How My Husband Shepherds Me (Part 1)

October 4th, 2011

how-my-husband-shepherds-meMany women have asked me how my husband leads me spiritually. After all, we do not do family devotions, even though our house is permeated with God. (I do teach Bible class as part of our homeschool, but my husband shepherds each child in the fear of the Lord as the need arises.) God is in our deep conversations, in our faces, and in our lives. Our home is often characterized by joy. Someone told me recently that she loves how my husband and I adore each other, and she was right. Life is sweet with my husband, and I am so grateful for his strong spiritual leadership in our home.

First of all, for a husband to lead his wife spiritually, the wife has to be open to rebuke. The way to do this is to despise sin and to separate it from who you are as a person. We are to consider ourselves dead to sin. So any sin that we commit is not a part of who we are as a new creation. People who are truly saved desire to please God. If you have no desire to please God, you need to go ahead and get saved. But I assume I’m talking to Christians.

Okay, so here’s the deal: when your husband tells you about some sin that you have, don’t crumple up and feel inadequate as a human being. I admit that even now, about half the time, my initial reaction to rebuke from my husband is to feel wounded. I’m not mad. I just want to cry because I feel like a failure. And I don’t want to feel like a failure. I just want someone to love me for who I am. I don’t want someone who expects perfection, because they will always be disappointed in me.

And yet I’m wise enough to realize that the more sin that is burned away in my life, the more of God my body will hold. And more of God is more peace. More of God is more fulfillment. More of God is joy radiating out of my face. God is the God of miracles and can change you. The change happens when you realize that it’s your outer shell (“the flesh”) that is sinning. Don’t condemn yourself for something you’re trapped in. Even Paul himself kept sinning when it was the opposite of what he wanted to do (Romans 7:19-24).

You see, you yourself are precious, godly, and unique. But your “flesh” is what causes you to sin. So the sin that you are committing isn’t a part of your personality. You only think it is. You can get rid of it. It’s just like quitting any habit. You do it through the power of the Holy Spirit as He gives you the strength to stop a habit of behavior that you automatically do.

Your best self is yourself without sin. That is the aim of God. God’s will is that you be sanctified, so if you’re reluctant to be sanctified, you are fighting against the will of God. And if you’re fighting against God, how on earth can your husband succeed in shepherding you? He will fail. And he might as well not even try. Because he will be severely punished by you with all the hormonal emotional hoopla that men despise, and they will learn to never do it again.

So step one to be shepherded by your husband is to be open to rebuke. But this is really impossible for a woman to do without desiring holiness above her own comfort.

Now I will be vulnerable with you and show you some actual conversations with my husband, what he said and how he shepherded me through a sin issue and out through the other side, where I felt fresh and clean and released from sin. Yes, Scripture says your man can do this for you. And it’s absolutely incredible.

(Stay tuned for Part 2…)

Tags: ,
Posted in Marriage | 6 Comments »

Let Our Men Lead

October 3rd, 2011

men-leadRecently I watched a series of DVD’s called “Fathers of Vision” produced by the Homeschool Channel. Seven sessions (most of them one hour long) address what it means to be a godly man and lead a family. Half the sessions were preached by Kevin Swanson. His passion for God and his flailing arms make him interesting to watch. My sons, as they were listening to his sermons, stood up and began flailing their arms, and I smiled in hopes of raising at least one preacher. My 11-year-old son blurted out, “I agree with what he’s saying!”

As a woman, this is the first time I’ve heard a series of sermons on what it means to be a father. Women are always banished from the room when men’s roles are mentioned, as if it’s supposed to be a secret. (That’s because women turn into shrews and basically bash their husbands over the head to get them to do what they perceive is the right thing. When women do so, they are the ones ruling, and it never works. Besides, it’s sin.) But I think it’s highly helpful to know that our husbands are responsible for us (their wives and children) before God, and that we need to yield to that dominion and move in the same direction that our husbands want us to go.

I think that’s the key. Find out what’s inside the heart of your husband, what his vision for the family is, and then make that your priority. If your husband doesn’t have a vision for what he wants his family to be, these DVD’s would be excellent for him to watch because they give a biblical vision for how the father is supposed to function in the family.

Wouldn’t it be great if Christian men would rise up and say, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Men can take dominion over their homes and decide how to lead their families toward righteousness. The family should reflect the man. In order to do this, a man must actually pursue God for real. He can make such an enormous impact for Christ when he takes his God-given role and says, “I will fulfill it; so help me God.” And even if he fails, and he will, we as wives can support and pray for our husbands and make their task as easy as possible by yielding to his headship.

When I got to the sixth session, “The Heart of It All,” my heart was in my throat. That was an absolutely phenomenal session. Kevin Swanson admitted that he didn’t love his son, and the transformation that occurred inside of him to cause his heart to be woven to the heart of his son was incredible. That was the most Spirit-filled session, and if your husband only has time to watch one, that session is worth the price of the entire set.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Marriage | 5 Comments »

Our Actual Value in Christ

September 29th, 2011

value-in-christWe are born into sin, and there is nothing inherently in us that has any value whatsoever. I’m sick of people saying that we have value, and that’s why Christ died for us. It’s the opposite. We were helpless in our sin; we couldn’t help but sin; we are all selfish pigs. All of us deserve hell. No one deserves heaven. If we had any idea how horrendous even the slightest sin is to God, we would get a grip and fall on our faces in the dust. God is holy. We are not. Look at the impossible chasm.

