Category Archives: Wives

Bible, Husbands, Sanctification, Scripture, Washing, Wives

A GOOD WASHING

EPHESIANS 5:26

“so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”

Way back in 1985, I made my second trip to Liberia. I was still in my first year of marriage and my wife was pregnant with our first child. When I returned from two weeks in Africa, having been back in the bush, I had a unique smell. To put it bluntly, I stunk. With my wife’s heightened sense of smell due to her pregnancy, something had to happen quick. I scrubbed and scrubbed until I finally got rid of the smell. Most of my clothes were thrown away, lol.

Paul is not saying that the wives stink so their husbands must give them a good washing. Instead, this cleansing, this washing was a sanctification process. Paul uses a similar phrase in Titus 3:5. “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,” So, Paul is saying in today’s verse that the man’s primary goal should be the salvation and sanctification of his wife, just as Christ did for the church.

APPLICATION

I love 1 Corinthians 6:11 which says, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” This is what the godly husband desires for his wife. His goal is not control and power. His goal is to see his wife become more like Jesus. To follow up from yesterday’s verse, that is real love.

In John 17:17-19, Jesus talks about our sanctification. He is praying to His Father and says, “‘17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. 18 Just as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, so that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” A godly husband will use the Word to lead his wife toward her sanctification.

Husbands, how do you want your wife to smell? I want mine to smell more like Jesus. Nothing thrills my heart more than to see her studying the Word. She loves to read out loud to herself. Sometimes, I will stop out of her sight and just listen. Then I lift a prayer to our Father and thank Him for her desire to know Him more fully. Husbands, wash your wife with the Word and lead her to a fuller sanctification.

Father, I thank You for the honor of leading my wife and loving her as You do.

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Bible, Husbands, Love, Scripture, Wives

LOVE Y0UR WIVES

EPHESIANS 5:25

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,”

Awww! Love is a many splendid thing! Right? We fall into love. What does that mean? People say, “He is head over heels in love with her.” What does that mean? Well, I don’t have a perfect definition for it. I do know I fell for my wife pretty quickly. But our love was not the romantic, movie style love. It was a love given to us by the Lord for each other. That is much deeper than the highly emotional one we see so much of on tv and in the movies. I love my wife because first of all she loves Jesus.

This verse is one of the Every Man A Warrior memory verses. I have probably recited this verse a few hundred times in the past nine years. But not until I did a Quiet Time on this verse did it hit me what Paul was really saying. I have to love my wife as Jesus did the church. He was dying for what the church would become after His death. I am to love my wife for what she is to be in Christ after I die to myself.

APPLICATION

I want to give you a weblink you can go to and read some of the commentaries on this verse. It is:

https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ephesians/5-25.htm

Especially, scroll down and read Barnes’ commentary. He gives some great analysis of this verse and the responsibility of the husband to his wife.

Let me just say, if a husband does this right, there will be no problem for his wife to submit herself to him. If he doesn’t, therein lies the rub. In 1 Peter 3:7 (another EMAW memory verse) we read, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” That’s loving your wife.

Loving your wife, men, means sacrificing your own desires to please her. I love to hunt and fish, but I have learned to ask my wife’s permission to plan those events. The time I spend doing those things which I love is time away from her and our home. Some men may say, “Well she knew I did that stuff before she married me.” Good luck with that. I want to honor my wife and by doing that, I am loving her well.

Father, let Your love flow through me to my wife. Let her see Jesus in me.

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Bible, Family, Husbands, Scripture, Subjection, Submission, Wives

THERE’S AN ORDER TO IT

EPHESIANS 5:23

“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.”

I like order. I like things in their place. I probably got that from my dad. He had a shop in the back of our house. In that shop was all kind of tools, wood, screws, nuts and bolts and a lot of other stuff he had collected over the years. But in that shop everything had its place.

God has an order to things, as we began to see in yesterday’s blog (check it out if you missed it). Father – Son (Jesus) – Husband – Wife. The Greek word for “head” used here means lord or ruler. Just as Jesus followed the lead of the Father, husbands are to follow Jesus, and the wife is to follow her husband. Again, as I said yesterday, this is God’s design, not mine. There is a purpose for everything God does, including the design for the home.

APPLICATION

Christ came to lead the church, to be the head of the church, but He was also the Savior of the body. He gave Himself freely to die on a cross for each and every believer. In the same way, husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their wives. Then and only then will the wives follow them and subject themselves. When a wife sees her husband making sacrifices for her, she is drawn to that. Some men sacrifice their hobbies (hunting, fishing, golfing) in order to spend more time with their wives and children. God will honor him for that sacrifice.

