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God’s Incredible Plan for You

an arrow pointing up a ramp

THE DREAM

Like me, I’m sure you long for the most amazing, fulfilling life. You want close relationships with those you love. You want unfailing love and security. You want a life of purpose. You even want to be part of the bigger picture in helping the world become a better place.

Your heart longs for happily ever after because you were originally designed to live in paradise.

THE UGLY REALITY

Unfortunately, relationships with imperfect people in this world are difficult. Even marriage can’t completely fulfill you.

Life can be a lot harder than we ever imagined it could be. Sometimes, it may feel like you are living on crumbs and just in survival mode. It can be frustrating when you are trying everything you know to do to make things better and to try to grasp your dreams, only to continue to be discouraged, lonely, and frustrated.

People, things, and ideals in this life often fail and disappoint you, leaving you unsatisfied and discontent.

There are stresses all around you and maybe you are exhausted. You are running out of hope. You wonder how much longer you can hold on? You need help and a power source much greater than yourself. But where can you turn?

GREAT NEWS

You don’t have to try to figure out this whole life thing on your own. Thankfully, there is someone who knows you deeply and loves you dearly who wants to help you!

God created you. He is the one true God of the universe who made all things. He knows how things are supposed to work in every area of our lives—even marriage. He has all wisdom, all knowledge, all power and He is good, loving, holy, sovereign, and just.

He is the only one who will never fail us and never disappoint us. He is the only one who can meet the deepest needs of our souls and lives.

He isn’t trying to hide His will and His purposes from you. He wants you to know what He has for you!

GOD’S PLAN FOR YOU

He wants to:

  1. Adopt you as His own child through salvation in Jesus Christ.
  2. Free you from your old sinful nature that keeps you in miserable bondage and separates you from Him.
  3. Give you a new Spirit, a new heart, and a new mind so that you can be in right relationship with Him and enjoy real Life.
  4. Empower you to become a hero to set other spiritual captives free and rescue them to bring them into His kingdom, too.

For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:11-13

After you begin to embrace God’s big-picture plan, He will begin to show you more of the details He has for you as you follow and trust Him.

HE CALLS YOU TO MAKE A DECISION TODAY

This very day, God is calling you to Himself. He wants you to commit your life to Christ as your Savior and Lord. He is a Gentleman, He will never force His way into your life. He will only come into your life if you ask Him to.

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

2 Cor. 6:2

THE ABCs OF SALVATION

  1. Admit you are a sinner and that you can’t meet God’s perfect standards of holiness. You need help. You can’t be good enough to earn heaven. Like every one of us, you stand condemned before God on your own because of the wrong things you have thought, said, and done in your lifetime.
  2. Believe that Jesus is the Son of God (God in the flesh) who came to live the perfect life you couldn’t live, who died on the cross in your place, and who was raised to life on the 3rd day victorious over sin, death, and the grave on your behalf!
  3. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Savior and Lord and live to serve and follow Him from this point forward.

(For related verses, please see below**)

Once you know Him, He wants you to commit to growing in Him and to seeking Him with all your heart daily. He wants to satisfy the deepest longings of your soul like only He can. He wants to lavish His unfathomable love on you every moment of every day.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'”

Matt. 22:37

SO THAT YOU CAN EXPERIENCE PARADISE WITH HIM NOW AND FOREVER

God’s narrow path leads to great things! HIMSELF!

He wants you to experience being in a one Spirit relationship with Him. He gives all of Himself and all that He has to you. In return, you will give Him all of yourself and all that you have—not to try to earn salvation or earn His love, but simply out of overwhelming gratitude for all He has done for you.

This means He wants you to:

  • Allow Him to crucify your old sinful nature with Jesus on the cross to set you free from slavery to sin.
  • He wants to get rid of any spiritual poison (wrong thinking, lies, sinful strongholds) or doors that are open to destructive things in your life.
  • He wants to heal your soul and completely fill you up with Himself, His Spirit, and His spiritual abundance as you are willing to totally trust Him.
  • Experience His leading, His presence, His provision, His glory, and His miracles.
  • Allow Him to radically transform your heart, mind, and life by His power.
  • Let Him completely change the way you relate to others and in your relationships as He teaches you His divine ways and gives you the power to live it in real life.
  • Live in His supernatural peace, contentment, joy, and hope even during trials.
  • Use even your mistakes and any suffering in your life to help you become more like Jesus.
  • Understand and know how to use your heavenly weapons, power, and the authority of Jesus to fight spiritual battles and bring about the victory of Jesus and demolish strongholds.
  • Continually grow in your capacity to receive His love, to love Him completely, and then to love others with His divine love.
  • Discover His beautiful design and calling for you as a woman (including as a wife and mom if you are married or have children).
  • Be seated with Him in heavenly places even now.
  • Live a holy life that pleases Him.
  • Be trained and equipped to be a hero to others. He wants you to be part of His rescue mission to save them from the bondage of sin and Satan’s snares that they might also become children of God and join you in heaven.
  • Allow Him to restore the “years the locusts have eaten” in your life and turn all the painful, awful things into beauty, glory, and miraculous blessings.
  • Be His hands and feet to love people all around you here on earth.
  • Have eternal life in heaven with Him—the greatest happily ever after.

No one should have to miss out on the most incredible love in all the universe in Jesus. Everyone deserves a chance to hear about God’s overwhelming offer of love and salvation.

HE WANTS TO SPARE YOU FROM MISERY

God knows that apart from your faith in Jesus’ provision for you on the cross, you will be separated from God forever when this life is over. God doesn’t want that to happen! He loves all of us and wants all of us to turn from our sin and turn to Him and go His way.

That is why He went to the greatest possible lengths to make a way to rescue you. There was no other way. Jesus asked if there could be another way the night before He was crucified. But God’s answer was that there was not.

Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

John 14:6

He wants to spare you from:

  • All condemnation.
  • Being ensnared by the enemy with lies, addictions, and strongholds that hurt you and your relationships.
  • The pain and suffering that comes from living in slavery to sin.
  • The pain that comes from being far from Him and His love and goodness.
  • Satan’s plans to steal, kill, and destroy in your life.

When you choose to live for Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, when God looks at you, He no longer sees our sin and failure, He sees Jesus’ perfection. Jesus pays your massive sin debt (that we all have) in full and gives us His overflowing account if you turn to Him in faith. You no longer have to live as a spiritual beggar or orphan.

Please don’t put off this decision. As we have seen in our family in the past year and a half, time can be a lot shorter than we may think.

You have a Good Father who will provide for and protect you if you belong to Christ.

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(If you are on the home screen, please click on the title at the top of the post to go to the post page. There you can find the comments at the bottom of the post and the search bar.)

If you have prayed to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I would love to hear from you in the comments! I want to welcome you into the family of God and share some resources with you to help you grow and build a firm spiritual foundation for your faith.

If you want to share some insights God has given you or you just have questions or a comment relevant to this topic, we’d love to hear from you!

IF YOU KNOW JESUS

Let me encourage you to share this message of hope, good news, and blessing with others!

Much love!

VERSES ABOUT SALVATION**

  • For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Rom. 3:23
  • The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Rom. 6:23
  • If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Rom. 10:9-10
  • But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, John 1:12
  • For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. Gal. 3:26
  • For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph. 2:8-10
  • For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
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3 Secrets to Building Real-Life Romance in Your Marriage

man holding a bouquet of flowers

Real romance is all about selflessness, thoughtfulness, kindness, and generosity.

Sadly, we sometimes miss out on appreciating things that actually could be extremely romantic, if only we decided to look at them that way.

We are conditioned by our culture (and advertisers) to recognize certain specific things as romantic:

  • Flowers
  • Dinner out at a fancy restaurant
  • Pricey cards
  • A trip out of town
  • Diamonds
  • Jewelry

These things definitely can be romantic and very special treats that we can enjoy from our husbands, at times.

But the truth is, anything your husband does for you to benefit you, or your children, is a gift. And anything he does out of love, thoughtfulness, and consideration for you is special. Even if it is free.

If it costs him time, effort, energy, and/or money, he is generously extending love to you.

Don’t let his love go unnoticed, my dear sister!

SECRET #1 – APPRECIATION

Here’s a secret to experiencing greater romantic connection in your marriage:

Anytime your husband does something sweet for you—big or small— decide to receive his loving act toward you as something very romantic.

