Continuity of Chapter Five, REACTIONS! WHO DO YOU LISTEN TO FIRST OF ALL Assignment Still Speaks: Not one person can do it all alone! Husband and wife need each other. Imagine if Eve had been all along cooperating with her husband, even when the devil had met her. Things probably wouldn’t have gone the way it went, if she hadn’t taken that decision to obey the devil. This, however, is not peculiar to Adam and Eve only, but to all of us, -especially those whose marriages are in Christ. We can only understand this, if we will dare to quantify the enormous results of the mutual contributions of a husband and his wife to their ministry. One of the scriptures, which beautifully shows the best result that could ever be attained by couples who work in mutual agreement, is Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.
Surprisingly, the first verse summarizes the success of a couple’s lovely roles and unflinching support for each other’s benefits. “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour” -Ecclesiastes 4:9.
Many Christian families on earth could have been experiencing their rest in various ways, while fulfilling the mandate of dominion, if only the stakeholders (husbands and wives) have understood what it takes to practice the art of heart-nakedness before God and before each other.
- Having a couple-mindset is a key to successful achievements in marriage, if couples MUST have dominion.
- Dominion through marriage can only be possible when husbands and wives work together as “one flesh.”
WORKING TOGETHER! Husbands and wives must continuously work together – everyone working in his or her own role towards each other at the center. To achieve this, there must be absolute love from the man for his wife; and absolute submission from the woman to her husband. I call it corporate love.
- Only the marriages of couples that uphold the marriage wisdom within Eccl. 4:9-12a that will remain branded in God (Christ).
- They will hit a note of success and fulfillment in their marriage life.
“…. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” -Eccl. 4:12 AMP. This is the marriage of couples who are KINGDOM MINDED through Christ’s Word. Unfortunately, the desperate quest for children or a male child too amongst many other issues, have made many to take the laws into their hands and defile their marriage bed. Jesus said in Matthew 15:3, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” It’s so sad to say, that many Christians have maligned the truth of the gospel through their immoral or lascivious ways. They “follow their destructive ways” instead of following the truth contained in scriptures. (See 2 Pet. 2:2).
Marriage holds a divine assignment from God, and couples shouldn’t dissolve or mess it up because of lack of children. Yes! No doubt children are products/blessings of the marriage union. But disobeying God, and breaking the marriage boundary-through s$xual immortality or divorce, in order to have a child is absolute wickedness. It is sinful and punishable by God (Hebrew 13:4). This is highly treacherous, and God highly detests it. (Malachi 2:11-16).
REMINISCENCE
Don’t take the law into your hands against your husband when you find him fall short of his love for you. Instead, go back to God and ask Him for His enabling grace to do what you must do that God will be pleased with.
Husbands Lose out if They Don’t Love
Many men have since lost out of this great benefit, due to the way they unleash their attitude treacherously against their wives (I Pet. 3:7; Mal. 2:10, 13-14). Many have divorced or thrown their wives away, due to the hardness of their hearts; thus they took the law into their hands, instead of going back to God to ask Him, ‘Lord! What do I do? How do I handle this situation?’ Many men, have been swayed out of God’s will by their parents to commit adultery/marry another partner, or have a concubine who would give them a male child, etc. There’s no good thing that can ever come forth from a wrong thing already forbidden by God! God will never re-constitutionalise His will, and call any sinful act good or holy. God has already declared, “Woe unto them that call evil good” (Isa. 5:20 KJV).
Wives Should Submit with a Sense of Sobriety!
Wives, your submission is not in your beauty or the clothes you wear; it is found in the bundle of honour you have for your husband; through the love you have for God. It does not matter if he is poor, or whether you are richer than him. God gave him that honour to be your head. God does not play politics. He will never make you the head over your husband, because you called yourself the breadwinner. What God gives one person is meant for the other too. In other words, one person’s breakthrough is for both to enjoy. You cannot be richer than your husband. If you are rich, he is rich too. If you abuse him and you call him poor, so you have also named and cursed yourself as poor. Be guaranteed that you will eat the fruit of your lips; “for the two saith He (God), shall become one flesh” (KJV). Your good reward from God will be possible, only through the way God assesses your humility to your husband. You are simply created by God for your husband, to help him fulfil his assignment. The woman was created for the man (1 Corinthians 11:9). The place of fulfilment of your destiny as a married woman is referenced to your primary assignment as your husband’s “helper” or “helpmeet.”
CONCLUSION
- Marriage is a divine assignment
- Marriage enhances ministry; and in turn
- Ministry enhances dominion.
Those who obey God in respect of doing their own side of the assignment, will definitely enjoy the oil of blessings attached to the honour that is divinely accrued to marriage. So, HUSBANDS, do your assignment; love your wives unconditionally. WIVES, submit to your husbands unconditionally! If you are the only one keeping to your own side of your assignment from God, don’t worry, God will reward you because, “… whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
How many of us who call ourselves followers of Christ truly practice this?
44 … I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? 47 Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” –Matthew 5:44-48.
Let us look at another scripture:
“4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, 5 does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails….”-1 Cor. 13:4-8a.
Agape (God’s benevolent love), is the only love that can put you over every negative circumstance that Satan could ever employ to pull your marriage down. We must practice this love! Conquerors don’t do common things. It is a supernatural and unusual love given to us by God through the death of His Son on the cross as a propitiation for our sin. The Word of God matures us in love. Believers are supposed to walk in love. (Ephesians 5:2). How we use God’s Word to live or walk in love reflects how spiritually matured we are. In fact, critically looking at God’s love itself, I mean agape (God’s unconditional love), we cannot but conclude, that it is designed or configured to face all odds that could emanate from a partner or someone who becomes unlovable!
CASE #6: I Don’t Know What to Believe Anymore!
I remember counselling a married woman through a phone call some years ago. She was seriously not happy about certain ways her husband was handling things. She felt he wasn’t carrying her along over some salient issues in their marriage.
And her reactions had started affecting her – not wanting to do things together with her husband, including matters of church. In fact, in her own words she said, ‘I don’t know what I believe about my husband and myself anymore!’ I then asked her to open her Bible to 1 Corinthians 13, and I started to read from verse four. By the time I got to verse seven-(agape) “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” she interrupted me quickly with a sharp and brief laughter and said; ‘Wow! Pastor Chris, do you know that I have never seen it like this!’ Today, she’s still living with her husband and God is blessing them. This is what happens – a turnaround occurrence, when the Word of God shines into our hearts as revelation. When marriage partners conceive the revelation of God’s Word, they are bound to birth the will of God for their marriage – which is success! Success does not mean the absence of trouble. Just as light is to darkness, subduing it; so is agape (God’s love) to uncanny behaviours of others around us. And this agapë we are told has been spread abroad in our hearts as born again believers (Rom. 5:5).
We all need (from time to time when challenges come our way), to receive by faith the grace of God that will enable us manifest this love (agape). Couples should eagerly yearn to love themselves not to be poised critically against each other.
