January 6, 1993 10:45 p.m.
Relationships
The Apostle Peter wrote of the situations in many marriages in this time. The wife is saved and the husband is not I Peter 3: One of the failures in this type of situations is, “The wife’s failure to be an intercessor for her unsaved mate. Many women will cry out to the Lord save him, when he has angered her or does something drastically stupid. Yet after the anger has subsided she no longer falls on her face for him consistently. Many wives give up after a short time of laboring in prayer for him. I wish none to perish and all to be saved. I have done all that I’m going to do for the saving of man. I sent Jesus, He redeemed man therefore, the work is finished. The rest lies up to the saints. Women with unsaved mates should have a tight prayer life. They should be intercessors for them. Wives with unsaved mates are usually a covering for their mates. Their prayers cover them. Many women sit back and wait for men to do. This is why their mates stay a long time in their mess. The most amazing thing is, saints with unsaved husbands and family members will go all out in praying for someone else, will sacrifice time to pray and intercede for Sister Suzies’ family, will fast for Sister Suzies’ family and not for their own, ironic isn’t it? The thing is, Sister Suzie is falling on her face also for her family while others are praying too. Then when Suzies’ family comes into the fold, the wife who has neglected praying and fasting for her own gets upset and accuses me, and wonders why her husband and children haven’t come in. She fought the Devil for someone else’s family and let the Devil continue to have hers! How deep was her love? How deep is a women’s love for a man if she allows someone else to have his time, his love, his money without a fight.
If they are not concerned enough for their husband to fight the devil for them, why should I be any different?
Many times women want the Pastor to pray their families in, want the Missionaries, the deacons, everybody else to pray their families in while they wait. How deep is the love.
My love was so great that I sacrificed, gave up my son for man. My love for man covered the multitudes of his sins. Many things happens in marriages where one is saved and the other one isn’t, that shouldn’t if the saved partners would have a tight relationship with me, I could show them what things they need to walk in the spirit for. Many women aren’t willing to sacrifice the time, the patience, and the spirit to pray for their mates.
Isn’t it hypocritical for you to go all out for someone else’s family when yours is starving? If a man provides not for his own, he’s worse than an infidel (an unbeliever). In many ways they’re saying God will do this for your family but he won’t do it for mine. I believe God will work on your behalf, but he won’t work on mine. Then, I’m being called a liar. For me to say “Ask the Lord concerning my husband is to say he’ll tell you, but he won’t tell me”. Who’s sleeping with him, cooking for him, washing his clothes, living with him? You should say, I’ll touch in agreement with you. My ears are not just opened to the prayers of one or two of my people. My ears are opened to all of mine. Rebuke and exalt in this area daughter.
Mates have to earnestly desire from the hearts their mates saved, not from the lips. If they earnestly desire them saved from the heart then no one will have to beg them to pray for their mates. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you”. The power to tear down the powers of the enemy; the power to war and see finished work. The wives should be tight with me. I’d give them the wisdom and the know how to battle for the lives of their mates.
Many times women go about it all wrong. They start fussing, well you need the Lord and you ought to get saved and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! These things are all true, but the way it is thrown at the man causes a rebellion and many men take the attitude “to hell with you and your Jesus”. The devil capitalizes on such behavior from the wife. And in all actuality she pushes the mate away. A soft answer turns away wrath and many times a closed mouth will draw where an opened mouth becomes as a breaking dam. In many cases the women need to study to be quiet and listen with their spirit to the Spirit.
A spirit filled woman can bring out the best in a man. She can cause to surface the goodness and the strengths of a man.
A carnally filled woman only brings out the worse in a man at the worst times. Many Christian women fail to compliment their unsaved husbands. They push him into a place where he feels many times that he has to compete with Jesus for their wives love and affection. Many times Christian women will pull out all their mates don’t do’s and step all on the do’s, nag and harass him with his don’ts and belittle his do’s. Many times Christian women will love Jesus up and cast their mates to the side. They’ll tell Jesus of their undying love for him and tell the husband by their actions, “my love for you is dead”. They say by their action, I want Jesus and to hell with you. There is a way that seemeth right to a man but the end there of is death.
In this particular case the ways of the woman seemeth right to her, but the end there of is usually death to the marriage. Death between she and her mate and for this cause many unbelievers depart. They’ll find Lucy who will love him, listen to him, spend time with him, make him feel special, make him feel, wanted make him feel needed. Lucy, who is concerned about his thoughts, his day, his desires!