Because it is!

So if he does something loving like he:

  • Gives you a compliment.
  • Tries to cheer you up.
  • Brings in an income to help provide for your needs.
  • Fixes your car.
  • Runs to the store to get tissues and medicine when you are sick.
  • Stays home with the kids so you can do something to recharge.
  • Helps you with a chore.
  • Tries to protect you from harm in some way spiritually, financially, emotionally, or physically.
  • Invites you to go for a walk, or is willing to go for a walk with you when you ask him to.
  • Comes home to spend the evening with you instead of hanging out with friends or working late.
  • Chooses a movie he knows you’ll like or avoids one he knows you’ll hate.
  • Makes a sacrifice so you can have or do something important to you.

Here’s what you can do:

  • Smile! Let your face light up with delight.
  • Use a friendly tone of voice as much as possible.
  • Thank him with words and maybe a hug or kiss.
  • Appreciate his loving gesture and cherish it in your heart and mind.
  • Maybe even think about ways you could do something special for him that he would appreciate, too.

There is something extremely lovely and feminine about a wife graciously and joyfully receiving a gift her husband gives her. Your delight over what he did for you is a precious gift to him!

Romance in real life is found in appreciating the little things.

For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men.

1 Cor. 16:18

SECRET #2 – GRATITUDE

Attraction and real life romance need nurturing. They are much like a garden. You have to pull the weeds, water, provide sunlight, monitor the temperature, and fertilize at the right times.

If you focus on the good and on being thankful for the good things you notice in your husband, romance will naturally begin to grow.

Some proven ways to nurture real-life romance and attraction:

  • Focus on the things you respect and admire about your husband.
  • Keep an ongoing list of things for which you are grateful about your husband and about things he has done for you.
  • Speak positively about him to yourself, to others, and to him.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thess. 5:18

(There are times we need to address sin. But, in general, if there is not major unrepentant sin going on, we want to focus on the good things.)

SECRET #3 – SOFTNESS

One of the most attractive things about women, to our men, is our softness. Yes, we have soft, lovely curves, generally. But more than that, when we respond and act with feminine gentleness, softness, and openness, that is beautiful and magnetic to our men, too.

Another way to be soft is to be responsive. Be responsive and open to his words, his loving acts, his gifts, and even to his touch. Melt into him when he touches you.

We want to avoid a few things that kill our softness:

And we want to invite God to help us be empowered by the Spirit (Gal. 2:22-23) to be:

  • Peaceful.
  • Patient.
  • Joyful.
  • Kind.
  • Gentle.
  • Self-controlled.

These godly responses draw our men to us, make them feel more masculine and protective of us, and tend to increase the attraction and romance in our marriage over time.

When we seek romance and our own feelings first, we end up sabotaging real-life romance. But when we seek Christ first and seek to honor Him as we relate to our men, romance generally results as fruit from being properly cultivated.

But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet (or peaceful) spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

1 Pet. 3:4

When you are spiritually healthy, then you are able to provide the most conducive atmosphere for your marriage to thrive.

There are more secrets to building real-life romance and attraction in marriage, but let’s start with these. Then we can build from there.

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What (rated G) secrets have you learned about how to increase romance and attraction in a real life marriage? We’d love to hear your insights.

(Note, if you are on the home page, you may need to click on the title of the post to go to the individual post’s page. Then you can scroll down to the comment box and search bar.)

Much love! <3

RESOURCES

NOTE – If you are facing severe issues in your marriage like uncontrolled mental health issues, abuse, violence, major addictions, etc… please seek experienced, trustworthy, godly help from a counselor, the police, a doctor, or whoever is appropriate. My posts are not written specifically for wives in extreme situations like this.

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Do You Want to be the Greatest in God’s Eyes?

Very dirty feet

Greatness in Jesus’ economy is totally the opposite of everything worldly wisdom holds dear.

The Secret to Greatness

Jesus had two disciples, brothers, who wanted to be the greatest in Jesus’ kingdom. They wanted the right to get to sit at His right (the position of greatest honor) and His left (the second greatest position of honor).

Jesus shared this shocking news with them:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matt. 20:25-28

The greatest in His kingdom is humble, not proud.

Pride says things like:

  • I know better than God or anyone.
  • My wisdom is unparalleled.
  • I am equal to or greater than God.
  • I am so important.
  • I deserve the best.
  • I deserve to be greatly exalted and praised.
  • People and God should do my will.

Humility says things like:

  • God knows better than I do. His wisdom is much higher than mine.
  • God alone is sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, completely holy, perfect, good, loving, just, kind, and righteous. He alone is worthy of worship. I am not.
  • God, His will, His kingdom, and His glory are the most important things.
  • I don’t deserve good things because I don’t have any merit on my own, but I am so grateful for all of the good blessings I have in Jesus.
  • Treating others well is more important than me getting my way.
  • I yield my will to God’s will.
  • I choose to honor, praise, and exalt God, not myself.
  • I am God’s servant, ready to do anything He asks of me.
  • I am willing to serve others the way Jesus came to serve me.

THE FOOT-WASHING WAY

Jesus, who is God in the flesh, the Creator of the universe, humbled Himself and washed His disciples dirty, smelly, extremely dusty feet. He took on the job of the lowest slave to set an example of the kind of leadership and greatness He desires in His kingdom (John 13:3-17).

The one who is the greatest in Jesus’ eyes is the most servant-hearted. God exalts those who do not exalt themselves and do not seek honor, power, and glory for themselves.

“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.” 

― Andrew Murray, Humility

God opposes the proud
    but shows favor to the humble.

James 4:6

This is true in ministry, it is true in business, it is true in church. And it is true in Christian marriage. For both husbands and wives.

Sometimes, women don’t like the role God assigns to wives in marriage. Some would have us believe that “women are slighted in God’s plan” because they believe leaders are “more important” and they want to be the most important.

However, if we truly understood the accountability, sacrifice, cost, and expectations God has for leaders, we may not be so quick to demand that position for ourselves. Especially if we understood all the ways in which all people are equally loved and valued by God and that value has nothing to do with position or authority levels in His kingdom.

If any of us (male or female) wants to have “the most power” in our human relationships for our own selfish purposes, we have missed the entire point of the example of Jesus.

To live the Christian life (for a man or woman) is to die to our sinful nature and self, it is to forsake our pride, and it is to yield humbly and absolutely to the Lordship of Jesus.

Living for Jesus is a clear call to joyful servanthood

The Gospel

As a sinner— if we want to talk about what I really deserve, it is hell. But Jesus had great mercy on me. He came to save me from hell and from my sin. He took away the condemnation I earned and deserved, if I have trusted Jesus as my Savior and Lord (please read here for how you can have a saving relationship with Jesus). And He has given me every spiritual treasure He possesses. It’s crazy!

  • He takes on my astronomical sin debt and pays it all in full.
  • Then He gives me total access to His overflowing spiritual bank account.

He has graciously given me all of His righteousness, goodness, and right standing with God. He has provided for my every spiritual need and for my every need now and in eternity. He gives me a new Spirit and nature. A new identity in Him. Greater love than I have ever known. He has already seated me in heavenly places with Him and even given me some of His authority to participate in the honor of bringing His will into reality on earth.

If only we could grasp even a fraction of these incredible truths!

Knowing Jesus Brings Contentment to My Heart

If I understand who I really am and who Jesus is and what He has done for me, I can be more than content serving any role He has for me in this world, as long as I get to be close to Him. I want to serve Him! Out of overflowing gratitude and love, not out of duty or drudgery.

What does it matter to me if I live in obscurity or in a position of worldly influence and power as long as I have Him?

All of my life is for His glory and His purposes now, not for myself!

If Jesus is my Lord, I will be willing and eager to serve in any capacity He has prepared for me. Whatever that may be. My only goal is to use the gifts and opportunities He has given me to exalt Him and bless and love others. I want to let Him bear much fruit in and through me. I long for His will, not mine.

If I am fully yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, no one can steal the blessings and spiritual treasures and miracles God has for me. If I choose to live by faith in Jesus, no weapon formed against me shall prosper and God will open the floodgates of heaven to accomplish all he wants to do in and through me.

