Re-Tooled

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:25-27

What do you need to be a good leader in your home? In case you’ve ever asked this question, the Bible gives us some very clear qualities, and all of them are based in the character of God Himself.

The first quality of a good household leader is Biblical love. This love is way different from the Cupid love that is running rampant in our society. Here are the differences:

Cupid love is based on emotions. You don’t choose love; you just get shot with it. You see the girl across the room and she looks back at you and-WHAM!-you love each other. Then you get into a relationship with each other and go through the ups and downs, falling in and out of love, feeling betrayed over and over as you ride the waves of emotion.

Biblical love is a choice to commit. It is a covenant promise to seek the benefit of the other person before your own, to lay your life down to make your spouse’s life all God made it to be. It is not void of emotion (and is in fact very emotional), but it weathers the emotional ups and downs because it is founded on something far greater-a choice made before God.

The second quality of a good household leader is that you lead by the Word of God. The guidebook and roadmap for your family had better be the Bible.

A lot of men complain about their wives having all sorts of problems. I don’t know if you realize this, but look at our verses today-Jesus washes His bride with the pure water of the Word so that He can present to Himself a glorious bride. It is your job to wash your wife in the Word, leading her into godliness so that you can present yourself with a glorious bride. This is not giving you permission to accuse her of all her faults, but instead to gently lead her into godliness.

Maybe you say that your wife knows the Word better than you do. That might be true, but that only means it’s time for you to learn. Nothing excuses you from the place of leadership to which God has called you and for which He will hold you accountable.

These are God’s qualities for household leadership. Will you learn them?

Prayer Father God,

You are the best example of household leadership there could ever be! Please help me to grow in love and in Your Word, so that I can lead my family into all You call us to be. Especially in my marriage, God, please help me to lead with confidence according to Your will.

Amen

Recommitment

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because he has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.’ … And He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ Luke 4:18-19,21

Have you ever put the wrong foot forward? You might say that Jesus did, at least if you look at the way He introduced His ministry.

Our verses for today tell us what Jesus said when He announced His ministry to His hometown of Nazareth. He went on from there to talk about times when God sent His prophets to gentiles because no one would receive them in Israel. The people responded by chasing Jesus out of town to throw Him off a cliff, only to have Him walk right through them and continue in ministry.

You can easily imagine an older man sitting next to Jesus giving Him an elbow, saying, You’d better keep your mouth shut, young man. You don’t understand what you’re saying!

But we all know that would be bad advice, wouldn’t it? There is a lot of bad advice out there when it comes to marriage, but God has some good advice for us today that will help us. First, you don’t have to be married to be faithful to your marriage. Begin today to pray for your spouse, whether you’re already married or not, and set yourself to remain pure for them in heart and body. Remember, the price you pay for your purity is the value of what you give your spouse-don’t cheapen it by giving yourself away early or letting yourself stray from your vows. Second, who you are right now is what you bring to your marriage. Jesus didn’t try to disguise who He was to be accepted in His hometown church; He was genuine. We need to be genuine, too. Marriage does not change us. Transitions in life change us. Change changes us.

But we need to let Jesus change us into who He created us to be.

Third, look to Jesus for the things He proclaimed in these verses. All of us need some-

thing here, and any of these things keeps us from the life and marriage God desires for us. Follow this advice and it will make not only your marriage stronger, but your life better.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You for the incredible things You do for us! Please come and do what You spoke in my life so that I can be the best person and spouse, living the best life, just as You created me to be.

Amen

Weighing What We Say

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2 Corinthians 7:1

How many times have you said something like, Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. That was not the right thing to say. Saying that actually made things so much worse. I was an idiot for saying that.

Have you ever felt that way before?

Or you’re like this, Why did I hit send? Can I unwind that? Can I rewind? Can I delete hitting send? I shouldn’t have hit send so quickly.

Do we fully consider the weight of our words? Do we weigh what we say? Honestly, you know what? I think oftentimes we say before we weigh, but it should be the reverse, right?

You know what? Instead of saying it and then weighing it, what would be much better would be to weigh it before we say it-really considering the weight of our words.

And I think weight certainly could be spelled both ways. There is a weight that comes attached to the words that flow out of your mouth. But maybe what we need to do is wait before we speak, to just wait on the Lord and pray over what our lips end up pronouncing.

Granted, we’ve all said things that we regret, okay? In fact, our verses today come from a letter in the Bible written to repair some broken relationships that existed between the Apostle Paul and the church in Corinth. And that rift in the relationship took place because of some wrong words that were used.