The “lordship” the husband has over his wife is never meant to be one of abuse or disadvantage. No, this lordship is only meant to show he is in control of himself and his family. His role as protector and priest of his household is key to the wife’s willingness to subject herself to his leadership. Remember, the comparison is to Christ. What an example!

Paul will continue his statements about the family for several verses. I would encourage you to read those verses (5:22-6:1) several times and ask the Lord what He would have you learn from His plan for the family. If your family does not look like these verses, pray and ask the Father what you need to do.

O Lord, help me be the husband/wife I need to be for my spouse.

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Bible, Family, God's Will, Husbands, Marriage, Scripture, Wives

WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS

EPHESIANS 5:22

“Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

Ephesians 5:22-6:4 is a well-known passage about the roles of a family (wife, husband, child, father). I want to begin by saying that these are God’s words given to Paul through the Holy Spirit to pen for the Ephesians and future generations. You may not like all that is written here. Many people don’t. They claim these thoughts are outdated or irrelevant for today. But do I need to remind you that every single word in the Bible is inspired by God and is profitable? (2 Timothy 3:16-17) So, don’t get mad at me for what Paul is saying. Don’t get mad at Paul. He was just the messenger. Take it up with God.

Paul starts out these verses on family by instructing the wife. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog on 5:21 that some people don’t like the thought of women submitting or subjecting themselves to a man. Go back and read that blog for a further description about that word “subject.” I am not going to rehearse that thought today. Instead, I want you to look at some other verses God gives us on today’s subject. Before we do that, look at the last four words of today’s verse – “as to the Lord.” That is the parameter for the woman’s submission.

APPLICATION

I want to start this application with a quote from Barnes about this verse. Hang with me. It’s kind of long, but I think it is a great view of the text. “Where commands begin ‘in this relation,’ happiness usually ends; and the moment a husband ‘requires’ a wife to do anything, it is usually a signal of departing or departed affection and peace. When there are proper feelings in both parties in this relation there will be no occasion either to command or to obey. There should be such mutual love and confidence, that the known ‘wish’ of the husband should be a law to the wife: and that the known desires of the wife should be the rule which he would approve. A perfect government is that where the known wish of the lawgiver is a sufficient rule to the subject. Such is the government of heaven; and a family on earth should approximate as nearly as possible to that.”

That was pretty good, huh? It’s a mutual thing when it is done as the Lord commands. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, we read this, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” The Lord gives us clear roles in family. They are not to be ignored, for when they are, chaos rules. For more on this, read verses 4-12 in 1 Corinthians 11.

The Lord spoke through Peter on this subject as well. In 1 Peter 3:1 it says, “In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives,.” The wife’s submission to her husband can be used by the Lord to win over an unbelieving husband.

Over in Titus 2:3-5, Paul gives these instructions to Titus for the church. “3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”

I could go on and give you more passages on this subject of wives’ submission to their husbands, but I think you have the picture now. I encourage you to search the Scriptures yourself if you have doubts. Let the Lord correct you, not me. Do it all as to the Lord.

Father, I thank You for wives everywhere who see the benefits and rewards of following Your plan for the home.

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Accountability, Advice, Affection, Bible, Choices, Commands, Compassion, Disciplemaking, Encouragement, Family, Forgiveness, God's Will, Husbands, Intimacy, Love, Mercy, Obedience, Relationships, Scripture, Wives

TAKE HER BACK

HOSEA 3:1

“Then the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet is committing adultery, as the LORD loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.’”

I have known several men who have reconciled with their wives after their wives had committed adultery. That is a hard pill to swallow. To take a woman back as your wife after she has cheated on you takes a lot. But each of these men were led by the Lord to do that. Some had children in the marriage. Others didn’t. But each decided to be obedient and bring their wife back to their marriage bed.

God told Hosea to do the same. He instructed Hosea to restore Gomer to his home as his wife after she had chosen willingly to be unfaithful. This was a symbolic move to show Israel the plan God had to restore them to Him following their exile in Babylon. After rejecting their false gods, they were seeking to return to Jehovah.

APPLICATION

You may have never had to reconcile with a wayward spouse. You may have never been that wayward spouse. My guess, though, is you have known someone who has. It’s all about forgiveness. There is no possible way to do this without the power of forgiveness. I am not talking about forgiveness powered by you. This takes a godly forgiveness.