The Lord Calls All Christians to Servanthood, Dying to Self, and Sacrifice

Ultimately, in marriage and in the Body of Christ, we are all called to humbly serve and love God and others. Leaders are simply called to go an “extra mile,” sacrificing themselves all the more and using their strength, position, and power for the good of those in their care.

That is why we are to respect them and cooperate with them, (but never follow anyone into sin), to make their job to honor the Lord easier, not harder. And that is why we are to use our influence authority for good, not to try to lead them astray or trip them up.

Honestly, all of us are called to be leaders of some type, as believers in God’s kingdom. Maybe we are moms, mentors, leaders at work, or maybe we have ministries for the Lord. All of us have positions of influence or authority somewhere, although the exact positions may be different. All of us have spiritual gifts to bless the Body of Christ.

Equal Value but Different Roles and Gifts

We don’t all have access to every possible leadership position or spiritual gift. But we all have total access to every good gift God has provided for us specifically and for believers in general.

Each of us is valued and loved equally. But we have different roles and gifts!

We cannot all be the eye. We are not all the foot. We are not all the right hand. God gives each of us certain gifts, according to His wisdom, for us to use to bless everyone else (1 Corinthians 12). He arranges all the parts as He desires them to be. We all need each other! And each of us have important roles to fulfill that will bring glory to Jesus and the kingdom, not to ourselves.

Greatness Is Available to Each of Us!

Servanthood doesn’t mean we become people pleasers, it means we become God pleasers.

All of us have the ability to seek greatness in Christ as we humble ourselves and empty ourselves of self, allowing God to fill us up to overflowing with Himself. There is no limit to what God is willing to do through a completely yielded vessel who is willing to take on a Spirit of servanthood just like Jesus did in Philippians 2:1-11!

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Does this concept surprise you? If so, how?

What has God shown you about the blessing and honor of servanthood and humility?

How has it impacted your marriage or other relationships for good?

NOTE – if you can’t access the comment box, please click on the blog title at the top of the post and you should be able to see the comment box at the bottom of the post, and the search bar, too.

RELATED

Bible verses about servanthood

What Was the Significance of Jesus Washing the Disciples’ Feet? by www.gotquestions.org

What Is the Biblical Pattern of Church Leadership? by www.gotquestions.org

What Are the Qualifications of Elders and Deacons? by www.gotquestions.org

The Danvers Statement

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood – edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem

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What Does the Bible Say about the Role of a Wife?

bride and groom under her wedding veil

We humans have a tendency to err toward the extremes, veering to the left or to the right.

1. We want to be licentious and ignore what God’s Word says and just do whatever we want to do whenever we feel like it or pick and choose what we want to obey. That is dangerous.
2. We want to be legalistic and add tons of manmade rules and our own personal convictions and try to make everyone follow our checklists. That is oppressive.

Both of those extremes are hurtful to men, women, marriage, children, family, the church, and society.

When we exalt our wisdom and ourselves as greater than God and His wisdom, we get ourselves into trouble very quickly.

Let’s abandon our pride and humble ourselves, seeking to understand God’s loving heart for us all.

We Are Equally Loved and Valued

People (men, women, and children) have value because God created us in His image (Gen. 1:27) and because He loves us all (John 3:16). He loves us because He IS love (1 John 4:8).

We all have value because Jesus died for us to make a way for us to be right with God and to have eternal life.

To read about the many ways men and women have spiritual equality in Christ as fellow believers and joint-heirs, please check out this post.

We Are Not the Same

We have equal worth and value as people. We are equally loved, but…

Husbands and wives are not identical. Masculinity and femininity are not interchangeable in God’s good design.

We have different roles, responsibilities, and types of authority.

But we have the same purpose!

Our differences and different roles allow us to display a living parable of the gospel! (Eph. 5:22-33)

  • The husband is to represent a picture of the selfless, humble, sacrificial love of Christ for His beloved Church.
  • The wife is to represent a picture of the love, respect, adoration, faith, and trust of the Church for her beloved Christ.

God gives us some parameters for our benefit and protection. He also invites each of us to participate in accomplishing the purposes and mission of His Kingdom—to help bring many to Christ. But there is also space in which we can breathe and have plenty of room to uniquely live, love, and enjoy fellowship with Him and with others.

God’s commands are not burdensome. They are life-giving and fulfilling!

We will focus on the wife’s role today and the husband’s role in a future post. Thanks for understanding.

The Role of the Wife in Scripture

God’s design for wives, husbands, marriage, and family transcends culture, place, and time.

I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Isaiah 48:17-18  🕊

Perhaps we can seek to leave our preconceived notions at the door and simply look at what the Bible has to say about the role of a wife without adding to it or subtracting from it. Let’s invite God to help us build our lives and basic understanding of these important concepts on His Word alone.

As we think about the role of a wife or husband, it is always important to keep our understanding of marriage roles grounded in the much wider context of:

If we take one or two verses and focus only on those and ignore the rest of scripture, we will invariably be in error. We want to prayerfully consider all that Scripture has to say about this—and every— topic.

Also if we choose to reject certain verses, deciding we know better than God, or that we can ignore things we don’t like or agree with, we will end up veering into dangerous territory.

Let’s try to take the whole of Scripture on this topic.

What Does the Bible Say about Wives?

I am attempting to include just about every relevant verse about a godly wife’s general role. I want to get a broad overview of this topic from all of Scripture to give us the wide-angle view.

  1. A wife is a helpmeet to her husband. This means she is a companion, a compliment, and a blessing to him. She lives in harmony together with him. (Gen. 2:18)
  2. A wise wife builds her home and marriage and doesn’t tear it down with her words, attitudes, and actions. (Prov. 14:1)
  3. She is not quarrelsome or fretful. (Prov. 21:19)
  4. She does her husband good and not evil all the days of her lives. (Prov. 31:12)
  5. An excellent wife is very rare and extremely precious. Her husband can trust her. (Prov. 31:10-11)
  6. She is industrious at home and savvy and profitable in her business dealings. She is not lazy. She provides for many of the physical needs of her household. (Prov. 31:13-19)
  7. She cares for the poor. (Prov. 31:20)
  8. She is a woman of strength and dignity. She is not afraid or worried about the future because she has planned ahead and provided for many of her family’s current and future needs. (Prov. 31:25)
  9. She fears the Lord. (Prov. 31:30)
  10. She speaks and teaches with kindness and wisdom and provides for the spiritual instruction of her children. (Prov. 31:26)
  11. A wise, understanding and sensible wife is a gift from the Lord to her husband. (Prov. 19:14)
  12. A wife honors her husband’s God-given leadership out of reverence for and submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. (There are limits to a husband’s leadership just like there are limits to any human authority in our lives. He may not lead her into sin and he may not seek to harm or abuse her.) (Eph. 5:22-33)
  13. A wife respects her husband as a man and as the God-given leader in her marriage covenant. (Eph. 5:33) She can’t respect sin; in fact, she may need to confront sin appropriately and stand against mistreatment or abuse of herself or her children. But she is to approach her husband with genuine respect for the good in him and for the responsibility he carries to lead the family before God. She does this because Christ deserves her reverence and obedience and to avoid maligning the gospel. (Titus 2:3-5)
  14. A wife understands her power of influence and uses her incredible power for good and for promoting God’s will in the marriage. (Think of the bad examples of Eve and Jezebel and the good examples of Esther and Mary, etc…)
  15. It is her conduct, attitude, and godliness, not so much her words, which can most powerfully win over a husband who is far from Christ. (I Peter. 3:1)
  16. A wife is willing to selflessly give of herself sexually to her husband if she is able, unless he is breaking the marriage covenant in some way, they are apart, or she is sick or in pain. (Yes, the reverse is true, as well. Both spouses are to be selfless and generous with the other. We’ll get to husbands in the next post, don’t worry!) (I Cor. 7:1-5)
  17. She honors the spiritual chain of command in marriage by God’s design that everyone is to honor out of reverence for the Lord: God>Christ>husband>wife>underage children. (1 Cor. 11:3, Eph. 6:1)
  18. A wife loves her husband and children, honors her husband’s leadership, and seeks to be “self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind.” (Titus 2:5)
  19. She focuses on her own home and God-given responsibilities, taking care of her family and household rather than going about from house to house as an idle gossip or busybody. (I Tim. 5:11-16)
  20. A wife seeks to do what is right and not give way to hysterical fear. She is to have a gentle, peaceful, and tranquil Spirit from God that is very precious in His sight. (1 Pet. 3:1-6)
  21. She honors the marriage bed and keeps it undefiled. (Heb. 13:4)
  22. She stays with an unbelieving husband if he is willing to stay (if he is not breaking the marriage covenant in some way) so that she may influence him and their children for Christ. (1 Cor. 7:12-14)
  23. A wife does not separate from her husband except when he is committing serious unrepentant sin against her like violating the marriage covenant or there are other extreme circumstances. (1 Cor. 7:10-11)
  24. She does not divorce her husband, with possible exceptions for abandonment, adultery, or some other extreme circumstances. (Matt. 5:32, 1 Cor. 7:10-11)

What the Bible Says about the Role of a Husband

Power and Freedom

The good news is, even though it is quite impossible for us to fulfill these roles and commands in our own power, we don’t have to try to do this on our own. God, Himself, can give us the power we need to be the wives He calls us to be as we trust Him and allow His Spirit to fill us.

