| Women for the Lord www.WomenfortheLord.com "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." Proverbs 31:10 |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
CHAPTER 2
LOVING & RESPECTING OUR HUSBANDS
Ephesians 5:33 says, “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Love is not a feeling but an ACTION. Feelings can accompany actions but not always.
We would do well to go over I Cor 13 and pray that God would open us up to this kind of
love for our husbands.
Each quality mentioned in I Cor 13 is selfless and costs the flesh. Love is not merely
words. Compliments and words are cheap. They cost nothing.
God says in John 15, “those who love Me obey me.” The real proof of love is when it
costs us something and requires us to be selfless. To do some-thing that we don’t want
to do, but we do it anyway. Take our kids for example. When a baby cries early in the
morning and we want to sleep some more, but we get up and take care of the baby.
When we get up with our kids who get sick in the middle of the night. When it is raining
and we have to take them to school instead of having them ride the bus. All of these are
examples of selfless giving on our part to our loved ones.
So it is with our husbands. The Bible says, “love seeks not her own.” We are not out for
ourselves but for those that we love. We are to live for his joy and his happiness. We
show an interest in their interests. We will cook or warm up a mean after mealtime is
over and it’s late, but they had to come home late that night for some reason, tired and
hungry. We will stay up late with them to lend moral support, when they are doing
something difficult and need our support. For example, typing our husband’s papers for
his schooling and etc. Or on Christmas Eve when he is trying to follow the hard to
understand directions to put bicycles together for the next morning for the kids, and your
there supporting him in doing so, instead of going to bed. Or when he’s fixing the car
and having a hard time, you take him some coffee and a little treat out there to the
garage just to show him that you love him and care. All of these are the valuable things
in life, the hidden, behind the scene kind of actions that we wives and mothers do for our
families that no one sees, but God and the recipient of our love. But in God’s eyes,
these are the REAL things that matter to Him, and won’t be burned up as hay and
stubble on judgment day.
Say to yourself, how can I make LIFE EASIER for him? How can I be more SENSITIVE
to HIS needs (not my own)? Love does everything we do as unto the Lord. Love is
tender and reassuring when they gets down or depressed. Love forgives when we are
wronged or hurt by them. Why, because love is unconditional. Love keeps confidences
and they can trust us with their feelings, ideas or fears without feeling like we are going
to go out and tell our best girlfriend (or anyone else) what they told us.
Love never belittles or puts them down or makes them look foolish. Haven’t your seen
women who think it is their job in life to correct every little thing their husband says and
that she thinks is wrong, in front of others. It makes him look like a fool and her even
worse. Love doesn’t laugh at them or make them a brunt of a joke. Today the TV makes
all men look like idiots. And they raise up the woman to an elevated height. She looks
wiser, smarter, more spiritual, more sensitive, more intuitive, and even stronger inside
than a man. This is simply not so, but today’s society is out to de-masculate the identity
of the male, and the role of a husband and a father. This truly must grieve the heart of
God. And we Christian women must be very careful that we don’t buy into this way of
thinking as well, and begin to act like the women of this world. We want to honor them.
Love isn’t indifferent, yawns, looks bored and out the window, and half way listens to
what he is saying. I know, I have to really try to focus when my husband is talking to me
or my mind will wander off to some other thought and I will only half way hear him. I must
not show him this disrespect.
Love prays for the one you love. For example, “God, bless that man and cause him to
grow and to become all that You have created him to be. To fulfill all Your plans that
You created him for and protect him from the enemy and give him wisdom in every
situation.”
Loving our husbands is our first ministry after God. The real way we show we love them
is by showing them honor and respect when we don’t want to or feel like it. It is easy
when they are taking us out to dinner. But when they bring up something that we don’t
like or agree with or want to do, or they want us to do, we need to hear them out. We
must hear them out with respect without looks of disapproval or dissatisfaction or sighs
or outright bursts of anger; not criticizing or ridiculing to try to get our way instead. We
women can play so many games, it seems like game playing is naturally a part of our
fallen nature as women, but we must not fall prey to the old man, but live in the divine
new nature that God has also put within us in order to overcome the old man. We try
crying, pouting, tirades, put downs and anything else we can think of to get our own
way. Instead we should listen quietly and collectively and calmly. Then if asked our
opinion, respectfully give it, knowing that he has the final say.
Respect is honoring him. We are to treat him as someone special and worthy. For
example don’t you respect and honor your pastor or your boss? How do you treat
them? Do you talk to them in the same way that you talk to your husband? God wants
us to respect our husbands the same way. After all, he (our husbands) are the lords of
our home and God gave them this rightful position. We are to treat them with that kind of
respect in our ATTITUDE and MANNERISMS and ACTIONS. I have had a hard time
with this in the past. I am a strong willed person at times and have found myself saying
to myself, “well, I may be standing up on the outside, but I am sitting down on the
inside.” This is REBELLION! “Ok! I’ll do it!” But I’ll let him know that I don’t like it! “He’
s mean and I think he’s wrong.” “It’s really a lot he’s putting me through.” All these
thought are not godly and are rebellious.