When we think about what God has forgiven us, there is nothing that we should not be able to forgive. He has forgiven us of sins that would cause us to spend eternity in hell. There is nothing that has been done to us by anyone that can equal that. So, the question is will you forgive.

You may need to forgive someone today for something that you feel in unforgiveable. It’s not. With God, you can forgive anyone of anything. It won’t be easy. But it is possible because He can give you that power. You will be amazed how much better you feel afterwards. Will you?

Help me forgive those who have hurt me. Give me the strength today to give that forgiveness to anyone who needs it.

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Bible, Calling, Commitment, Confession, Destruction, Faithfulness, Hell, Husbands, Infidelity, Love, Obedience, Relationships, Scripture, Wives

HUSBANDS AND WIVES

HOSEA 2:2

“Dispute with your mother, dispute, because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; but she must remove her infidelity from her face and her adultery from between her breasts,”

My wife and I have been married thirty-five years. We could have never imagined back in 1985 how our lives would change. We have been through a lot together. We have lived in nine different homes in five different states. We have made so many friends and, thankfully, very few enemies, lol. Through it all, we have remained husband and wife.

In today’s verse, God uses the imagery of husband and wife and is referring to Hosea’s adulterous wife. Just as Gomer, Hosea’s wife, had been unfaithful to God, Israel had been unfaithful to Him. He is calling them to repentance. Sin must be confessed and expunged to restore the relationship.

APPLICATION

Do you understand how your unconfessed sin builds a wall between you and the Lord? Until you admit you are a sinner and ask Christ to save you, you are doomed to an eternal punishment. There really is no hope for you without Christ. But the moment you call on Him and confess your sins, believe in His name and surrender your life to Him, you are cleansed and become His child.

So many believers, however, stop there. No! You need to continue to confess and cleanse your heart each day. Now, you are only saved once, but because we are still human, we are going to sin and mess up. Those sins are forgiven under the same blood that saved you, but unconfessed sin can begin to be a barrier between you and God. Just like Gomer, we have to confess our sins and return to our “husband.”

Take a moment right now and pray. Ask the Lord to forgive you for the sins you have committed today or this week. Name them. Don’t just ask the Lord to forgive your sins. Name them specifically. If you don’t remember them, ask the Lord to reveal them to you. He will. I guarantee you He knows. A clean heart restores fellowship with the Lord.

O Father, restore unto me the joy of my salvation. I want to fellowship with You .

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Advice, Bible, Child Raising, Child Rearing, Commands, Direction, Encouragement, Fatherhood, Following, Husbands, Inspirational, Kindness, Mentoring, Modeling, Obedience, Parenting, Prayer, Scripture, Testimony, Wives

UNHINDERED PRAYERS

1 PETER 3:7

“You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

A lot of people will read this verse and think it is women bashing. Calling them weaker! That is NOT the purpose of this verse. God made men to lead and protect their wives. Their role is a protector, not a basher. And He warns the men in this verse. He says, “so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

In other words, God is telling the husbands if they mistreat their wives and don’t show them honor, their prayers will not reach Him. That’s what “hindered” means. It means blocked. Men, have you ever felt that your prayers weren’t getting past the ceiling? How are you treating your wives? Hmmm!

APPLICATION

This is another modeling verse. Husbands and dads, it’s your turn. How you treat your wife, the mother of your children, is so important. You are not just mistreating her. You are mistreating your children. Your daughters are endangered by believing that’s how women are meant to be treated. And your sons grow up believing that’s how they are supposed to treat their wives.

But…when you show honor to her, that gives your children a role model to follow. The word “show” is only used right here in this verse. It means to give what is due. God is telling you that your wife deserves honor, no matter what you think. And if you want an open line of communication with the Lord, this is required.

Are you guilty of not showing honor to someone? Let’s apply this verse to all of us, not just husbands, for a second. Is there someone you belittle and persecute? We should show honor to all of God’s people. God cannot look on sin and ignore it. And that kind of behavior is sin, dear friends.

Lord God, give me Your eyes for others. Let me show honor to all. And hear my prayers.

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Advice, Child Raising, Child Rearing, Commands, Encouragement, Faith, Following, God's Will, Husbands, Inspirational, Modeling, Obedience, Parenting, Wives

NO NEED TO FEAR

1 PETER 3:6

“just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.”

We all know the story of Abraham and Sarah. They longed for a child, but through their many years of marriage they had not been blessed with one. Throughout their marriage Sarah responded to Abraham as God instructed. She wasn’t perfect, but she was seeking to please her heavenly father and therefore, pleased Abraham.