It all comes down, ultimately, to the Lordship of Christ in a woman’s life.

When we stumble, we repent to God and to our husbands and children and get back up, inviting God to help us learn and grow to be more like Jesus (1 John 1:9).

Notice that there aren’t specific lists of which chores husbands must always do and which chores wives must always do. This isn’t about culture. It isn’t about the way our parents did things. It’s not about going back to the 1950s, the 1800s, or the 100s.

God’s Word and design apply to every culture in every age.

There is a lot of room for each couple to hammer out their own beautiful way of relating and establishing their own unique marriage in the context of God’s grand and holy design.

Each of us will give an account to Jesus, one day, and no one else.

The purpose is to display the gospel but no two marriages will look exactly alike. We must all hold firmly to biblical principles. But where God’s Word gives freedom, we do not set restrictions on others or demand that everyone follows our own personal convictions.

Much love!

SHARE

What do you love about God’s design for wives and marriage?

Does anything seem confusing, upsetting, or strange?

Are there any passages you feel I missed that you want to share?

Additional resources for your prayerful consideration:

ABUSE IS ALWAYS SIN and NEVER GOD’S DESIGN

What Does the Bible Say about Verbal Abuse? by www.gotquestions.org

What Does the Bible Say about Emotional Abuse? by www.gotquestions.org

What Does the Bible Say about Abuse? by www.gotquestions.org

What Is a Biblical Perspective on Domestic Violence? by www.gotquestions.org

Desiringgod.org posts on Abuse

Note – There are numerous sites, teachers, and authors that claim to promote proper roles for Christian husbands and wives that veer from Scripture one way or the other. Please be sure to compare any message with the Bible. Test the spirits. Only receive what is biblical and in accordance with sound doctrine.

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Are Men and Women Equal?

man twirling woman and dancing

People have a lot of different definitions of equality today.

This makes it really confusing. So many times, we are “comparing apples to oranges” because we use the same phrase but we don’t mean the same thing.

What does equal mean?

Examples of different popular current definitions of “equality”:

  • Men and women should have equal opportunities for education and careers.
    • Both should get paid the same for equal work.
    • Both should both be able to vote.
    • Both can be equally intelligent.
  • Men and women should mutually respect each other.
    • Both are equally valuable as human beings.
  • Men and women have to be the exact same to be truly equal.
    • Their roles must be interchangeable or identical.
    • Their bodies should be interchangeable.
    • Biology is not fact, whatever you feel at the moment is what you really are.
    • Gender should be fluid.
  • Women must be superior to men, that is the only way things can be equal.
    • Women are perfect goddesses who never do anything wrong.
    • All men are evil just for being men. Masculinity, in and of itself, is toxic.
    • Women should always be in charge at home and at work.
    • Men should have no voice, no personhood, and no power. They should even quit their jobs so women can take their place.

Obviously, this is a very wide spectrum of the definition of”equality” today. If you go back in history, or even go to other cultures today, there are plenty of examples where women were truly mistreated, abused, and denied basic human rights. There was not equal treatment for men and women in society or under the law.

This led to a huge push for change and for equality.

But we have to agree on what we mean by equality if we are going to discuss whether we are or are not equal.

This topic could be a series of books, there is so much to discuss.

What does the Bible say?

I believe the Bible sheds a lot of light on the topic. My greatest concern—in this post—is about where we stand with God spiritually as men and women as believers in Christ. Then we can have a starting place to know how to rightly relate to one another:

1. Women and men are equally created in the image of God.

  • Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over (the animals). Gen. 1:26

2. Women and men were both equally good and perfect when God created them.

  • God saw all that he had made (including man and woman on day 6), and it was very good. Gen. 1:31

3. After the Fall of Adam and Eve, apart from the salvation available to us through Jesus Christ, women and men are equally sinful.

  • For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Rom. 3:23
  • All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isa. 53:6

4. Women and men have equal access to salvation through Jesus.

  • For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
  • God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom. 5:8

5. Women and men are equally loved by God and followers of Jesus are equally adopted as children of God.

  • So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16
  • See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  1 John 3:1

6. Women and men are equally valuable in the Kingdom of God, as are all people.

  • There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal. 3:28

7. Women and men both have full access to right standing with God and holiness through Jesus.

  • There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  Rom. 8:1

8. Believing women and men have equal access to the holy God of the universe through prayer 24/7. We are all seated in the heavenly places in Christ.

  • But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Eph. 2:4-6
  • But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matt. 6:6

11. Men and women are equally joint heirs together in Christ.

  • Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. 1 Pet. 3:7
  • And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Rom. 8:17

There are more points I could cover, if I had time. We have equal access to God’s Word. We have equal access to the promises of God. We have equal access to most spiritual gifts. This was all revolutionary.

Women in the Old Testament, and even most men, did not have such free and direct access to God. They had to go through priests, especially the high priest. And even he only had direct access to the Holy of Holies one day per year. Jesus has opened the Holy of Holies up to us all! To all who love and trust Him.

In so many ways we are equal in Christ and have equal access to countless blessings as believers. And yet, in the church and in the family, men and women have different roles.

Some people get very upset about this, especially those who define equality as sameness. But God is not about sameness for men and women.

Does “equal” mean identical or interchangeable?

We are equal in value as people, but we are not the same. We shouldn’t want to be the same. It would ruin God’s beautiful design!

Women and men are not identical physically, mentally, or emotionally. We are not interchangeable.

We are all human. We have many similarities because we are the same species. We all have eternal souls. We all have similar bodies. But men and women have profound differences. Thank God for those differences! We should celebrate them!

God created men and women to be different and the differences are good!

The masculine and feminine roles in marriage are necessary to portray the gospel with the husband portraying the way Christ relates to His beloved church and the wife portraying the way the church relates to her precious Messiah (Eph. 5:22-33).

I’m going to let you check out this post because I don’t have room to describe the roles here. And I am hoping to do some more posts soon about roles specifically.

In God’s economy, the stronger protect the weaker— spiritually, financially, physically, etc… Those who have positions of God-given authority are to provide for, nurture, and humbly, selflessly shepherd those in their care. Those who lead are accountable to God, and other authorities on earth, for their stewardship.

This is not to punish women. Or men. And it is not to turn men into selfish, egotistical tyrants. It is not to make women into voiceless, purposeless, wimpy slaves or children. Our roles do not define our value. And, in Christ, our roles are not oppressive, in the least! They are freeing!

We have value because God loves us, because we are made in His image, and because Jesus died for us.

We have different roles to display the Gospel!

God gives us different roles to accomplish His divine purposes and His holy symbolism.

In marriage, we are to be a living parable where both spouses are needed to show the whole story accurately.

To say that one is more important than the other defeats the whole point.

If we both have the same roles in marriage, it would be like an Olympic figure skating couple (a man and woman) trying to both lift each other at the same time or both jump in the air and spin and expect the other to catch the other simultaneously. It would be a disaster!

One role is not “better than” the other. But when they work together in unity, it is beautiful. There is harmony. Both are elevated and honored. And more than that, Christ is honored!

Some people try to turn God’s design into a strict list of oppressive rules. That is not the point, either! There is a lot of room and freedom within the beautiful roles God has given us.

We can only experience real fulfillment when we receive God’s will for us and the roles He has for us as we live them out in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the best place to be in the world!

We have moved far from Scripture and God’s design for masculinity, femininity, marriage, family, and the church in our culture, even in Christian circles today. No wonder we are in such a mess.

