Marriage from the Scriptures III
TEXT: I Peter 3: 7
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
I Peter 3:7 KJV
“Likewise in the same way, HUSBANDS dwell with your wives with knowledge…..” what knowledge?
Knowledge means familiarity with someone or something, this includes facts, information, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. The scripture is saying study your wife, get to know her and deal with her based on this knowledge. So, the next time she behaves in a particular way you do not like, remember that it is in her to behave in that manner, so you do not see it as an offence targeted at you.
“Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:
And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.” Proverbs 24:3-5
Spend time trying to know your wife. This line reminds me of a film I strongly recommend,Fireproof. And not just know your wife; know what God is saying concerning her too. The next verses that follow explore further…
Giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel ….
Appreciate that she is a weaker vessel. She is not like you, she is strong in her own department but not in yours. She needs to be pampered. She cannot carry the family burden like you can. Women have tried to prove a point of being just as strong but truly they are not. God has created each person uniquely to fulfil a certain purpose. Have you ever seen a man trying to simultaneously carry four bags and a woman doing the same? Or have you seen a woman trying to drive a nail through wood and a man doing the same? God has created each one uniquely for His pleasure. The fact that both male and female are created for His pleasure drives home the next point.
As being heirs together of the grace of life
You are both heirs called of God; she is under your authority but she belongs to God first. Ask God what He would want for her and be sure to support and ensure His will is done in her life just as in yours. Give her your full support. Sometime ago while meditating, I heard in my spirit, that God calls his daughters home (that is, to eternity) sometimes because of this reason. Culture has taught men to keep their wives in subjection and Christian men have brought this idea into marriage thereby hindering the expression of the fullness of God in the lives of their wives. God is a God of order. He is not saying a woman should be disobedient to the man, rather, He is asking men to live, in awareness that they represent Him in the lives of their wives and must remember that in Christ there is no male or female. Don’t get carried away plotting your success plan, forgetting your wife is also a light that must shine. Provide full support for her also to fulfil God’s purpose in her life through your marriage.
That your prayers be not hindered.
Every man who does the Word as required gets express answer to his prayers. The answers to your prayers are tied to knowing your wife, treating her honourably and acknowledging the fact that she is God’s vessel in your care! When you do these things, you open up the heavens for yourself and your home. I have seen this Word work in the life of a few couples I know and the results are astounding!
Please keep studying the Word and share lessons learnt as comments. I look forward to hearing from you!
Online Resources
http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2005-02-13-Unhindered-Prayers/
http://bible.org/seriespage/obligations-christian-husbands-their-wives-1-peter-37
http://www.onechristianministry.com/christian-articles-563.html
God Bless and keep you!
Much Love!
-Omolola
His dream
A great job that could pay for all life dreams, a beautiful wife who would equally be on top of her game and would be his best friend, lovely kids; courteous, intelligent, God fearing. A life of service to God!
His Reality
The dream job came and took away the time to serve God. Having devotion became a struggle because there was no time. The job took away time with God and replaced God with unbelieving friends. Then things started cracking with the wife because they spent less time together. Investments cracked and cash did not flow as planned. The job is no longer giving the satisfaction it once used to give.
The home front is not so pleasant any more, the life of service to God he once hoped for looks like a mirage. Is there any way out of this endless cycle?
I share with you again some true, basic Christian faith principle we often forget as life hits us.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Matt 6:33
Seek ye first the kingdom of God! God knows there are bills to be paid. He already said, ‘Let your life not be about what to wear, eat or drink, the Father knows you need these things’. Therefore the core of your existence cannot be around a Job but the Kingdom! The very few who get this right and appropriate it never fail! They might not have millions and billions stashed somewhere but they have everything they need!
Very important at this point to mention is that a need is different from want. Take time to examine your life and see if you have been chasing wants or needs!
We are under pressure because of the society’s expectation, what parents, family or friends think. This should not be so; our whole existence must be centred on giving God pleasure!
Depend on God’s Grace
I have a precious song I learnt many years ago that puts what I have to say on this into words.
On Christ the Lord I place my trust
To find my glory in the power of the cross
In every victory let it be said of me
That my source of hope and my source of strength is Christ the Lord!
