Sacred Influence, part 6

The following are key passages from Sacred Influence, Chapter 6

Chapter 6
The Helper
Embracing the High Call of Marriage

Genesis 2:18
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."

God designed the wife to help her husband. (78)

Proverbs 12:4
An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,
but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

Ephesians 5:21-22; 25
submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord... Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Paul describes an idealistic view of a simultaneous commitment to the other’s welfare. (79)

The church must not teach the submission of wives apart from the sacrificial love and servanthood required of husbands. (79)

Laura Dillow suggests, “Submission is your only hope of changing your husband. Your husband will change as you allow him to be head of hiis home and as you are submissive to him. He will not change by your nagging, belittling, suggesting, reminding, or mothering.” (80)

The catch is that submission, from a biblical perspective, is determined, not by the worthiness of the person to whom we submit, but by the worthiness of the person who calls us to submit: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21, emphasis added). (81)

Jesus’ submission to his parents even though they were not worthy:

Luke 2:51
And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

If you submit “out of reverence for Christ,” you are never obligated – ever – to do anything that would offend Christ. (81)

“Lord, how do I love my wife today like she has never been loved and never will be loved?” (81)

The spiritual weight of fulfilling my role as a leader who sacrifices and serves and looks out for the good of his family matures me as a man in Christ. It confronts my laziness, my self-centeredness, and my accursed male autonomy. Lisa’s calling as a helper keeps her from pride, self-centeredness, and frivolous living. (82)

If you have entered into God’ invention called marriage, your role is to be your husband’s helper. This does not diminish you any more than the Bible diminishes God by calling him our helper. In fact, being able to help assumes, in one sense, that you have something the person you are helping lacks. If you cease to think of yourself as your husband’s helper, the marriage will suffer, because that’s the way God designed marriage to work. (83)

You shouldn’t become a wife and then act as though you’re still single. (83)

“How can I help my husband today?” (84)

[O]ur motivation has to come from reverence for Christ more than doing one thing in order to get something else. (85)

If you really want to move your man, you must treat him the way God designed him to be treated. (85)

The issue isn’t what makes me or Lisa happy; the issue is what makes God happy. We don’t direct our lives by what makes us comfortable; we try to order our lives by what brings the maximum glory to God and by what will fulfill our call to proclaim the message of God’s reconciliation. (86)

Ephesians 3:20-21
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.