We are arguably one of the most confused and deceived generations in the history of the planet, in spite of our vast knowledge and technology.

How I pray for God to help us wake up and turn from our confusion, lies, and chaos to His beautiful life-giving truth and love!

Share

What definitions of equality do you see most often in our society?

Are those definitions helpful or harmful to men, women, children, marriage, and family?

What do you love about the differences between men and women and God’s beautiful design for marriage?

RESOURCES

What Does It Mean That Humanity Is Made in the Image of God? by www.gotquestions.org

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper

The Essence of Femininity – Receiving

God’s Design Increases Attraction and Real Romance in Marriage

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Have You Opened a Door to the Enemy?

open double door

Spiritual warfare is a strange concept to our Western minds. Satan has all but convinced us in America that there is no spiritual realm. We are taught that there is no such thing as God, angels, or demons. Our culture says the Bible is a collection of fictitious myths. Of course, Satan is fine with that. Any lie will do.

As long as he can drag us away from God and the truth, that’s all that matters in his eyes.

He just wants to hurt God and hurt people as much as he can before he is eternally punished.

In reality, the Bible is our source of absolute truth. God’s truth sets us free!

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

1 Pet. 5:7-10

Choices Matter

Our life choices have powerful spiritual (and even eternal) consequences. There are only two spiritual authorities, ultimately, that can be in control of our lives:

  • We can invite the Holy Spirit’s authority to have control in our lives.
  • We can go our own way, (which is also Satan’s way). This automatically invites demonic authority into our lives to one degree or another.

We simply can’t afford to play and flirt with the enemy. All the doors of our lives must be fully shut to Satan’s influence and completely open to God’s influence.

Demonic influences only leave when a stronger authority takes over. When the power of Christ Jesus stakes a claim over a person’s life, the demons have no choice but to flee.

This is a spiritual problem that requires a two part spiritual solution.

  1. Get rid of the spiritual poison.
  2. Pour God and His Truth and love in.
Photo by Nashad Abdu on Unsplash

Demonic Possession

Demonic Possession happens to unbelievers. It involves a demon(s) taking control of a person’s mind, motives, and life. According to the Bible, this can manifest as:

  • Sickness and medical issues (Mark 9:14-19).
  • Personality changes, violence, self-harm, strange behavior, and/or superhuman strength (Matthew 8:28).
  • Special knowledge of the future that is not from God (Acts 16:16-18).
  • Depression, and all kinds of evil and violence, including murder (King Saul actually went completely crazy due to an evil spirit that tormented him and tried to kill David many times. Judas was influenced by Satan to betray Jesus, and later realized the magnitude and consequences of what he had done and killed himself.).
  • And other things, as well.

Note – all mental and physical illnesses are not due to demonic possession or oppression. There can certainly be other causes.

But Satan and his demons do have a lot of power in this world. He is the prince of the power of the air. He is able and willing to cause all kinds of suffering— his ultimate goal being to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Sometimes he does this through other means, but demonic activity and influence is one of the tools in his arsenal.

Believers in Christ have the Holy Spirit living in them and are sealed by Him. Disciples of Christ, to my knowledge and understanding, can’t be possessed by a demon because the Holy Spirit possesses us.

But we can grieve the Holy Spirit by choosing to cherish sin in our lives (Eph. 4:30). We can choose to rebel against God, although this should make us sick and we should want to repent immediately and return to our Lord.

We have the ability to break fellowship with God and roll out the red carpet to the enemy, carelessly inviting him into our lives.

Once he gains access to our thought lives, he does whatever he can to try to destroy us and to try to destroy others through us.

Demonic Oppression

Demonic Oppression can happen to believers or unbelievers. A person is influenced by demons in their thoughts. The person does not take her thoughts captive for Christ and allows the demonic lies to fester. This can result in various things like:

  • Depression, despair, anxiety, worry, loneliness, and hopelessness.
  • Intense fear.
  • A feeling of evil, darkness, or doom.
  • Seeing, feeling, or hearing demons or dark figures—in dreams, or even when awake.
  • Physical illness, at times.
  • No appetite for God or His Word.
  • Self-destruction and abuse (cutting, self-harm, suicide, anorexia/bulimia, addictions).
  • Hatred toward others, God, the Word of God, or self.
  • Rage/malice/violence/abuse toward others.
  • Intense desire for sexual perversion, porn, and/or immorality.

Of course, demonic possession or oppression are not the only things that can cause some of the above issues.

All illness and suffering is related to sin being in the world, in general.

We live in a fallen, cursed world—so bad things happen.

  • Sometimes suffering or illness is a direct consequence of my sin or another person’s sin (ie: STDs due to sexual immorality, or the suffering of someone who was hit by a drunk driver). Demons can be involved in tempting us to sin, but they can’t force us to sin. The choice is ours.
  • Sometimes illness and trials are related directly to demonic activity (attack, oppression, or possession). Demonic attack is where demons try to hurt us in some way, but we are not oppressed or possessed—ie: Job.
  • Sometimes trials are spiritual testing.
  • Sometimes trials happen due to persecution for our faith in Christ.
  • Other times, these things are just part of living in this world. There can be medical, genetic, and other environmental causes for physical and mental illnesses.

We need God’s Spirit, His Word, and His wisdom to rightly discern what is happening in each specific situation. I may not always be able to identify the root cause of every illness or suffering.

But I can invite God to show me if there is sin in my life I need to repent from and ask what He wants me to learn in the midst of my suffering. I can close any open doors to the enemy in my life. I can invite Him to use any suffering in my life for His glory and my ultimate good to conform me to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-29).

Open Doors

THINGS THAT MAY OPEN DOORS TO DEMONIC INFLUENCE

  • The occult – horoscopes, Ouija boards, séances, going to a fortune teller/medium, casting spells, witchcraft, Voodoo, Satanism, paganism, idols, etc… (These things are exploding in popularity in our culture today, unfortunately.)
  • Idolatry – when we worship, serve, trust in, and desire things/people more than we long for God, we are really worshipping demons and receiving their teachings (Deut. 32:16-17).
  • Certain addictive, mind-altering drugs – meth, crack, narcotics, LSD, alcohol, etc…
  • Playing with temptation.
  • Fascination with demons.
  • Obsession with serial killers and mass murderers.
  • Music/media that glorifies evil, killing, abortion, horror, immorality, and sin.
  • Isolating ourselves from other believers.
  • Neglecting time with God, prayer, and scripture reading—starving ourselves of good spiritual food in Christ.
  • Listening to false teaching, lies, or ungodly messages.
  • Fellowshipping with those who are involved in demonic activity.
  • Holding onto sin in our hearts rather than confessing it and turning from it immediately—ie: Scripture teaches us that holding onto anger overnight is a way to give the enemy a stronghold in our lives (Eph. 4:26-27).

Demons are a lot like cockroaches. They are attracted to the stench of sin, wrong thinking, lies, and any kind of evil.

Addictions and unrepentant sin in our lives create an atmosphere where demons feel welcome. They may not have originally caused the mess, but they may be happy to jump in later to try to keep us in spiritual bondage.

THINGS THAT OPEN THE DOOR TO GOD’S DELIVERANCE

  • Repenting from all known sin, turning away from sin to Jesus.
  • Yielding my life to Jesus as the Savior and Lord of my life from this moment on for the rest of my life.
  • Inviting the Holy Spirit to fill me daily.
  • Speaking the truth of God’s love and salvation from the Bible out loud.
  • Singing praise songs to Jesus.
  • Thinking about good things and gratitude toward God. (Phil. 4:8)
  • Resisting Satan coupled with total submission to the Lordship of Christ (James 4:7).
  • Praying for Jesus to bring deliverance to us.
  • Other believers praying for deliverance for a person (it’s best to have at least one Christian who is experienced with this if there is possession or severe oppression going on).
  • Getting rid of any lies and replacing them and rebuilding our lives on God’s truth
  • Putting on the spiritual armor and truth of the Lord (Eph. 6:10-18)

Freedom in Christ

The key is to turn away from the darkness and focus on the Light – Jesus, His glory, His holiness, His truth, His Word, His promises, and His goodness. We praise and thank Him and receive His work on our behalf and His Spirit, He can set us free from sin and demonic oppression/possession.

