Part 4 of Contentious Wife Equals Terrible Life
A pro-active man, makes sure that his wife has proper spiritual food on a very consistent basis. You see this guy isn’t just cowering and ducking around and trying to avoid what hits the fan. No, he confidently stands on the strong foundation of the Word of God and his eyes are fixed on His Savior Jesus. The key thing that he knows is that if he is to have any hope of doing right by his wife, then Jesus has to have priority over her. Is that true in your life? Can you honestly say, “Jesus has priority over ____” (insert wife’s name here). If you are not willing to go there – well then you go into the category of no one can do much for you until you repent and turn to Jesus. (Please don’t try being proactive without having Jesus as your priority – because you will mess it up and give the rest of us a bad name.)
Okay, now that we have the key element known and solid, here is a list of the proactive things these guys are going to do:
1. He loves his wife as Christ loves the church. Basically this means that he is sacrificial and works hard to take care of his wife. It does not mean that he just says yes to whatever – though Jesus is sacrificial for His church (to death) does not mean that he just says, “yeah sure whatever you want” in His relationship with her. No Jesus’ goal for His church is for us to be pure and whole. We should have this same desire for our wives – that they would in every way reflect the character of Jesus Himself. In short, a godly wife is a lot like Jesus…loving, tender, compassionate, truthful, bold and sacrificial. Let me tell you that it’s great to be married to a woman who’s life doesn’t revolve around herself or just the things in her immediate world!
2. He is watching and observing to see that his wife is eating good spiritual food on a consistent basis. He refuses to sit back and watch her starve herself. Along these lines he does the following:
- asks what she is reading in the Bible and praying about
He knows that his wife needs to eat daily of the Word of God and to spend time with her God and Savior. He knows that if her fellowship with God is on point then the time they share together will be more fruitful and less contentious. When my wife is regularly reading her Bible and praying then we are having some good times. If either of us are slack, then we are headed for trouble.
- is faithful to take her and be with her at the primary meetings of the church (Heb. 10:24-25)
Men, please listen to this one. Your wives are generally more sensitive to the Holy Spirit and Word of God than we men are. So there are opportunities each week for your wife to be challenged and encouraged in her walk with the Lord. Especially if you are working to get rid of your pansiness then you can at least stand up and make the right sort of priorities so she doesn’t miss the meetings….of course this means you will need to be there too. If one of you has to travel frequently on business then you need to arrange things to make sure you are both still getting good inputs.
I can guarantee that if you are both faithful in regular attendance (as in 6 out of 8 meetings of the church a month Sunday/mid-week…75% (this level of attendance would get you fired from your job in a hurry) at a Bible teaching and practicing church and are at all open to the work of the Lord in your hearts, then you will grow in your walk with Jesus. If you think that you can step away from Christian fellowship and teaching for weeks or months at a time and continue to grow then you are absolutely kidding yourself. You will stagnate and then digress…it is just a fact jack…and no you are not the super spiritual exception that doesn’t have to follow the clear principle of you get out what you put in. (Note: there are dozens of other reasons you should be meeting for worship, Bible study and prayer – but I’ll keep this post to IT WILL HELP YOUR MARRIAGE!)
- encourages her to have friendships with godly women.
Now when I say this I don’t just mean friendship with women who are “christians” and “go to church”. How do you know your wife is spending time and being influenced by the right women? The proof is in the results. After spending time with “x” woman(en) is your wife more prone to gossip or pray, spend or give, watch some junk show on TV or read her Bible? I’m not saying that all of the women in your wife’s life have to be off the charts godly women – hopefully your wife has women who don’t know Jesus in her life that she is witnessing to. What I am saying is to encourage your wife to examine the type of influences in her life from other women and to make sure she is getting a heavy dose of the healthy influence. Even as adults our choice of friendships have a great affect on us. So gentleman, you also need to examine this in your own life. How about make a list of the 5 friends you hang out with the most and then make an honest evaluation of their influence on your walk with the Lord. You might find that exercise to reveal that you need some new friends or you need to reorder the time so that you don’t sabotage your own life.
Bottom Line: If our homes, churches, and communities are to have any hope of being all that they can be for God’s glory, it will be because men who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus are standing up and answering the high call of our God and Savior. It will be because we refuse to be lukewarm, pathetic boys and grow up by the Holy Spirit to be passionate men for our King Jesus!
Love 