God wants our ATTITUDES to be SUBMITTED to our husbands. We are to be honoring
and respectful towards them. In Ephesians 5 this is exactly what God TELLS wives we
are to do.
Respect sees that there can only be one general over a company of men, one boss over
an employee and one head of the family unit. That head is our husband (like it or not)
and we are under his authority. We are to go along respectfully with his plans, honoring
his decisions as the “decision maker” because he is the head of the household. He may
ask our advice and opinions, but the final decision has to rest with him and so does the
responsibility if it doesn’t turn out.
In an army the general gives the orders and men follow down to the letter without
complaint. Sometimes he may make mistakes, and some mistakes may even cost men’s
lives! So can’t we as Christian women do as much knowing that God will protect us as
we obey His Word and submit to our husband’s authority with love, respect and showing
the right attitudes. God will surely honor you for this.
Remember Sarah in the Bible. Abraham failed her on two occasions and put her in
terrible jeopardy trying to preserve his own skin, by saying that she was his sister
instead of his wife. For if he said that she was his wife, the king would have had
Abraham killed, so that the king could have Sarah for himself. So Sarah trusted in God
and God delivered her in both occasions from being violated, and God will protect you
from any mistakes your husband may make if WE have the right heart and attitudes.
God sees everything situation and knows every thought that we have. He comes to
rescue us, protect us,, deliver us and love us. Oh what a wonderful personal God we
have. We should love Him more than anything or anyone in all the world, He’s so
wonderful!
You may be thinking in your heart, “My husband doesn’t deserve this kind of respect.
He isn’t even saved yet.” I Peter 3:1 tells wives to submit to their husbands so that the
husband can be won by the respectful and pure behavior of the wife. There is no getting
around it. Saved or unsaved. It makes no differenced. God gave the same order to us
for our husbands.
There is freedom with right attitudes. Freedom from guilt and our prayers will have no
blockage between us and God because of our behavior. We will KNOW that God is
pleased with us and He WILL bless us in one way or another for these right attitudes.
Our flesh will die when we have to submit, obey, honor, respect and see him as the lord
or head of the wife, but each time we die we become more filled with the Holy Spirit of
God and become transformed to become more like Jesus. Then more of Him can be
seen in us. So let’s let the beauty of Jesus be seen in us to a world that is so desperate
to see a godly woman of God. A-men?
LOVING & RESPECTING OUR HUSBANDS
Ephesians 5:33 says, “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Love is not a feeling but an ACTION. Feelings can accompany actions but not always.
We would do well to go over I Cor 13 and pray that God would open us up to this kind of
love for our husbands.
Each quality mentioned in I Cor 13 is selfless and costs the flesh. Love is not merely
words. Compliments and words are cheap. They cost nothing.
God says in John 15, “those who love Me obey me.” The real proof of love is when it
costs us something and requires us to be selfless. To do some-thing that we don’t want
to do, but we do it anyway. Take our kids for example. When a baby cries early in the
morning and we want to sleep some more, but we get up and take care of the baby.
When we get up with our kids who get sick in the middle of the night. When it is raining
and we have to take them to school instead of having them ride the bus. All of these are
examples of selfless giving on our part to our loved ones.
So it is with our husbands. The Bible says, “love seeks not her own.” We are not out for
ourselves but for those that we love. We are to live for his joy and his happiness. We
show an interest in their interests. We will cook or warm up a mean after mealtime is
over and it’s late, but they had to come home late that night for some reason, tired and
hungry. We will stay up late with them to lend moral support, when they are doing
something difficult and need our support. For example, typing our husband’s papers for
his schooling and etc. Or on Christmas Eve when he is trying to follow the hard to
understand directions to put bicycles together for the next morning for the kids, and your
there supporting him in doing so, instead of going to bed. Or when he’s fixing the car
and having a hard time, you take him some coffee and a little treat out there to the
garage just to show him that you love him and care. All of these are the valuable things
in life, the hidden, behind the scene kind of actions that we wives and mothers do for our
families that no one sees, but God and the recipient of our love. But in God’s eyes,
these are the REAL things that matter to Him, and won’t be burned up as hay and
stubble on judgment day.
Say to yourself, how can I make LIFE EASIER for him? How can I be more SENSITIVE
to HIS needs (not my own)? Love does everything we do as unto the Lord. Love is
tender and reassuring when they gets down or depressed. Love forgives when we are
wronged or hurt by them. Why, because love is unconditional. Love keeps confidences
and they can trust us with their feelings, ideas or fears without feeling like we are going
to go out and tell our best girlfriend (or anyone else) what they told us.