When the brilliance of the Light and Truth of Christ shines freely in the darkest corners of my life, the cockroaches go scurrying away.

They can’t stand the Light and a soul that has been cleansed of filth. They detest being around gratitude and praise for God. And they hate hearing God’s Word and truth.

When I resist Satan and yield myself to the authority of Jesus, He sets me free.

I don’t have authority over demons or Satan myself apart from the authority of Jesus. I don’t need to talk to them or engage in any interaction. People are much weaker than demons.

Jesus is the one who has all authority in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18). Demons are required to obey Him. In fact, they tremble before Him. I just need to yield myself to Jesus and declare His Word and His authority over my life in faith.

Note – Every bad thing that happens is not spiritual warfare. Some things are. But not all.

The steps of repentance and submission to Christ are the same for spiritual oppression or for repenting from just plain old sin. Sometimes with severe oppression or possession, we may need experienced believers to pray with us and for us.

PRAY WITH ME

Lord,

Please show us any open doors in our lives today. Help us see if we have invited the enemy in for tea and cookies and that could be why our lives are being ravaged by turmoil. Help us to identify every door the enemy uses to gain access in our lives and shut it tight and lock it.

We purposely and joyfully choose to turn away from every sin, every lie, and every demonic influence that we have allowed in our lives. We yield ourselves completely to Your Lordship. You are the Prince of Peace. You are the King of kings. We enthrone You, alone, on our hearts as being in control of our lives.

We open every door wide to You. We hold nothing back from You, Jesus. We give you full control.

We declare the authority and victory of Jesus Christ over our lives, marriages, husbands, children, families, and homes. No other authority is welcome any longer.

Amen!

RESOURCES:

What Is Demon Possession by www.gotquestions.org

What Does the Bible Say about Demon Possession by www.gotquestions.org

Why Does God Allow Sickness? by www.gotquestions.org

Freedom from Demon Bondage – CBN

Questions about Angels and Demons by www.gotquestions.org

Ambushing Satan with Song – John Piper about praying for a woman to be delivered from a demon

A friend’s story of demon possession and healing:

Radiant’s story of spiritual oppression due to believing demonic lies that resulted in severe illness, to the point of being almost an invalid.

Radiant’s story of the spiritual healing that is available to each of us in Jesus.

My Demon – about demonic oppression and flirting with the enemy

How Satan Would Love to Destroy Your Marriage Through Your Thought Life – Satan’s strategies for your marriage and thought life

If you or someone you love may be suffering from demonic possession or oppression, there are some churches that have prayer teams who can pray for you. Of course, you can pray for yourself or for your friend or loved one. But if you need reinforcements, seek a Bible-believing church with an experienced prayer team.

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Resources for Wives with Angry Husbands

angry man yelling into a phone

Dear sisters,

For dealing with an angry husband, I have several resources I would like to share that I hope might be a blessing. Of course, each situation is a bit different.

It is tempting to respond to our husband’s anger with anger of our own. But it is much more productive and healthy for us to respond in the power of the Spirit. It can also help us if we remember that anger is often a secondary emotion that springs from hurt or pain of some type.

By far the most helpful thing is to have God’s wisdom and discernment about what is really going on and how the Lord is prompting us to respond in that situation.

Sometimes, a husband may be open to discussing the things I am about to ask. Other times, you’ll know the answer when you see the questions without having to ask him about it. If a husband is particularly angry, he may not want to have a big discussion about any of the things I am going to share.

Sometimes, it is important to try to talk through things. Other times, a man may need some healthy space to work through his own anger.

When he is super volatile and feeling out of control, he may need to walk away to calm down. He may not be able to have a deep discussion right then. Let him go get himself under control. Don’t follow him and demand that he speak if he feels like he is about to blow up. That will probably only make things worse.

These questions are really mostly for you to prayerfully consider:

Is he actually angry?

  1. Is he just from a family culture or a geographical culture where people tend to speak loudly and forcefully, but they aren’t actually angry? Sometimes people from the South, for example, think people from New York City are angry because they talk faster and more loudly, but the New Yorkers may be speaking normally, from their perspective.
  2. Are you especially sensitive/insecure and maybe looking for anger behind everything he does, even when maybe he is not angry at you? Do you struggle with people-pleasing or idolizing your husband? Do you feel nervous at the thought that there could be any tension or conflict ever?
  3. Is it possible you could be misunderstanding him/his personality and that he doesn’t intend to communicate anger? Maybe he is simply trying to communicate something he would like to be different, but maybe he is not angry about it?
  4. Could he be reacting defensively because he feels attacked?

If he really is angry, with what or with whom is he angry?

  1. With God?
  2. With circumstances?
  3. With you?
  4. With other family members?
  5. With coworkers/customers/neighbors/church members/others?
  6. With himself?

What kind of anger is it?

  1. Righteous anger/jealousy? – Is someone sinning against him, someone he loves, or his family?
  2. Unrighteous anger/jealousy? – Is he holding onto resentment, bitterness, impatience, hatred, or another sin? Is he in rebellion against God or living in unrepentant sin?

What is the pain behind his anger?

  1. Does he know Jesus as his Savior and Lord? If he doesn’t, this is his greatest need.
  2. Does he feel that he is trying to lead in godly ways, but those entrusted to his care won’t cooperate (even though he is not asking them to sin or abusing them)?
  3. Is he attempting to rightly address sin against him or someone he loves?
  4. Does he feel like a failure, or is he afraid of being a failure?
  5. Does he feel shame for sin in his life or does he feel shame just for being a man?
  6. Does he feel rejected by someone important to him?
  7. Does he have deep wounds from his childhood that are not healed?
  8. How did his dad express pain and deal with conflict? Is it possible that this approach feels “normal” to him?
  9. Does he feel really pressured by someone about something?
  10. Does he feel someone has let him down?
  11. Does he feel disrespected, humiliated, or mistreated by someone?
  12. Is he stuck in an addiction to drugs/porn/alcohol/gambling?
  13. Is there unrepentant sin in his life?
  14. Is anyone egging him on and baiting him, trying to get him to get angry and lash out?
  15. Could he be under spiritual attack of some kind?
  16. Is he spiritually, physically, or emotionally depleted?
  17. Is he upset about a real or perceived injustice against himself, a loved one, or someone else?
  18. Is he afraid to trust God or others because of past scars?
  19. Is he taking a medication that can cause irritability or does he suffer from a health issue that may contribute to this (low blood sugar, ADD, Asperger’s, autism, bi-polar, schizophrenia, PTSD, low thyroid, abnormal testosterone levels, an infection, poor nutrition, or something else)?
  20. Does he feel overwhelmed by all he has to do and he just can’t figure out how to handle everything on his plate?
  21. Does he feel like he can’t win? Like there is no way for him to be the hero in the situation?
  22. Is he worried about someone he loves or something that is important to him?
  23. Does he feel powerless to fix a problem or to help someone he wants to be able to help?
  24. Does he feel emasculated in some way as a man?
  25. Is he fearful of something bad happening?

Is the anger explosive, violent, or out of control? If so, please seek outside help!

Most of all, we need the Holy Spirit’s leading and wisdom. He can prompt us to speak up or not to speak and what to say, many times, if we are tuned in to His leading.

We may not know what exactly he is angry about, at the time, at least. He may not even be able to explain it, sometimes. But God knows and He can give us His wisdom to respond rightly and without sin on our end.

PRAY

Don’t forget to pray Scripture over your husband and to invite God’s healing, His Spirit, His comfort, and peace into your husband’s heart and your home. Don’t forget the power of approaching God with praises and thanksgiving. Remember, if you are in Christ, you are seated in the heavenlies with Jesus and you have His authority, Spirit, power, and love.

Strength and Dignity eCourse

I love Nina Roesner’s eCourse, “Becoming a Woman of Strength and Dignity.” It helps women find their bearings spiritually and heal in Christ individually and then gives tools for how to respectfully address a husband’s anger, defensiveness, and other difficult issues. And once you finish the 11-week eCourse, you get access to a private email forum where other women share and you can support each other, led by trained moderators. 

Strength & Dignity eCourse

Also, Nina has an article I like called, “Got an Angry Man?”

Got An Angry Man??

Sacred Influence by Gary Thomas is a book that may be a blessing for wives with angry, difficult husbands, as well.