This passage today, although directed towards women, can apply to all of us. We cannot be driven by pleasing mankind. You will never be able to do that consistently. Sure, you may make some people happy, but it won’t last. Listen, our allegiance is to God first. Wives, submit to your husbands, as God directs. Husbands, submit to God and die to your selfish desires in regards to your wives.

APPLICATION

This is a tough verse to apply to children. They don’t understand the whole idea of submission in marriage or even the biblical roles of marriage. The best way to teach this, parents, is to live it out. Give your children a biblical model of marriage. When they are older and read these verses they will say, “Hey, that’s the kind of marriage my parents have.”

Role modeling these verses will give them a visual example of biblical truths. That’s true for many of the verses in Scripture. Let me challenge you, parents, to live out the Word. Allow your kids to see that. Don’t just teach it with words.

Are you living in fear because you aren’t living according to God’s standards? If you are, go to Him today and confess that. Allow Him to show you in His Word what He expects from you. He will never ask you to do anything beyond your ability.

Father, I will live according to Your word and will not fear. I will teach my children by the way I live out Your Word.

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Advice, Child Raising, Child Rearing, Commands, Encouragement, Following, God's Will, Holiness, Husbands, Inspirational, Modeling, Parenting, Scripture, Submission, Surrender, Wives

MODELING BEHAVIOR

1 PETER 3:5

“For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands;”

I wonder who Peter was thinking of when he wrote this verse? His mother? His wife? Old Testament saints? We don’t know, but surely he had someone in mind. These were women who were more concerned with pleasing their Lord than with their external adornment. I bet they were all beautiful women, because when you live like that the Lord shines through.

Do you know any women who live like this? In today’s culture submitting to your husband is seen as weakness by the feminist movement. Now, I am not trying to start a fight. I am just stating a fact. Thank the Lord we don’t have to live by today’s culture. We rely on the Word of God to direct our life choices. I am thankful for a submissive wife who honors God with her choices.

APPLICATION

How do you apply this verse to children? Well, we are to teach our little girls and our little boys what it means to submit. Our girls need to understand that they are not submitting to some man. They are submitting to the Lord. He is the one they are trying to honor.

And our boys need to understand what that submission means. It does NOT mean that their wives are their slaves. This is a partnership. They are to honor the Lord by protecting and nurturing their wives. In return, the Lord directs their wives to submit. Obedience to the Lord is the key.

If you know some godly woman who is living out this verse, praise her today. Tell her how much she inspires you with her walk. Encourage her today to continue to model for you and others. Perhaps you are that woman who struggles with submission. Seek the Lord’s direction today. Please Him. That’s all that matters.

Thank You for putting holy women in my life. I praise You for the example they give in surrender to You.

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Child Raising, Child Rearing, Commands, Disciplemaking, Encouragement, Evangelism, Faithfulness, Following, Humility, Husbands, Inspirational, Mentoring, Modeling, Obedience, Parenting, Testimony, Wives

SILENT WITNESS

1 PETER 3:1

“In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,”

Actions speak louder than words. You’ve probably heard that expression, haven’t you? Well, that’s kind of what Peter is saying here to wives. Instead of nagging their husbands to obey the word, he tells them to influence them by their behavior. Let them watch you live for Jesus.

The Greek word translated “may be won” is the same word Paul uses over in 1 Corinthians 9:19-21. This is the passage where he says he will be all things to all people so he can win them for Christ. Paul was an evangelist who would do whatever it took to win people to Christ. Wives can do the same with their husbands. Just be Jesus.

APPLICATION

We all want our children to behave, don’t we? We begin at an early age teaching them to say “Yes ma’am” and “No ma’am.” We teach them proper table manners. We are so concerned with the outward behaviors. Why? So they won’t embarrass us or themselves? Perhaps.

But we should be more concerned with their behaviors as they relate to Christ. I know most of you pray for your children daily. You pray for their salvation and safety. You pray for their future spouse. You pray for their friends. Let me encourage you to pray for their behavior as it relates to walking with Christ. We want them to influence their friends and others for Jesus, right? Then spend some time praying that they will surrender their will to Jesus so He can use them to change the world.

Let me ask you a question. Would your behavior lead someone to Christ or drive them away? You may have heard this expression – Preach Jesus, if necessary use words. The things we do really do speak louder than words. Be careful today to be Jesus in your actions.

Lord, I want others to see Jesus in the things I do. May they be drawn to You by what they see in me. Help me preach the Gospel without using words.

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