Dearly Beloved Children Love and Respect

 

Dearly Beloved Children

Love and Respect

Love & Respect

They were made to be given - not taken!

Submission is never a problem until you disagree.

So how do you handle disagreements?

There are 3 key elements

to properly handling a disagreement:

·       Submission

·       Love

·       Respect

These three describe the relationship between…

Christ and the Church

 and…

a husband and wife.

Ephesians 5:22- 33 needs to

be taken as a package deal.

Disagreements will go unresolved

if one of the three elements

Submission, Love, or Respect is missing.

It is not hard to submit to someone who loves you.

But if you do not see care, love and concern,

you have a hard time respecting. 

Submitting to someone you do

not trust is almost impossible.

You may conform on the outside,

but on the inside you are being eaten up.

So when the church, wives and the rest of us,

find ourselves in a disagreement

and submission is hard,

we need some answers.

The answer is NOT - “just submit”.

If, we as the church,

are finding it hard to submit to Christ,

we need to ask Christ

to help us see things the way He sees.

This is good advice for wives,

and the rest of us,

because it is easier to submit

 to something you understand.

But there are times when

a decision needs to be made

before understanding is achieved.

This is where trust is needed.

Sometimes it is not as much the issues,

but the person you don’t feel love

or have lost respect for

that is the one you are to submit to.

  

When this is the case,

rebellion is not part of

the element to agreement.

Our goal should be to restore

the elements of love and respect.

One of the best ways to accomplish

this is to communicate.

Wives and the rest of us need to

communicate our desire to please God

and find favor in the eyes

of those we are to submit to.

Then we need to share

in a non-confronting way

why we are struggling.  

The people we have to submit to

are not perfect - they are just like us.

So sharing your feelings of insecurity

can be an opportunity

to renew love and respect.

God wants wives to submit to their husbands;

and God wants husbands to love their wives.

The husband that loves his wife

will find his wives’ respect,

even though he is not perfect.

The point is simple:

Husbands and wives have to work together

in order to have the winning combination of:

Submission, Love and Respect!

Scripture Reading

Ephesians 5:22-28 THE MESSAGE

22 Wives, understand and support your husbands

in ways that show your support for Christ.

23 The husband provides leadership to his wife

the way Christ does to his church,

not by domineering but by cherishing.

24 So just as the church submits to Christ

as he exercises such leadership,

wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

25 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives,

exactly as Christ did for the church

— a love marked by giving, not getting.

 26 Christ's love makes the church whole.

His words evoke her beauty.

Everything he does and says is designed

to bring the best out of her,

27 dressing her in dazzling white silk,

radiant with holiness.

28 And that is how husbands ought to love their wives.

They're really doing themselves a favor

— since they're already "one" in marriage.

(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Colossians 3:18-19 THE MESSAGE

18 Wives, understand and support your husbands

by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

19 Husbands, go all out in love for your wives.

Don't take advantage of them.

(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Dearly Beloved Children Wives

Dearly Beloved Children

Wives

I hope no one gets upset with me;

I read something that was not addressed to me,

I read Ephesians 5:22.

This verse is addressed to wives.

So the word to wives (not to husbands) is

“wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord”.

This verse does not negate verse 21

 that tells us to “submit to one another.”

I like women…

my grandmothers, mother, sisters,

wife, daughters, and all my 4 grand children

are women and my love for them is great.

I can’t image what my life would be like

without their contribution.

Somebody once said

when God gave Eve to Adam,

Adam said, “WOW MAN!”

Which later the translation dropped the second “W”

and came up with woman.

I personally think they should

have never dropped the “W”.

The Church is the glory of Christ.

When Jesus comes back,

there is only one thing He wants

and that is the Church.

God compares His Church,

that is second to none

not even the angels,

to a wife.

God’s intention is not to make a woman

a second class person nor is

it to make men or husbands

the highest life form.

Although Paul is writing about the family,

the greater message is

Christ and the Church.

Paul wants the family

to see the beautiful model

of Christ and the Church.

It is from that model

of the glorious church

without spot or wrinkle,

we can learn to

become better families.

Submitting to Jesus becomes

 our desire as we discover

how much He loves us!

Scripture Reading

Ephesians 5:21-33 NIV

21 Submit to one another

out of reverence for Christ.

For women only

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife

as Christ is the head of the church, his body,

of which he is the Savior.

24 Now as the church submits to Christ,

so also wives should submit

to their husbands in everything.

For men only

25 Husbands, love your wives,

just as Christ loved the church

and gave himself up for her

26 to make her holy, cleansing her

by the washing with water through the word,

27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church,

without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish,

but holy and blameless.

28 In this same way,

husbands ought to love

their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

29 After all, no one ever hated his own body,

but he feeds and cares for it,

just as Christ does the church—

30 for we are members of his body.

31 "For this reason a man

will leave his father and mother

and be united to his wife,

and the two will become one flesh."  

32 This is a profound mystery

— but I am talking about

Christ and the church.

33 However, each one of you also

must love his wife as he loves himself,

and the wife must respect her husband.

Dearly Beloved Children Submission

Dearly Beloved Children

Submission

Submission is leaning on the KING.

All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him.

He has delegated it for our benefit.

Submitting to one another

can be a liberating freedom.

As a young man starting a church,

I was zealous for the things of God.

One of my studies was on the

“Table of the Lord.”

I wanted to know what type of bread

Jesus gave His disciples

the night He was betrayed

and what was in the cup.

What was the significance of these elements?

My study took me into the Old Testament and the Passover…

Through the New Testament with Jesus at the last supper…

 and the words to the Corinthians about the holiness of this meal…

I ended up in heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

The bread and the cup were so significant

that God preserved them

with an eternal observance.

As I looked into the significance of the cup,

I discovered it was filled with the fruit of the vine

and that the drink was powerful enough

to make the Corinthians drunk.

Raised to think drinking was evil

I struggled with my findings.

After my study an amazing thing happened,

we were preparing for communion and

when the grape juice bottle was opened,

the lid shot to the ceiling;

the juice had turned to wine.

I was convinced that the proper way

to take communion was with wine;

even though I did not believe believers

should drink alcohol.

My convictions became a problem

when another man,

who was a recovered alcoholic,

said he would not take communion

if we used wine.

As the church was getting started,

we had asked a pastor to come

and help us get established.

He came to me privately and

asked if I would submit to him

if he prepared communion and

not tell me what was in the cup;

I said I would.

He also went to the other man

and asked the same question;

and he agreed.

I was liberated because of submission.

As I submitted to another,

I was free from the responsibility

of what was in the cup.

Because of submission,

I can fellowship with my brothers and sisters

where ever the table of the Lord is served. 

Scripture Reading

Ephesians 5:21 NIV

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Hebrews 13:17 NIV

17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.

They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.

Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden,

for that would be of no advantage to you.