FOR THOSE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES

If you have really serious issues going on in your marriage, please seek godly, wise, experienced counsel or go to appropriate medical, spiritual, or police authorities for help. Please try to keep yourself and your children safe. And if you are abusing your husband or children and they are not safe, please reach out for help for yourself ASAP!

COUNSELING RESOURCES

What Does Scripture Say?

  • For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1:20
  • Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, Eph. 4:26
  • A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Prov. 15:1
  • Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; James 1:19
  • Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Eccl. 7:9

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If you know of some helpful resources, preferably biblically based ones, we’d love for you to share them with us!

More Resources:

Righteous Anger VS Unrighteous Anger

To Speak or Not to Speak?

6 Reasons Not to Criticize Your In-Laws

Do I Have a Spirit of Offense?

If I Insult Others, I Need a Spiritual Check-Up ASAP!

My Response to Insults Says a Lot about My Character

Is Avoiding Arguing Really Possible?

Some Conflict Is Inevitable

My posts on conflict

How Does One Handle Conflict in a Marriage? by www.gotquestions.org

A Godly Wife Confronts Her Angry Husband Respectfully

When a Husband Is Negative, Critical, or Hurtful

What Is Respect in Marriage?

Confronting Our Husbands about Their Sin

What Speaks Disrespect to Husbands?

Some Things God Has Shown Me about Conflict with My Headstrong Husband – a guest post

To Trust or Not to Trust? – VIDEO

Should a Christian Wife Consider Separation?

When Would I NOT Submit to My Husband?

Prayer to Change in the Spiritual Atmosphere in Our Homes – by Radiant

Prayer for Us to Stand in the Authority of Christ – by Radiant

Where Do Hatred, Rage, and Violence Fit in Our Lives as Christians?

Do I Condone Marital Rape or Abuse?

Handling an Unwanted Divorce with Christlikeness

4 Approaches When You Think Your Husband Doesn’t Care

Healthy VS Unhealthy Relationships

A Critical Spirit VS a Godly Rebuke

What Is Gaslighting? by www.gotquestions.org Gaslighting has three main components: 1) Convincing the victim that the abuse she suffers is her fault, 2) Convincing the victim that she did not experience what she thinks she did, and 3) Separating the victim from people who support her. 

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How to Encourage Your Husband to Value Your Influence

man standing on beach

Men, in general, don’t allow people to influence them who they feel disrespect them.

They also tend not to allow people they don’t trust or respect to influence them. Honestly, there is a lot of wisdom in this approach. We may benefit from prayerfully considering this idea, ourselves.

Women have a POWERFUL ability to influence our men for good or for bad. How will we use our gift?

Men don’t tend to respect the influence of those:

  • Who give unsolicited advice.
  • Whose words and actions don’t match.
  • Who seem to have selfish motives.
  • Who appear to be trying to manipulate or control them.
  • Who have a critical, condemning spirit against them.
  • Who don’t treat themselves or others with respect.
  • Who act like doormats or give up their personhood in passivity.
  • Who idolize them and want their approval more than God’s.
  • Who lack self-control.
  • Who freak out a lot or are very negative.

For your words to be meaningful and valuable to your husband,

a few things generally have to happen over a significant period of time:

Over time, when your husband sees you respect yourself properly, you treat him with honor, and you are a person he can respect, then he knows he can value your influence.

He knows he can feel safe with you. As he sees that your actions and words match up over the long haul, he may begin to soften to your influence and welcome you to speak into his life as a trusted advisor.

I can’t guarantee that he will change if you change. But if you desire to use your influence in his life to honor Christ, this is the path to take.

Becoming a godly woman and wife can never be about manipulating our husbands. It must always be simply about honoring, loving, and obeying Christ—and blessing our men.

First things first

We all have sin issues in our own lives. It’s critical that I deal with my sin before I attempt to deal with issues in my husband’s life. This is the only way I can see clearly enough to truly see what is going on with him and be able to handle his issues rightly.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matt. 7:3-5

This means, if I am flirting with other men or I am allowing people to take priority over my husband, he may not take my words very seriously if I warn him not to do the same thing. And why should he? I am being a hypocrite.

This also means, if I am acting in a lot of hurtful, condescending ways, and my husband doesn’t feel safe with me emotionally or spiritually, my sin is a stumbling block to my ability to influence my husband in godly ways.

It’s hard to respect the spiritual advice of someone whose life is a mess or who is hurting you with their own sin. 

Common sins that are super destructive to a marriage, intimacy, and trust:

If I invite God to show me any sin in my life, He will! And He will help me and heal me. He can transform my life and make me more like Jesus by the power of His Word, prayer, and the power of His Spirit.

As I allow Christ to change me, my husband will definitely notice, even if he is cold or skeptical toward me, at first.

My goal can’t be to change my husband. My goal must be to become the woman Jesus calls me to be, whatever the cost. 

A side effect of this is that I will be a greater blessing to my husband. When I am right with God and His Spirit is working in and through me, it is really only then that I can properly relate to others with God’s love.

I will make myself open to be an available instrument in God’s hand to reach my husband. Then I will stop being a stumbling block to him and make it easier for him to hear God’s voice.

I can’t change my husband or fix him. I can’t open his eyes. Only the Spirit can do that. But I can let God change me! That is the most powerful, wonderful place to start.

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Has God shown you some truths about this topic that you would like to share? Or are you struggling and you need some encouragement and more resources?

Much love!

RELATED

How to Have a Saving Relationship with Christ

How to Stay Filled with the Holy Spirit

Join Me for a 3 Week Fast from Negative Words

What Is Respect in Marriage?

What Speaks Disrespect to Husbands?

Is It Possible for Me to Disrespect Myself?

25 Ways to Respect Myself

25 Ways to Reverence God

Stages of This Journey – Summary

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What If You Want Your Husband to Cut Ties with Someone?

man standing on top of mountain

This is a joint post written by Nneka Simone (her words are in blue), April, and some anonymous wives’ examples. I appreciate the input, ladies!

We talked in my last post about 6 times when we may need to prayerfully consider breaking (or minimizing) contact with others. One of those scenarios is if our husband feels it would be best for us not to have contact with someone (please see the caveats in the post for times not to cooperate with this).

Of course, breaking contact completely is a pretty extreme response and should be reserved for certain situations as a last resort. It shouldn’t be our go-to response for most issues as it can cause a lot of unnecessary damage if we use it when it is not needed.

But what if it the scenario is reversed?

If you believe that a situation is harmful to your husband, the marriage, yourself, your children, or your family, you do have the ability (and sometimes the responsibility) to share your concerns with your husband.

Husbands have God-given positional authority and wives have God-given influential authority.

We do have an incredible ability as wives to influence our husbands for good or for evil.

It’s a good thing for us to share our hearts and minds with our husbands in healthy ways. Ideally, a wife would be a trusted advisor to her husband.

Even our children can and should share concerns if they don’t feel safe or comfortable around someone, or they don’t feel comfortable with us being around a certain person.

Everyone deserves to have a voice to say if something is upsetting or toxic to them or to someone they love.

This doesn’t necessarily mean things will definitely change. But people in positions of God-given leadership should be very willing to hear the concerns of those in their care whether it is at home, at work, at church, at school, or anywhere else. And if the concern is legitimate, the leader will agree to take some appropriate course of action.

The key is that we share respectfully and with right motives.

Nneka’s Take

Nneka Simone

It would be very tempting to react in the flesh and try to force your husband to cut people off by acting in the following ways:

– Cry, beg and plead with your husband to cut them off.

– Make angry and insistent demands that he cuts off the relationship.

– Give your husband an ultimatum.

– Lecture your husband about his choices and how they affect you and your children.

– Complain about your husband’s friends to anyone who would listen.

– Criticize your husband’s friends behind their backs.

– Insult your husband’s friends to their faces.

– Go directly to his friends and tell them to stay away from him.

– Rant about your husband’s poor decisions on social media.

– Go directly to your husband’s relatives or your pastor to complain about your husband’s choices.

– Try to force your husband to be friends with men you think he should be friends with.

If we resort to these destructive tactics, we would repel our husbands. Our husbands would likely feel protective of their friends and defensive about their decisions. Our husbands would likely react in destructive ways and may even eventually form closer bonds with the friends we disapprove of.  

I can’t force my way, but I can make requests and suggestions.