It’s because of God’s mercy that He chooses us and gives us faith so that we can love Him back. We can’t even take credit for the faith, because that is a gift from God. It’s the transformation that gives us worth. At salvation we become a new creation; that new creation has infinite value. We now have worth because of Christ.

Many people have the erroneous view that we continue to be rotten sinners after salvation. Not so. Scripture says we are saints. Our flesh causes us to sin against our will (Romans 7:15-24). The core of our being is now good, not only because Christ is there, but because He has changed us to reflect Him in a way that nobody else can. In heaven as well as here on earth, people will be able to get to know God because of what He has done in our lives. That’s why testimonies are so powerful. I’m not talking only about conversion. I’m talking about how God is in a continuous process of changing us. For example, I used to be ruled by anger, and now I’m not. God has broken the chains. Each Christian should have ten or twenty testimonies of how God has miraculously changed them. If you’re not growing, you’re not reflecting Christ, and you’re missing out on a lot of joy. Seeing the impossible is so incredible. The Spirit of God brings the fruit of the Spirit, and you don’t even have to work for it except to yield to God and obey to the best of your ability. God will do the rest.

Many people believe in a Christ-filter. They believe that after conversion, they are still filthy sinners, and that God looks at us through Christ, and He doesn’t see our sin because of His propitiation for us. Basically, they are saying that only Christ is in heaven, because everyone else is rotten and God can only look at Christ. But this is not true. Christ has transformed us to be holy. I myself am holy because Christ made me holy at the moment of salvation.

The first time I heard about my true value in Christ, I was floored. For years as a teenager, I had struggled with depression and wanted to die. It wasn’t until my now-husband Alan opened the Word of God to me and expounded His Word for three hours from Romans 6, 7 and 8 that I finally understood and felt clean. I wanted to shout from the rooftop that we don’t have to wallow in sin. We are a new creation that is holy and wants so desperately to do what is right. The first question Alan asked me was, “Do you desire to please God in the deepest core of your being?” I said, “Yes.” “Do you realize that it’s only the flesh, the world, and Satan that cause you to sin? When you die, all three fall away, and you are ready for heaven without sin. This is the truth.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had to see it with my own eyes. After Alan dropped me off at my house, I ran to my bedroom, opened my Bible, and wept. To this day, I still have tiny notes all over my Bible. I discovered that I was free from the power of sin. I sin not because I want to, but because of my flesh, and I have the power to gain victory over the flesh. I didn’t have to feel like a piece of dirt any more. I had a way to reflect Christ that was beautiful and unique. I finally understood my worth in Christ, and I was free.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Christian Living | 2 Comments »

Why We Have a Cat: Part 3

September 28th, 2011

why-we-have-cats-3

So the whole cat thing backfired, and it made me more fatigued during the last time I would ever enjoy a baby of my own. But I couldn’t resent my husband because I had been justly punished for my own manipulation. Now let me tell you about a time that I was manipulating and didn’t even know it.

I love my husband. If you’ve read my love story, you know that I’ve always loved my husband dearly. I wanted my husband to sleep in on the weekends, because he loved sleeping in. Of course, I loved sleeping in, too… But I wanted my husband to feel refreshed. So I let him sleep in every weekend. I felt no resentment whatsoever, but only a purity of heart. This went on for years.

Come to find out after we we were done having kids, I suddenly wasn’t willing to fall on the sword any more. I wanted my husband to watch the kids so I could sleep in once in a while. A veil lifted, and I saw the real reason why I let my husband sleep in: I didn’t want my husband to feel fatigue so that he would give me more children.

Why am I sharing this story with you? Because you need to understand that ALL of us are selfish pigs, and we don’t see the reality of our actions. I knew that I had purity of heart for wanting to let my husband sleep in. You see, you do things that you think you have godly motives for, and you’re only deceiving yourself. This holds true for all mankind.

The only way to have pure and true motives is to yield to the Spirit of God. Even our good works are as filthy rags before God. When the veil lifted for me, God showed me other layers of selfishness. He peeled layer after layer of selfishness off me. My whole life (since salvation) I was pure and obedient to God. At least that’s what I thought. I was like the good son in the prodigal story. If I ever sinned, I always repented as soon as I knew. I never went through a rebellious stage as a teenager. I even obeyed my parents behind their back, avoiding parties that I could have gone to because I didn’t want to ruin my father’s reputation as a seminary professor. I had done so much for God over the years, or at least I thought I had.

Then I came across the passage in Isaiah 6, where the holy angels had to block their faces in the presence of God, and I suddenly cried out with all my heart and soul, “God, make me holy! Do anything!” You see, I realized that I wasn’t.

He peeled so many layers of sin off me. He burned them off. It was so painful as I saw that everything that I had ever done was worth nothing. I did it because I liked thinking that I was good. I thought I was doing all that for God, but God showed me that I was sorely mistaken.

Was the real purifying of my soul worth all the pain? Absolutely. I feel the presence of God in my life now more than ever. I am overwhelmed by the holiness of God, and God does things through me I never thought possible. Being yielded to the Spirit is true freedom, and everything you do through the power of the Spirit has eternal value.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marriage | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »