Praying as love

Luk 11:1-13  And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.  (2)  And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.  (3)  Give us day by day our daily bread.  (4)  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.  (5)  And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;  (6)  For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?  (7)  And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.  (8)  I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.  (9)  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.  (10)  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  (11)  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?  (12)  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  (13)  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Jesus prays to the Father a lot in the Gospels.  Here He teaches his disciples to pray, and then explains that they ought to pray, and keep on praying, because they are praying to a Good Father who will give good gifts…even His Holy Spirit.  There also seems to be some hint in vs.5-8 that we ought to pester God with our prayers.

You pointed out some time ago that the statistics of marriages that end in divorce is very low among husbands and wives who pray together.  There are so many reasons to turn to the Father in prayer at every opportunity with our wives, and for our children to see us praying, and to pray with them.

I’ve not been doing this very well, so you need to get on me…I thought you were all about challenges?  So challenge me on this one.

Resident Samaritan

Luk 10:25-29  And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  (26)  He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?  (27)  And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.  (28)  And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.  (29)  But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

At this point, Jesus launches into the parable of the Good Samaritan, which I assume you have read.  

This is kind of a funny story.  I wish I could have looked at Jesus eyes as he was having this conversation.  He allows the lawyer to dictate the terms of eternal life: loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  And those really are the terms of eternal life, as I understand it.  The first and second commandment are a complete summing up of the Law of God.  We must be perfectly holy as He is holy...and there comes the problem.  No one has ever done that, but Christ.  I wonder if there was a twinkle in Jesus eyes as he said..."Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live."  Essentially He is telling him to keep the complete law, and he shall live.  Galatians tells us that NO man was ever justified by the law, because if we find our justification in the law, then we have to keep the entire law, and then we can be justified, but no one has ever done this, which is the predicament that this lawyer finds himself in.  Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, and thereby highlights the lawyers lack of love, and therefore his inability to keep the whole law.  Christ says: do this and you shall live...but the "this" is something we have all failed to do.  And so we need Christ, who did keep the law perfectly, and then died, receiving the wrath of God for us...

Oops.  Sorry...I got off on the Gospel again.

What I was intending to say was that, as those who have been justified by Christ, and not as an attempt to justify ourselves (beware of Galatians "Christianity") we have been placed in our families as "resident Samaritans".  God has given us to our wives to bind up there wounds, to ensure they are cared for.  They don't have to lie on the side of the road waiting for someone...the someone has already come.  Christ has come to pay the price for our sins, for our wives sins, for our children's sins...and then, with Him as our head, we lead our families, love them and care for them.  

I think.

Under authority

Luk 10:17-20  And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.  (18)  And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.  (19)  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.  (20)  Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

Christ has been given power over all things.  We see that several times in the New Testament.  (Ephesians 1-2, for example).  

The analogy that we should love our wives as Christ loved the church breaks down a little bit on this issue, because we have not been given all power...all things have not been placed under our feet.  So we can not in turn protect our wives by our own power.

But, Christ is our head, and he has been give all power and authority.  If we, like the centurion who came requesting something of Jesus, who told Jesus that he was a man under authority, and therefore he understood that Christ could simply heal his servant without traveling to the servants location.  Christ was amazed by this faith.  We, too, are men under authority: the authority of Christ our head.  So as we submit to his authority, and carry out his mission on our lives and in the lives of our family, we are putting ourself under He who has all authority.  

If we, on the other hand, are simply taking power in our families, in order to get our way, to be served, to "rule our own castle" for the sake of our comfort and pleasure, then we are no longer acting as men under authority, and I wonder how that influences our families, and their protection.

We therefore should consider: Christ is the head over all things, including our homes, families and relationships.  We are placed and empowered to carry out His will, not our own in our responsibilities to our family.  I propose that when we try and impose our own will, and not submit to His will, that we are usurping his rightful authority in our homes, and we need to repent!

Thoughts?

Nurturing, really me?

Nurturing is really a funny thing for me. I love to get it, hate to give it and so desperately need to improve at it.

This has been a really rough week with our daughter. My bride spends all week taking her to appointments, playing with her, therapy, changing her diapers, etc. The hardest part by far is watching this 7 year old deafblind angel hurt and not being able to do anything about it. Patty is so good with her, the way she love hers, continually, patiently, gently. She does it perfectly.

Now how do you nurture your wife in the way she really needs it? Well it is simple, copy what she does for your children.

He calls us to follow Him!

Luk 9:23-26  And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.  (24)  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.  (25)  For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?

Christ's love for His church was not all about making sure that she had ease, comfort, and pleasure.  He died for His church, and calls her to die with Him.

As a husband whose Head is Christ, I am to follow Him, and that means death.  As my wife follows me, it is to the cross that I am leading.