Let me just give you the formula on this deal: Wrong words that flow from wrong intentions are always going to result in a wrong outcome.

And that’s happened. It’s happened to you and me and Paul and Corinth. That’s why Paul writes.

Yet here’s the good news: Right words-in fact, we’ll quote a great verse here-Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11).

This is a really cool deal. It’s what can happen when we choose the right words. Right words that flow from the right intentions will always produce the right outcome. It will get what’s broken back on track. It will fix it.

If you’ve used some wrong words, it’s not too late. Weigh what you say and use some right words so that what has been broken can begin being fixed.

Prayer Lord God,

Thank You for helping me to understand how powerful my words are! Now please cleanse my heart and help me to weigh what I say, to speak words fitly spoken, so that my words always produce the right outcomes.

Amen

God’s Road to a Happy Marriage

Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 1 Corinthians 7:3

It’s no secret that, as a nation, we are up to our eyeballs in debt.

Yet here in our verse today, Paul would show us a debt we owe that perhaps we never knew we had. This debt is a debt of love that we owe to our spouse, and it’s what the word af-

fection from our verse really means. This isn’t some smoochie kiss; it is D-E-B-T debt!

So Paul has the audacity to talk to us about debt. Husbands, give your wives the debt you owe them. Wives, give your husbands the debt you owe them. No one is left out of this arrangement. But so often it seems we get into our marriages with a you-owe-me attitude when what we really need is to get into marriage with an I-owe-you attitude.

Maybe this sounds crazy to some of you, but I really think this is an awesome thing. And Paul would write something in Romans 13 that helps us understand even more. He says, Owe no one anything except to love one another. You know, right now as a nation and many of us as individuals, we owe people everything except love. We owe our house, our car, our education, our entertainment systems, our computers, and thousands of dollars worth of little stuff put on credit cards. We have a list of creditors a mile long, but in all that debt, do we see our debt of love?

And if we owe a debt of love to everyone, then how much more do we owe our spouse? The point here is that love is a debt that is worth having. This should be your biggest fight in marriage, the fight of who can out-give the other in this debt of love.

I mean, listen, what is the proof of your love? Is it what you get? No, of course not. The proof of your love is what you give. For God so loved the world that He gave, right?

This means selfless service, laying our lives down for one another just as Christ came and redeemed His bride by laying His life down for us.

This is God’s road to a happy marriage, and there is nothing greater in the whole world.

Prayer Father God,

Thank You for loving me so much that You gave! If that’s what Your love is like, then that’s what my love should be like, too. Please fill me with Your love so that I can love my spouse as You have loved me!

Amen

Faith Lift

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go…’ So he arose and went. Acts 8:26-27

Philip was a good Jew. He had grown up in God’s chosen nation and at some point heard the good news of Jesus Christ. He received this news with joy and his life was hijacked by God. He became filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, only to be called upon to wait tables in order to settle disputes between Jewish and Hellenistic believers.

Then, to make matters worse, persecution breaks out and he has to flee. He scatters off to hated Samaria, but there in the least likely of places, he gets his big breakthrough. He preaches the gospel to the city and entire masses of people are getting saved, healed, and delivered. Not bad for your first ministry trip!

But then things take another turn. He’s enjoying this stadium-like crusade, when the Spirit of the Lord says, Philip, it’s time to leave.

He could have said, No, no, no. We’re not going anywhere. Great stuff is happening here. But that’s not what he says. The Bible says that when he got the word, He arose and went.

But check it out. He might have been happy to leave Samaria, but his new assignment is even worse. He has to walk down a desert road by himself. It’s going to be hot and humid and sticky and smelly and hellish. All for what? All so that he can get to Gaza-the land of the Philistines and pagans. It’s like, This is not an upgrade, God, and I thought I got my big break.

And God’s like, I know how good things were there in Samaria, and I’ve got a heart for the crowds that are being saved there. But I also have a heart for the one individual who is lost and lonely and needs me on a road to nowhere. And I want you to go reach him.

Philip obeys God and leaves the Samaritan crusade to go find one single dude. But this dude happens to serve the queen in Ethiopia, overseeing her entire treasury. And here’s the most amazing part of the story: This is the banner story over Ethiopia, that they trace their faith back to the faithfulness of this guy Philip, who meets with one of their ancestors and does so completely out of an offering of obedience.