Love never belittles or puts them down or makes them look foolish. Haven’t your seen
women who think it is their job in life to correct every little thing their husband says and
that she thinks is wrong, in front of others. It makes him look like a fool and her even
worse. Love doesn’t laugh at them or make them a brunt of a joke. Today the TV makes
all men look like idiots. And they raise up the woman to an elevated height. She looks
wiser, smarter, more spiritual, more sensitive, more intuitive, and even stronger inside
than a man. This is simply not so, but today’s society is out to de-masculate the identity
of the male, and the role of a husband and a father. This truly must grieve the heart of
God. And we Christian women must be very careful that we don’t buy into this way of
thinking as well, and begin to act like the women of this world. We want to honor them.
Love isn’t indifferent, yawns, looks bored and out the window, and half way listens to
what he is saying. I know, I have to really try to focus when my husband is talking to me
or my mind will wander off to some other thought and I will only half way hear him. I must
not show him this disrespect.
Love prays for the one you love. For example, “God, bless that man and cause him to
grow and to become all that You have created him to be. To fulfill all Your plans that
You created him for and protect him from the enemy and give him wisdom in every
situation.”
Loving our husbands is our first ministry after God. The real way we show we love them
is by showing them honor and respect when we don’t want to or feel like it. It is easy
when they are taking us out to dinner. But when they bring up something that we don’t
like or agree with or want to do, or they want us to do, we need to hear them out. We
must hear them out with respect without looks of disapproval or dissatisfaction or sighs
or outright bursts of anger; not criticizing or ridiculing to try to get our way instead. We
women can play so many games, it seems like game playing is naturally a part of our
fallen nature as women, but we must not fall prey to the old man, but live in the divine
new nature that God has also put within us in order to overcome the old man. We try
crying, pouting, tirades, put downs and anything else we can think of to get our own
way. Instead we should listen quietly and collectively and calmly. Then if asked our
opinion, respectfully give it, knowing that he has the final say.
Respect is honoring him. We are to treat him as someone special and worthy. For
example don’t you respect and honor your pastor or your boss? How do you treat
them? Do you talk to them in the same way that you talk to your husband? God wants
us to respect our husbands the same way. After all, he (our husbands) are the lords of
our home and God gave them this rightful position. We are to treat them with that kind of
respect in our ATTITUDE and MANNERISMS and ACTIONS. I have had a hard time
with this in the past. I am a strong willed person at times and have found myself saying
to myself, “well, I may be standing up on the outside, but I am sitting down on the
inside.” This is REBELLION! “Ok! I’ll do it!” But I’ll let him know that I don’t like it! “He’
s mean and I think he’s wrong.” “It’s really a lot he’s putting me through.” All these
thought are not godly and are rebellious.
God wants our ATTITUDES to be SUBMITTED to our husbands. We are to be honoring
and respectful towards them. In Ephesians 5 this is exactly what God TELLS wives we
are to do.
Respect sees that there can only be one general over a company of men, one boss over
an employee and one head of the family unit. That head is our husband (like it or not)
and we are under his authority. We are to go along respectfully with his plans, honoring
his decisions as the “decision maker” because he is the head of the household. He may
ask our advice and opinions, but the final decision has to rest with him and so does the
responsibility if it doesn’t turn out.
In an army the general gives the orders and men follow down to the letter without
complaint. Sometimes he may make mistakes, and some mistakes may even cost men’s
lives! So can’t we as Christian women do as much knowing that God will protect us as
we obey His Word and submit to our husband’s authority with love, respect and showing
the right attitudes. God will surely honor you for this.
Remember Sarah in the Bible. Abraham failed her on two occasions and put her in
terrible jeopardy trying to preserve his own skin, by saying that she was his sister
instead of his wife. For if he said that she was his wife, the king would have had
Abraham killed, so that the king could have Sarah for himself. So Sarah trusted in God
and God delivered her in both occasions from being violated, and God will protect you
from any mistakes your husband may make if WE have the right heart and attitudes.
God sees everything situation and knows every thought that we have. He comes to
rescue us, protect us,, deliver us and love us. Oh what a wonderful personal God we
have. We should love Him more than anything or anyone in all the world, He’s so
wonderful!
You may be thinking in your heart, “My husband doesn’t deserve this kind of respect.
He isn’t even saved yet.” I Peter 3:1 tells wives to submit to their husbands so that the
husband can be won by the respectful and pure behavior of the wife. There is no getting
around it. Saved or unsaved. It makes no differenced. God gave the same order to us
for our husbands.
There is freedom with right attitudes. Freedom from guilt and our prayers will have no
blockage between us and God because of our behavior. We will KNOW that God is
pleased with us and He WILL bless us in one way or another for these right attitudes.
Our flesh will die when we have to submit, obey, honor, respect and see him as the lord
or head of the wife, but each time we die we become more filled with the Holy Spirit of
God and become transformed to become more like Jesus. Then more of Him can be
seen in us. So let’s let the beauty of Jesus be seen in us to a world that is so desperate
to see a godly woman of God. A-men?