Do I now what that means?  No, not really.  But I want to keep this truth of where we are heading always before me as we walk through our days, weeks, months, years.  

If I am leading her only toward those things that are comfortable, I am excluding the Cross as a destination.  And that is not the kind of love that Christ had for His church.

Gentleness

This post topic has been blessed by Patty with enthusiasm. (Thanks Dave for your thoughts below, this is a bit more shallow)

For a while now I have instructed my oldest boy, Josiah (almost 5), that he can only be rough with guys. This instruction usually results in attacking me when I get home, wrestling with his grandpas and getting rebuked for being too rough on mommy.

I began this direction for Josiah after hearing Patty say "owww, that hurts", "too rough honey", and so on. I have attempted to redirect him to me or other guys.

Question: is there a biblical theme for these different responses?

(disclaimer of sorts: I believe the correct method to look at scripture is exegesis, yet I did approach this topic in a bit more of an eisegesis manner. )

Patrick's answer: yes, look at 1 Peter 3:7.

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

The fact is, God made men and women very differently and the truth states that wives must be receive gentleness from their husbands as a they are a weaker vessel.

Patty would feel unsafe if I were to be as rough with her as one of my little boys. It is clear from Gods word what our command is in regard to this.

Unpacking my thoughts on the Gospel

I want to unpack a little of my thinking on how the realities of what the Trinity accomplished as the Father sent the Son; the Son came as a baby born of a virgin; and the Holy Spirit came to comfort and teach us the truths of our situation.

So, say my wife and I are working on a project together, or planning something, and suddenly she says something that seems to be arguing in a hurtful way.

I can snap back, fulfilling my sudden urge to "get her back" for consciously or unconsciously hurting me...and it can go downhill from there...

But...let's step back and look at that situation from a true perspective:

OUR PREVIOUS SITUATION
Paul says that in times past I walked according to the deceitful lusts, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and by nature, I was a child of wrath (the well deserved wrath of the Father was righteously heading my way because of my sinful nature) even as others. (Eph 2)

So, "that in times past" describes my previous situation...which Paul is proposing is no longer my situation.  So if, in my situation of being upset with my wife, I act as if that is still true, then I am acting in a way that is not in harmony with the actual current truth, which is: that it was in times past, not in the present that I am fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

So, if that is no longer true about me, what is true, and why?

THE GOOD NEWS!
Paul goes on (Ephesians 2) to explain that God, who is rich in mercy, even when I was his enemy, and dead, saved me by His grace which was expressed when The Son came and took my punishment, bought me back from the judgement of the wrath of God, and raised us up with HIM to sit in heavenly places.  It was through Christ's work while he was on Earth, his death, his resurrection and ascension that a different situation was created for me and my wife.

RAMIFICATIONS
That different situation is, to name a few ramifications:

We are both brought together in Him;  we have both been raised up together to sit in heavenly places with Him; we have been forgiven by His blood; we have been give life, His life; we have both been placed in His Body; we both are called to seek for unity of the Spirit; we both can be given strength in our inner man by the Spirit; we are both were created, in Him, unto good works which He has ordained for us.

This list could go on for a long time: all the things that Christ accomplished through his life, death, Resurrection and ascension. (1 Cor 15.1-8).  It may have seemed like Christ, when he walked those 33 years on earth, was just living a pretty interesting life of surprising miraculous characteristics...but "behind the scenes" those very actions were implementing the things necessary for the Kingdom of God to be born and spread though out all generations and around the world.

RESPONSE
So, there I am sitting with my wife, and my emotions boil up because of some perceived grievance given to me by her...and I can respond in the flesh, but that would be living a lie!  The truth is that we have a position in Christ that compels and enables Christ to live in me, and the "me" that is upset has to die.  That is a honest response to my real position in Him because of his work on this earth and on the Cross, and coming out of the tomb and being raised to sit at the right hand of the Father.

So, what do I do as I sit there, trying to figure out how to respond to a difficult situation?

I ought to love my wife, by bathing myself in His word, and bathing her in His word. By learning together about what Christ accomplished as He loved His church.  By teaching myself and her what our real situation is in light of the work of Christ.  So that, as we are sitting there in a highly-charged emotional situation, the Truth can be reflected on and responded to.  I propose that this takes learning the truth, teaching the truth and remembering the truth.  That is where we as husbands come in, and we have our work cut out for us, but we also have the Spirit of God helping, comforting and teaching us!

When we fail to live in light of the truth, that is something called "sin".  When we find ourselves in sin, we bring that into the Light of truth, confess that it is sin, and then (according to Rom 7) it is no longer "I" or "her" that did it, but the sin which dwells in us, which has to die.  So we then seek to recognize that we are "in Christ" because of His work, and live after the Spirit, by faith in Him. (Rom 8).

And we go back to the truth, and continue to learn, teach and remember, asking Him for His life for our family.

Thoughts?