See, the Ethiopian man went back to his country and spread the good news of Jesus to such an extent that people in that nation who believe today trace their faith back to his testimony. Such was the power of Philip’s simple obedience despite all circumstances.

Your obedience is powerful. Can God count on you?

Prayer Father God,

Thank You for testimonies like Philip’s to encourage me about how powerful my obedience can be! Please lead and guide me, use me as You used Philip, whether to touch one person or change cities. Whatever You tell me to do, I will follow!

Amen

High Noon

And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as he sat at the table…But when Jesus was aware of it, he said to them, Why do you trouble the woman?…Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.’ Matthew 26:6-7,10,13

What is the most generous gift you have ever given? What were the circumstances that led to you giving that gift?

I love stories of generous giving. Without fail, each one of them is a love story in which someone reveals what is truly important to them in a truly powerful way. Certainly one of the most incredible stories of generous giving is the story of Mary that is told in our verses today.

Mary enters into this story without one thought toward you or me or anyone in the room at the time, her heart of worship set only before the Lord. She takes this alabaster jar-that’s a very fine, thin, beautiful, almost transparent glassand shatters it to pour out this perfumed oil on Jesus’ head, and it flows down and covers His feet as she shows us, truly, the heart of a worshiper.

The bottle represents her life. It represents her identity. It represents her dowry, which means that she was giving up the possibility of ever getting married, and in the culture of the time, that was financial suicide. That bottle was much more than just some little perfume bottle. It was all that she had. And with all that she has, her actions become a legacy of what true surrendered worship looks like.

She didn’t hold anything back. Yet how many of us just continue to sort of justify all that we’re holding back because of this and because of that?

You know what? Mary had absolutely no regard whatsoever for the economy when she broke open that flask, no concern whatsoever of her own personal needs as she opened up that flask.

And if you’re kind of looking at it going, Well, I don’t know if that’s all that smart, that’s what the disciples were saying. But Jesus praises her for it, even declaring that throughout the course of history, her story would proclaim, This is what it truly means to worship.

Are you holding out on God? Because if you’re holding out, you’re missing out. Whatever you’re still holding back is being held back from His blessings.

Won’t you pour out your all to Him today?

Prayer Lord Jesus,

You are so worthy of my everything and my all! When I know Your love for me, how can I do anything but completely give myself to You? As Mary poured out her life to You, I pour myself out to You today!

Amen

Are We There Yet?

Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified. 2 Corinthians 13:7

What’s the craziest prayer you ever heard someone pray? I mean, something that you thought, Yeah, it’s good he’s praying to God, because it’d have to be God for that to happen!

Paul drops a prayer like that on us in our verse today. Did you see it? He says, I pray to God that you do no evil.

I mean, really? Like, did you even know it was possible to do no evil? Skip to the end of that verse and I think that’s how a lot of us come to church on Sundays, feeling disqualified. But hold on for a second, because as we look through this verse from beginning to end, you’ll see the key to actually living this out.

So first of all, do no evil. I mean, for that to happen, you have to want it. You can’t be sitting there reading this now like it’s just the break you’re taking in between sessions of looking at porn. You can’t just be sitting in church on Sunday, waiting to run out and sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You can’t be waiting to sin and expect to do no evil. It doesn’t work that way.

But maybe you’re beyond just waiting to sin. Maybe you’re going through the motions of what’s right, but you’re heart’s not in it. Maybe you sing with the best of them on Sunday morning, but let me tell you something-there’s a huge difference between singing and worshipping. So where is your heart at? Which one are you doing?

And why are you doing it? Because Paul also reminds us that we’re not expecting to receive something for avoiding evil and living righteously. I mean, we can’t earn our way into Heaven or into approval from God. It’s by grace we’re saved despite the mistakes and sin, right? But that grace doesn’t give us permission to go live doing a whole bunch of evil things, knowing that we’ll be forgiven. That’s missing the point.

Because the point is that you are saved. We need to get this, because when we understand that we really are already saved and we don’t have to work for it, it frees us to do what’s right simply because it’s right. It frees us to do what’s right because who we are has been changed. I mean, if we’re saved then let’s act like we’re saved, not like we’re still drowning in the evil life from which we were saved, right?

Are you saved today? Then live like it, not to earn brownie points, but simply because it’s authentic to who you now are in Christ Jesus.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You for saving me and changing who I am! I turn away from all my former, evil ways today and I ask for Your help to live out who I truly am-a person who is saved by Your amazing grace!