Many Christian women with unbelieving husbands mess up by letting themselves go, by letting the sisters and the brothers, the pastors, take priority over home. They’ll go all out to dress pretty for the church banquet and they cook extravagant meals for the church and tell honey to grab a hot dog. Sometimes honey will go with wives to the banquet just so he can eat a good meal, or to enjoy his wife looking nice one time out of the year and smelling pretty! These things do damage the unsaved mate. Wives break their necks to clean the church or wash and iron the scarfs and curtains for the church and honey goes about as wrinkled as crumpled paper. Honey lives in a pig sty. He can’t find the chair for the clothes. He can’t see the color of the dishes, and if he can find a matching pair of socks then Hallelujah. If honey hears I love you from his wife (Christian) without him asking many times then——– Christian women should speak good things on their mate and to their mate.
please espound on the Christian man with an unbelieving wife,in other words please dicuss the scripture that speaks of the man loving his wife as Christ loves the church,and I find this article to be very informative as to how Christian women should behave as wives,we should always go to God with our problems,cares and concerns first,then if we need a human being to talk to,i believe the Holy Spirit will lead us to the right individual,all because we went first to God in prayer……
Good day Ruth. The passage of scripture you’re asking about is Ephesians 5:21-33. I”m posting the whole section of scriptures that deal with the one you want us to expound on because it is important to know what is spoken many times before and after a particular scripture. The whole chapter five of Ephesians is an admonition for the believer to follow God’s example in everything we do, everything we partake of and are participants in. Because we are both learning and growing daily we don’t hit the mark immediately so then errors and mistakes are made.
I’m going to quote from the Living Translation verse 21.”And further you will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
From this statement Apostle Paul began to expound on how in reverence to Christ both the man and the woman are to submit to one another. One thing I have found amazingly insightful in this section of scriptures is that Paul spends more time telling the man how to treat his wife than he does to the wife on how to treat her husband.
Much controversy and debate has risen from what men and women think God is wanting in the physical union of man and wife in regards to authority and rights. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord does in fact suggest both parties submitting to one another not just the woman to the man.
A Christian man who has an unsaved wife is to still follow the order and he should whole heartily want to do so simply because she is unsaved. The Christian husband’s greatest desire above all things should be that his wife comes into the saving grace of the Lord Jesus. If the christian husband’s desire is to put the wife away, to do away with the union simply because the wife is not saved then this action of desire brings into question the authenticity of his christian confession. All Christians should have the same desire as does God; that no man should perish but that all would come into the saving grace of God.
Being married to an unbeliever Ruth, calls for more labors of love. It calls for a deep walk in the characteristic of God. As much as man as a whole deserved to be put away or divorced by God, because man sure did divorce God, God held on to the marriage vow with man. He didn’t give up on man or stopped pursuing man. God’s labor of love which included patience, long-sufferings; which included pain to his heart and caused him to suffer rejection with grief paid off in that so many have already come and many many more will come into this oh so great a salvation. In Christs’ love for the church he denied himself to do what would benefit man. He became selfless; putting before his own self the Father and then man. His selflessness said, “Father I’m gonna die for what you desire and for what man needs.” By doing so, Jesus is now able to present to God something that has thrilled the heart of God; a people He’d created to become one with Him and for man he is able to present a God that is now able to become one with him. Through his labor of love the Christian husband will be able to present to God a person, his spouse to become one with Him.
The order of which you’re probably thinking of as man being the head does not null and void the purpose of God. The order of the family structure does not put the man greater in humanity’s status than the spouse; they both are still equal nor does it make the husband and his spouse greater in humanity’s status than the children. They all are equal. The order simply calls for one to take more responsibility for oversight of the union not to lord the union but to structure the union. This is what submitting to one another suggests.
Misconceptions of the order has brought more deaths into marriages than anything. Order and lordship has been confused. My flip the script question to you Ruth is this: God the Father (Yahweh) God the Son (Yeshua/Jesus) and the Holy Spirit are a union. We perceive the order as Father, then Son and then Holy Spirit. Does the Father stand alone in all decision making and planning or does all three come together? Does the order by which the God head bodily falls give the Son and the Holy Spirit no say? Selah
Another sadness found in the relationship of christian unity due to misconception is the battle of what each should be doing as male and female. The roles are attacked because of misguided notions. “You’re the man so you should be doing this and you’re the woman and you should be doing that.” Where is the and we’re both children of God and we should be doing…..