If my husband knows that I love and respect him highly, and he also has great love and respect for me, he will likely care about my feelings and concerns. He will prayerfully weigh my words, if he is a believer.

Even if he is not a believer, if we have some level of mutual love and respect going on, he will probably be concerned if something is causing an alarm bell for me.

All I have to do is present my concern briefly and calmly. Usually just once. Then I can generally simply wait and pray.

However, there are many different possible scenarios. This approach may not be exactly what you need in every situation.

We need the wisdom, power, and discernment of the Spirit to know exactly how to approach our husband, especially if things are not going well, at the time.

There is a time to speak and a time to remain silent and pray. The only way to really know the difference is that we must be in close fellowship with the Lord.

NOTE – If it is a really dangerous situation, there are times we have a responsibility to call the police or reach out for help. This post is not intended to be a resource for life-threatening situations. Please involve all of the proper authorities immediately if you believe someone is truly in danger or being threatened. I am also assuming in this post that your husband is in his right mind. That he is not high, drunk, dealing with significant uncontrolled mental illness, or involved in serious unrepentant sin.

A Time to Speak

If you believe it is a time to speak up, some options may be to prayerfully consider saying things like:

  • I have a bad feeling about this person.
  • My “Spidey senses” are tingling about her. She seems like trouble to me.
  • I would like it if we both have X, Y, Z boundaries on our marriage to guard our hearts and help us avoid temptation. What boundaries do you believe we should have to protect our marriage?
  • May I have your permission to speak into your life? (If he says, “yes,” then I can gently share what I see that I believe the Lord desires me to share.)
  • I feel like that friend is disrespectful of our marriage/you/me/the kids.
  • I love that you are such a great friend to X. Sometimes, though, I would really love it if we could have more time with you.
  • I’m afraid you may be getting taken advantage of here and that makes me feel sad.
  • This situation makes me nervous.
  • It seems to me that this person undermines our authority as parents to our children. That’s not okay.
  • I feel like this person is trying to hurt our marriage/family/you/me.
  • I really don’t want us to be around him again unless he is willing to apologize for what he did and make some real changes.
  • I don’t feel safe around her because of X. I don’t want our kids to be near her.
  • These days, a man really can’t afford to be alone with a woman, even if he does nothing wrong. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. I think Billy Graham’s standard was very wise for men and for women.
  • I don’t like this situation at all.
  • What this person is teaching doesn’t seem to align with scripture. What do you think?
  • I don’t trust this person.

**Remember to use a friendly tone of voice and body language!

Most of the time, simply, respectfully sharing your concern like this is enough.

He will get the picture and he’ll mull over what he wants to do with this new information. Even if he doesn’t talk about his thoughts, he will think about it. I promise!

Nneka’s Take

Constructive ways to handle this:

“Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” Rom. 14:13

A godly path to deal with such a situation would be to do the following:

1. Take your concerns to God.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 4:6-7

Ask God to remove unhealthy influences from your husband’s life and fully trust that He will find a way to do it. Don’t give in to despair. Understand that God is in control. Keep giving thanks to God for his sovereignty. Let God’s peace rule in your heart.

2. Speak the truth in love.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, Eph. 4:15

Gently and lovingly express your concern about your husband’s associates to him, without insisting that he cuts off ties with them. 

3. Pray for your husband’s associates. 

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-28

Your focus should always be on the state of your husband’s soul and his associates’ souls. 

If your concern is about a friend who is a heavy drinker, drug addict, adulterer, or caught in significant sin, pray for that person to see the light and change his ways or to simply cut off ties with your husband.

Pray that God will open your husband’s eyes to that person’s influence on him. Even after that person stops contacting your husband, continue to pray for his salvation.

If your concern is about a woman who is trying to tempt your husband into an affair, it’s only natural that you may feel really hurt, angry and threatened by her intentions to ruin your marriage. However, God wants us to pray for those who hurt us and treat us badly.

We can pray for salvation, for their eyes to be opened, for conviction of sin and godly sorrow and true repentance. We can pray for spiritual healing and regeneration in Christ. We can pray the power of Scripture over the people who are toxic and over our husbands, children, and ourselves.

4. Focus on your husband’s good qualities

Think about his strengths and the many wise and loving decisions your husband has made. You would not have married your husband if you didn’t see a lot of good in him. Rather than focusing on his few poor choices, focus on all the things that made you fall in love with him. It would be wise to start making a list of his good qualities and good choices to add to it daily. 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil. 4:8

What if he still doesn’t break contact with the other person?

If you have shared your feelings about a situation respectfully, and he continues on in contact with someone you feel is too toxic, there are several things that could be going on:

  • He may have a different perspective.
  • He may try to minimize contact, but he may feel he can’t completely break contact, depending on the situation.
  • He may feel the person is not as toxic as you believe he/she is.
  • He may believe that to completely break contact would create a lot of unnecessary drama and he may think there is a better solution.
  • He may have different personal convictions – not that one of you is wrong – you may just have different definitions of how exactly to guard your heart or marriage.
  • The Lord may be leading him in a different direction that you don’t know about yet.
  • It may take some time for him to decide how to address the situation. Sometimes, you may just need to be patient, depending on the issue at hand.
  • He may decide to confront the person directly rather than just break contact. He may feel it is a Matthew 18:15-17 situation.
  • He may know something you don’t know that changes what the best approach might be.
  • It may take him a bit more time to see the danger you see.
  • It is possible that he has a more accurate view of what is happening than you do. All of us can be wrong at times.
  • Sometimes, husbands mess up, too. Sometimes they make poor choices or even sinful choices. They have free will, just like we do. It is a gift, but it can bring a lot of pain. You can’t control him, but you can decide how the Lord desires you to respond even if he doesn’t make the best decisions. There are times we need to confront sin.
  • Or, this may simply be an issue for you to take to the Lord in prayer.

Depending on the situation and on the Lord’s leading, there may be a time to address the issue again, eventually. Or God may direct you to simply pray and wait and let Him work. God can change a husband’s heart, our perspective, or He may even change the circumstances and other people.

My next post covers the issue of a husband who doesn’t seem to care what his wife says, feels, or thinks. That situation is going to require some adjustments in our approach depending on the root causes.

NOTE – If you realize that you expect your husband to break all ties with all of his family members, all of his friends, all of his coworkers, everyone at church, and everyone in every area of his life, then we are dealing with an entirely different issue. Please check out these posts.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLES

The Las Vegas Story

One of my favorite stories is from a reader of mine whose unbelieving husband wanted to go to Las Vegas with his single friend. The wife respectfully let her husband know she didn’t think the trip was a good idea. He went on with his plans. She and I prayed. The Lord intervened in a mind-blowing way. It was amazing!

The wife whose husband’s friends drank:

My husband has had friends who drank heavily and my husband started drinking heavily as well. Even driving drunk and getting into minor accidents. Me getting angry, crying, and complaining about his drinking and his irresponsible friends didn’t help matters at all.

I started praying that God would remove these people from my husband’s life and each time, God did!

One day each of those friends inexplicably stopped calling my husband. I was extremely relieved and happily told my husband “Jesus took care of it!” 

My husband no longer drinks heavily and I always joke with him that if he ever makes friends who drink heavily again, I’ll just pray them away.

My husband now has great respect for my prayers for him. When I ask him what he wants me to pray for, he always says “I know that you always want the best for me so pray for me however you want”. 

The wife whose husband’s friend was using him:

My husband has also had friends who consumed his time and constantly bombarded him with requests for favors and loans. I told him several times “A friend who always wants something from you is not a true friend. He’s just using you.” My husband never took my advice and would keep defending his friends and insisting that they care about him.

I gave up and stopped talking about it. I just took the issue to God.

Shortly after, my husband realized that he was being used and distanced himself from them. That “friend” actually moved out of the country without saying goodbye and made no effort to keep in touch. I was very relieved because I hate to see my husband being used by anyone. 

We have tremendous power in praying for our husbands once we approach the issue from a place of prayer and trust in God’s power over all situations.

Examples with No Immediate Happy Ending

Examples where things didn’t go the way the believer in Christ hoped, at least at first, but God was still very much at work:

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If you would like to share some godly wisdom you have learned in ways that will honor the Lord and your husband and anyone else who was involved, we’d love to hear about it. (Let’s not share specific details of wrongs others committed, though, please. Thanks!)