow. The Holy Spirit is welling up inside of me right now. When I said my vows I had no idea what that meant from a biblical perspective so maybe this is different for you. Understanding God's will for a marriage I realized I needed to tell my husband that I was honored and humbled to be his wife. In the Spirit I told him that. It may not seem like a lot but that was my action for the week. I dedicated my heart to my husband. I felt the experience of understanding the biblical perspective of submission, and how it ultimately is not about me submitting. It is ultimately about glorifying God. I have read the verses over and over again and then I felt the word of God alive and active in me.


I know I said I didn't want this blog to be devotional driven or a lot of reading, but that I wanted it to be convicting to go out and do the thing. It hasn't proven to be that way so far but it will. I am praying all of you have been doing what The Spirit has led you to do. If you haven't felt it yet wait in faith, His promises are always fulfilled.

Who's the Head?

When is the last time you treated your husband like this?  While I defer to and look to my husband for advice I don't know that I have ever been subject to him as to the Lord.  I am praying to glorify God through my actions toward my husband.

According to my John MacArthur Bible Commentary, John MacArthur says this about the woman submitting to the husband.  The submission is not the husband's to command but for the wife to willingly and lovingly offer.  Your own husbands limits her submission to the one man God has placed over her, and also gives a balancing emphasis that he is hers as a personal intimate possession.  She submits to the man she possesses as her own.  Because the obedient, spiritual wife's supreme submission is to the Lord, her attitude is that she lovingly submits as an act of obedience to the Lord who has given this command as His will for her, regardless of her husband's personal worthiness or spiritual condition. 

The Spirit-filled wife recognizes that her husband's roll in giving leadership is not only God-ordained but also a reflection of Christ's own loving, authoritative headship of the church.  As the Lord delivered His church from the dangers of sin, death, and hell, so the husband provides for, protects, preserves, and loves his wife, leading her to blessing as she submits.     

Winning our Husbands Without a Word

In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the (Christian) message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives. Your beauty should not consist of outward things (like) elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold ornaments or fine clothes. 
Instead, it should consist of what is inside the heart which is the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very valuable in God's eyes.

For in the past, the holy women who put their hope in God also beautified themselves in this way, submitting to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You have become her children when you do what is good and are not frightened by anything alarming.
1 Peter 3:1-6 HCSB

Dwelling
This week we will be focusing on the first two verses and specifically how we submit and respond to our husbands and how our lives exhibit pure, reverent and holy behavior.  If it sounds like a tough task well that is because it is.  However, it can be done not through our own ability but through The Spirit.   

Submission & Responsive
The main message here was to women whose husbands were not Christians and how to deal with that situation.  An unlikely concept to us women but the action to be displayed here is to keep our mouths shut.  I just think it is so funny God would give us an amazing ability to speak so well and then tell us not to use it.  I chuckle.  If any of you have gone through this you can attest that God's way is better than our way.  I am going to add a beatitude here.  Blessed is the women who learns to submit.  Some of us have a harder time learning this than others.  I have realized that once we learn it...we need to re-learn it over and over again.  I have also submitted more willingly in certain areas than in others.  So if you think you have the submission thing under control I would pray for God to show you any areas where you may not realize God is calling you to submit.  

By this point some of you may be wondering why is the word responsive up there it isn't in the verse at all?  Instead of using the word submit in The Message version of the Bible it says this,

The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs.   

Now I don't like the idea of completely getting rid of the word submit but I do like what it adds to this concept.  Being responsive to their needs, which would include emotional, physical, spiritual.  I have found the more responsive I am to his needs the more responsive he is to mine.  What a blessing this is!  We aren't to tell them to do it our behavior is to be an example of it. 

When he needs forgiveness I am to be responsive to that. 

When he needs to feel loved and appreciated I am to be responsive to that. 

When he needs fed I am to be responsive to that.

Oh how I pray you and I will be blessed with the opportunity this week or this month to be responsive to our husbands.  We can't just do this one because the variable is our husbands, but we need to be ready to submit and respond in our reaction to our husbands.       

Pure, Reverent, and Holy
I feel like I have a grasp on submitting and being responsive to my husbands needs, but these three words have me feeling very inadequate and intimidated.  We are looking at

when they observe your pure and reverent lives. HCSB 

by your life of holy beauty.  The message

The word pure is also used in James 3:17
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 

James 1:5 also tells us if we ask in full faith this wisdom will be given to us. 

So let me ask you are your actions pure?  Are they peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, can people see the good fruit of your actions?  Do they show no partiality and are without hypocrisy.  How can our husbands be won without a word if we are hypocrites and partial.  Do they see that we are gentle and kind out in public but behind closed doors we are angry and awful?  If we are merciful our husbands will see the fruit through our children.  Are you peaceable toward your husband?  Are you easy to forgive? 

So your actions may appear to be pure but what about your thoughts?  Have you learned to bridle your tongue but can't control your thoughts.  The Bible is telling us if our thoughts and actions are pure, holy, and reverent God will work in our husbands on our behalf.  Talk about a humble kind of power. 

He can do what we can't. 

He can control what we can't.

Where are you unholy and impure in your thoughts or actions?  Take them to God.  Maybe you don't know the answer to that question.  Ask God to reveal where your husband may not see the best side of you.  We can't do this on our own only with The Spirit living inside of us can we accomplish God's will.  This week may be less about our actions and more about how we act.  Less about action and more about reaction.  No more impulsive, anxious, loud, and unmerciful mothers.  Let's heed James' advice and pray for opportunities to exhibit the favorable behavior so it will stick in our minds and we will never forget it.

Dwell and Pray about what God will have you do this week to reflect these biblical principles in your life.  I will do the same and tell you what some of my ideas are tomorrow.     

I Peter 3:1-6

In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the (Christian) message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives.  Your beauty should not consist of outward things (like) elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold ornaments or fine clothes. 
Instead, it should consist of what is inside the heart which is the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very valuable in God's eyes. 

For in the past, the holy women who put their hope in God also beautified themselves in this way, submitting to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.  You have become her children when you do what is good and are not frightened by anything alarming. 
1 Peter 3:1-6 HCSB

This is what we will be going over for the month of February with action steps and prayer and reflection.  I am so excited to get started but am also excited to see where The Spirit leads!