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! 

Hebrews 10:24

Statement of Unbelief

continued from The Israelites I Love to Hate

Help me overcome my unbelief.  Mark 9:24

My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me.  Psalm 44:15

You see, I say I believe but have gotten really good at hiding my unbelief.  The sin of unbelief has been placed right where it belongs, behind closed doors.  Shame has kept it there.  Satan has been so happy. 

I have no self-control. 

Shame. 

My past is too ugly. 

Shame. 

My heart is still not fully healed. 

Shame. 

I do not believe. 

Shame. 

Naked in the garden. 

Shame. 

Shame was not something God ever intended for our lives.  Satan has used shame to his advantage since the beginning of man.    

There is no room in my heart to believe and not believe.  I cannot believe some of God’s word but not all of it.  I cannot believe that God will bring me halfway.  Remember that is what those Israelites believed.

So we see that they could not enter in because of their unbelief.  Hebrews 3:19

Where does God want to take you that your unbelief is keeping you from?  What are your doubts, fears and actions saying about your belief or unbelief?  Write it out in a statement of unbelief and read how little your faith is. 

Me?  He wants me to satisfy myself with Him and not with food.  So my statement of unbelief is this...I do not believe God can satisfy me like a hunk of chocolate peanut butter fudge can.  That is what my actions are telling me.  Oh how saying that pricks my heart to the core. 

Let’s say you want to spend more time in prayer but you just can’t seem to find the time.  Make it a statement of unbelief.  I do not believe God is worth spending time with in prayer.  Ouch, that hurts.  Doesn’t it?  But now it’s out there with no shame.

Satan is shuddering right now.  He has been counting on the shame keeping you in hiding and not living out the relationship you were meant to have.  Satan is counting on us hiding our unbelief and shaming ourselves so we never get to the place God means for us to live out here on earth.  See from our perspective some people have good hearts some bad.  While some people struggle with pride others struggle with fear or whatever.  We look at each other like her sin is worse than mine or I am glad I don’t struggle with what he does.  But the reality is when God looks down all our hearts are diseased and broken.  We need to realize that in order to wrap our brains around the life God wants for us and that our unbelief will keep us from getting there. 

My daughter was swinging on a gate.  She had all of her weight on the part of the gate that swings when it was all the way open.  Her hand was pinched in between the part that swings and the part that is stationary.  She was screaming for me to come and help her out of her predicament, never realizing she was smashing her own finger with her own weight.  That is what our unbelief is doing to us.  We scream God help me.  Keep me safe, help us out of debt, save me from my addiction but it is our unbelief keeping us from realizing our true identity in Christ.

I know I am supposed to give at least 10% to the church but I don’t believe God is bigger than the U.S. monetary supply. 

I know I am supposed to stay out of debt but I don’t believe God will give me anything better than what I can get on my own.

I don’t even know what I am supposed to do because I don’t open my bible.  I don’t believe it is anything worth reading.

I know I should spend more time with my family but I do not believe God when he says they are gifts.

God says children are blessings but I don’t believe He will provide for them if I have a big family.  

I do not believe God’s love is bigger than my past sin.

I do not believe the Author of my story wrote one worth telling.

I do not believe God will satisfy me more than a new car.

Look at us all wandering in the desert.  Unbelieving, stiff-necked, Israelites waiting for the next miracle.  We are unaware of our own unbelief strangling our faith making our petitions worthless.  If only the Israelites had confessed their unbelief their story would have been different.  Their fate is now sealed but yours is a different story.  What are your actions saying about your belief or unbelief?  Remember they cannot both exist in your heart.   

The Israelites I love to hate

source

That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.  All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!  Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?  Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.  Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?  And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”  Numbers 14:1-4 KJV

Oh, those Israelites.  Here they go again.  Will they ever get it?  What did God have to do for them to believe Him?  Why does it seem like it keeps coming up in the Bible.  I get it.  They didn’t believe.  They never learned.  What they said they believed and their actions clearly didn’t line up.  I am so glad that I read the Bible, and believe what I read.  Or do I?  I love it when God takes me from my high horse and places me back right where I belong.  It is so easy to read about the Israelites and be glad I am not them.  Fortunately for me I live on this side of grace otherwise, I may have found myself dead in the wilderness.  I realized this morning that I have more in common with the Israelites than what I previously thought.  I am guessing you may as well.

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Hebrews 3:12 KJV  

The bible also tells us our heart is deceitful above all else.  When I think about the truth I think about the apostle John.  He writes of a perspective of absolute truth.  If there is darkness there can be no light.  If we claim fellowship with Jesus we cannot walk in darkness.  We either obey or disobey.  We love or hate.  This led me to see we believe or we don’t believe.  None of these things can exist in a heart together.   It can be one or the other, not both.   

What if I believe in my heart but I doubt or waiver?  Jesus' brother James will tell you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. James 1:6-8 NIV 

Ouch!  Nothing?  What if I believe and don’t doubt but my actions say something altogether different?  James also has something to say about that.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it-not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it-they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:22-25  

Here I am looking into the perfect law, the law of liberty with freedom and am a slave.  I stand an Israelite plagued by the sin of unbelief.  How?  Why?  If I believe and doubt then I do not believe.  If I believe and don’t doubt but don’t do then I do not believe.  My inaction does not leave me unscathed.  It puts me smack dab in the middle of the encampment in the wilderness crying, “Why did you bring me out here to let me and my family starve?”  I am faced with it every time I read about those Israelites I love to hate.  When in reality I hate myself and do nothing about it.

Ponder that thought and we discuss this topic further