Now that I have exhorted the older women, I need to be fair to the younger women! If you don't have a mentor in your life, go to the source, God's Word, to find out what you need to do in order to adorn the Gospel with your life.
Let's take a closer look at Titus 2. Older women are to be encouraging the younger women to do the following things:
love their husbands
love their children
to be sensible
to be pure
to be workers at home
to be kind
to be subject to their husbands
"so that the word of God will not be dishonored." It doesn't get much clearer than that! All of these things are attainable through the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through you.
Okay, now I can hear you out there saying, "I can't love my husband. He's abusive" or "He doesn't show love for me" or "My husband is not a believer" or "I don't like the way he does this or that". God did not put "if" conditions on these commands. If you are yielded to the Holy Spirit in your life, you can do all things, not just some. Phil. 4:13 You can love an unlovable husband. If your ultimate goal is to honor God with your life and obey His commands, then you do it in response to that rather than the response you'll get from your husband. We will stand before God to give an account for our lives one day, not our husbands. It doesn't matter how your husband responds, are you responding to God and His Word in obedience? He will honor obedience and faithfulness.
There is more pain in disobedience to God than the pain that you may think would be associated with loving a husband you think you can't love! We are the ones who are miserable when we choose to act in direct opposition to God's Word. If we would just realize that there is joy in obedience and if we yield to the Holy Spirit, we can have joy and peace because it is a love that we can take no credit for! We can only give praise to the One who is worthy when we are acting upon something that only the Holy Spirit can produce. What rejoicing there should be!! If I do something that I know only the Holy Spirit could have produced in me to do, I am exceedingly and joyfully aware that I am a child of the Most High God and He cares about changing me into His image!! WOW!! How could we not rejoice!
Loving your children is a much easier task, however, there are some women out there who are not loving their children, rather, they are abusing and cursing them. I can only speculate that we needed to be told to do this because there are those who do not love as they should. They continue a curse placed upon them by their parents instead of breaking it. If you are one of those, I encourage you to begin breaking the curse by first repenting of your sin, asking God to forgive you and save you. It is only through His saving power that you can be redeemed and break the dreadful power sin has on your life. You can be free.
For those who are loving your children, I applaud you! Be the role model they so desperately need. They need to see us loving our husbands and being obedient to God and His Word, adorning the Gospel. They need to see that we search the Scriptures for answers to life's questions. They need to see us on our knees, lifting them up to the Throne of grace, praying for their salvation, if God so chooses. Love them! Play with them! Encourage them! Read the Word to them! Teach them about their wonderful Creator!
We'll save the "submission" word for the next post!! That needs one all it's own!!! A sticky, sore subject for far too many women!
Until next time...........
For Christ and His Kingdom,
Bronni
2 comments:
My favorite sentence in this entire post is, "God did not put 'if' conditions on these commands." That pretty much sums up the entire Christian life don't you think? As Christ said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." (John 14:15). However, many Christians end up calling God a liar by explicitly or implicitly telling him that His commandments ARE burdensome when the Holy Spirit said the exact opposite, "Beloved, this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are NOT burdensome." (1 John 5:3)
May God grant us (the husbands and wives of Shepherd's Fellowship) the grace to heed His commands rather than making morons of ourselves and thereby draggin the church through the mud!
I think it is important to understand what is said here "If your ultimate goal is to honor God with your life and obey His commands, then you do it in response to that rather than the response you'll get from your husband. We will stand before God to give an account for our lives one day, not our husbands." So many times we do things for fear of or recognition from man, not God. This includes situations in our family life. You are right we will not ultimately answer to our husband, but to God.
I pray that our daughter will see and feel the love we have for her. I pray that she will see me loving and submitting to her father, not only her earthly father, but also our Heavenly Father. Being a proper role model is of utmost importance.
It is also important for us "younger" women to have proper role models whether it be our own parents or a mentor. I know for me, I seek the prayers and advice of "older" women, those spoken of in Titus 2.
Post a Comment