Depend on God for your every existence, by this I mean become God-dependent in all of your ways.
Jesus said in John 15, ‘Abide in me, when you abide in me you will bear much fruit. You cannot claim to
be a part of the vine and be disconnected from the vine’.
God wants you back right where you belong in Him!
Live by Galatians 2:20 which says “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave himself for me. ”
The world does not have the answer!
The world does not have answers to our questions, a lot of families are disintegrated because men and women have gone to the way of the world to find answers to their financial needs. Little wonder so many of us Christians were victims of WONDER BANKS and a lot of other fraudulent schemes.
God is able! There is so much wisdom God would want us to have to unearth the riches of this world if we can just stay at His feet.
God’s grace is not just a phenomenon, it is very practical and it has been made available to us in abundance through prudence and wisdom if only we are a little more conscious of God’s views concerning our life choices. There are lots of trendy things out there today that are not meant for us Children of God but we have put our hands into them because we are not paying attention to our action.
Again let’s do an audit of our lives. The decisions we make, are they motivated by the fear of the unknown or our faith in what God will have us do?
God is a God of Purpose and Process. He has a plan for our lives and He has a route He would want us to take, yet He gives us the power to choose the way we eventually want.
Today I leave a message to all men reading this piece; God wants us to love our wives like Christ loved the church. The Church was not a perfect one but Christ loved it to perfection! Please let’s love our wives first for who they are and show them the way to be the great woman they can be.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Pet 3:7
This passage is loaded I could go on and on about it, but I will leave it here till next week, may the Lord help us all to reach out to the resources He has made available to us.
Shalom!
-Omolola Ezeifeoma
Years ago, making a journey was extremely stressful. If you went on foot, horse or train you were sure to spend hours, days, months or even years depending on the distance. However today, people travel in hours across continents by taking advantage of technology. People communicate and transact across continents from the confines of their homes by taking advantage of various communication options.
Now, God has given us grace to make things easier, to simplify cumbersome tasks and produce multiple and excellent results and we ought to take advantage of it. Every believer must do this. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh”. Though we are on earth and in contact with physical tools, we do not rely on their use, but we take advantage of Gods divine influence to achieve excellence. Grace!
It’s easier when you are GRACED.
Struggling and striving wont help outside of grace. Paul said “whereunto I labor, striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily” he worked according to grace. He worked in grace.
If you make a thousand bucks by your efforts, imagine what you will make if you take advantage of the grace that is given you in Christ Jesus. Allow yourself to be helped of God.
I refuse to struggle. Struggling is warring according to the flesh. “And Isaac sowed in gerar and received in that same year a hundred fold”. Grace. He was helped of God. To prosper according to scriptures you must take advantage of grace. Graced increase cannot be explained. When we plug into grace we can say like Paul “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly then they all”. Take advantage of grace. Don’t wait for customers to come, call them forth from the four wings. Don’t wait till you are due for promotion; be promoted now because you are favored. Let angels influence events in your favor. Take advantage of grace in all its ramifications. Let none be in vain. Allow yourself to be helped of God in your finances. With grace a dollar accomplishes as much as a thousand. With grace little effort produces great results. Don’t keep winding that generating set, use the button.
Don’t be passive in grace. “How much more those that have received (lambano) abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life…” “Received” here means to grab, to make yours, to take advantage of. Don’t let things ride its natural course. Dictate the supernatural direction. Take advantage of Grace.
-emmanuel aladenusi
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10.
I always got jitters whenever I came across this verse of the Bible or remembered it. Where would I start and where would I end? How would I be able to keep all these laws in my everyday life? I wondered if I would be able to make it.
But when I remember that: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8), my heart is gladdened. A quick word count in my Bible revealed to me that the word “grace” is used about 122 times in the New Testament compared with about 37 times used in the Old Testament.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin
My joy is no longer on how many of the laws I am able to keep in a particular day.
The peace of my heart is no longer based on the amount of good works I am able to do each day. Following the words of an American preacher, Paul Washer, my everyday joy comes whenever I remember the finished work of Christ on Calvary; whenever I remember that by that act of grace, my sins were washed away.
Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe;
You that are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive?
Why not join me float in grace!
– okenna obi-igbokwe
Ever watched a race before? The sprinter thrusts himself forward and gathers momentum. In a moment he sprints in an amazing speed. He tries as much as in his power to increase his speed as he eyes the end-mark. Inside, his strength wanes. He keeps mustering courage, hoping that amidst waning strength, he would make it. At last, he gets to the end-mark. Whether he arrived ahead of his opponents or behind, one thing is sure – he is exhausted. His strength is almost drained. He pants and gasps for air. That is the law of nature, even the law of diminishing returns.
Not so with grace. The more a believer runs in the race of life, the grace accumulates even more. The more you need it, the more it is available. Grace is abundant. No wonder men of God wax stronger in the Lord even in their old age. Not so with a sprinter.
Afraid that hydrocarbon reserves would soon wind up, nations of the earth are scrambling for alternative energy, but the well of grace will never drain up.
“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee” II Corinthians 12:9.
More wealth brings more care, increased wisdom increases sorrow, but the abundant grace of God brings steady joy.
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:30
Believer, why not carve out time even in your tight schedule to spend time with your maker? Grace is here! What is stopping you from enjoying it?
okenna obi-igbokwe
The power & grace to grow spiritually Bible Reading: Ephesians 1
One of the reasons why many Christians are not growing spiritually is because they think some of the things they need for their growth have not been given to them by God. So they go to God always in prayers to make demands for such things. Such demands have become a common thing in nearly every Christian gathering. It is even considered a sign of humility and dependence on God to make such requests. For example, it is very common for people to pray that “Lord give us the grace to grow spiritually”.
This prayer above seems very pious because it appears you are telling God you cannot do it on your own. It also suggests that if you are not growing spiritually, it may be because you are yet to receive the grace for it. But that is the devils deceit and he is using it to counterbalance the ignoramus among us.
Please put aside every tradition you are familiar with and let us reason together…
Ephesians 1:3 (GW) says “Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through Christ, God has BLESSED us with EVERY spiritual blessing thatheaven HAS TO OFFER”.
Oh my God! This is powerful! Firstly, the verse says “God has blessed us”. This statement is in past tense. The verse did not say “God will bless us”. Secondly, we are told that God has blessed us with every blessing that is spiritual. Is grace a physical or spiritual blessing? Is anointing a physical or spiritual blessing? Is divine power a physical or spiritual blessing? If they are all spiritual blessings, then we should throw away tradition and accept the declaration of God that we have been blessed with such things. Lastly, the verse says “we have every spiritual blessing that heaven has to offer”. Do we expect God’s grace to come from heaven or earth? If it is from the earth, then we can go ahead in an endless search for it. But if it is supposed to come from the father in heaven, then the bible is clear about it – we have been blessed with it.
No wonder Romans 5:2 (MSG) says “through whom (Christ) we have had access by faith into this grace in which we stand”. In other words, right now every believer is standing inside God’s grace. You have received it in abundance. That is why Peter admonished us to “grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ” II Peter 3:18”. He did not say “ask God for the grace to grow”, or “Pastors grow in grace and the congregation should pray for the grace to grow”. Rather, grow in the grace wherein you stand. Hallelujah! I know that there are some verses of scriptures that seem to suggest that we may plead for spiritual blessings, but if you understand such verses in context and in the light of the revelation of Jesus, you will still end up with the revelation that “everything we need for spiritual growth has been given to us” (II Peter 1:3).
So what do we do after realizing we have grace in abundance? The bible is also clear about that. Philippians 2:12 says “work out your salvation”. What you need for spiritual growth is in you, you are to work it out. You are supposed to give an expression on the outside about what you have on your inside. God has done his part. Let us take responsibility for our spiritual growth and stop shifting blame on God or other people. Work out the anointing. Work out the grace. Work out the power. It is the “working out” that makes it appears as though some Christians possess grace more than others. But the possession of a gift is different from the utilization of that gift. Are you utilizing your God-given grace to grow spiritually?
We will discuss how to work out these gifts in our subsequent messages.
– tope aladenusi