Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
| Blogs > deepestfaith > Mesianic Viewpoints |
|
Commitment and Covenant: For Men (Part 9 and 10 ) This is Part 9 of 16 parts. If just starting, I highly encourage going to Part 1 and reading 2-3 parts per sitting in order as they were written because many things in here are building upon things taught earlier. Thanks - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 9  Guess whom we are going to be talking to this post. Yep, you guessed. Well basically we are in this series talking about marriage, some on dating and single issues, but mainly we are talking about marriage. So let’s review to start. Mainly we have said that the Bible says in Ephesians 5:33 Husbands are to agape style love, that’s unconditional style love, their wives and women are to agape style respect their husbands, unconditionally respect their husbands. We said that’s a cycle. They each motivate each other. Guy loves his wife and it feeds the wife to respect her husband and vice versa and when this doesn’t happen things deteriorate. Last segment or 4 parts we sort of gave the men a free pass and talked to the ladies on how to respect their guys. But this segment the ladies can put their pens down and get your elbows ready and I am going to talk to men over the next 4 parts or this next segment. Let me just say this, based on personal experience and observation; here is the statement that we will keep coming back to today, MEN, WE ARE CLUELESS!!! We are just absolutely clueless. The quicker we admit that, the better off we will be. We just need to admit that it’s not normal or natural for us to do what the Bible asks us to do. That just sort of opens us up to the possibility that maybe we don’t have it all figured out and maybe I have got something to learn. And here’s why. By human nature, remember last segment we said men are the conquerors? By human nature, it is our nature to pursue what we do not have. And for any of us we don’t have a certain jacket; and we don’t have a certain car and we work and we save and we learn how to crunch numbers and we buy that jacket or car or remodel the house or whatever. And once we have gotten it, for 2 weeks it is like cool and new, then after that we are looking for something else. Well what happens is most men are ok with it comes to pursuing a woman in the dating and romantic and courtship kind of context. We do all right. We sort of know how to win a woman maybe. But we really fail on how to keeping a woman. Because what worked in dating, well once we sealed the deal at the alter and the death do you part, she sort of becomes like a trophy. You know, we conquered, we gotten this what’s next on the horizon and we fail to keep pursuing our wives. And that’s a huge detriment. But it is not natural for us to do that because by nature we pursue what we do not have. Once we have something we sort of rest and become content. And that’s why men once we get married we get sort of clueless. I want to illustrate this with a story by Dr. Tony Evans and this is an example for like when your spouse gets a cold. Here’s what happens, in year one your wife gets a cold and she is coughing and it’s like, “ Honey, that cold is making you oh so uncomfortable, I am so sorry, is there anything your lover boy can do for you? Why don’t you let your knight in shining armor take you to the doctor” Year 2, “Darling, that cold seems to be getting worse, why don’t you call doc Miller?” Year 3, “You better lie down with that cold of yours and get some rest before the baby wakes up.” Year 4 “Ah, you’ll be all right. Just take some aspirin, by the way, how about ironing those pants for me today and tonight when I get home, you want to make love?” Year 5, “Would you do something about that cough instead of barking like a seal.” It just sort of gets worse and worse. Doesn’t that just describe it? First year knight in shining armor, year 5, just get rid of the cough. That’s what I mean men that we are sort of clueless. There are 3 temptations I want to talk about first that can sort of prevent this and we also need to be watching out for. The first temptation is this. We fall into marriage and do marriage by instinct. And here’s what I mean by that. Guys if your wife has ever asked you to do something like set the table or something, and she is like cooking and you go in there and set the table and to you it is like a mission and you accomplish the mission and to you it doesn’t matter where the fork is or where the napkin is and how the napkin is folded or where the glass is or anything like that. You set the table. And your wife comes in and she looks at your work and she says something to the effect of, “(gasp) You are such a mannnnn!” And we are thinking, “That’s right baby, I am a MAN!” That isn’t what she means. She means you are CLUELESS. We tend to do marriage by instinct. And like we said before our instincts which comes natural to us, but loving our wives the way God intends us to love our wives is unnatural to us. So in marriage our instincts will lead us to not be creative, not to be romantic, and to take things for granted. And that is just a bad thing in marriage. The second temptation that men have and I call this “Failure to Launch.” Here’s what I mean, a man gets married and fails to reduce or sever some ties to singlehood. And he tries to keep being single and keep being single; and sometimes those are incompatible. And they don’t communicate value and worth and truth to our wives. So what happens is there is no reduction in the activities in the things we did before we got married. Friday night is still a night with the guys, Saturday mornings are still the golf game, Sunday morning we may do golf, we may go to church with her I am not sure. It’s a failure to sever ties and a failure to launch and that is just totally wrong and clueless. I want to illustrate this with something from the Old Testament about how the Israelites got married and what they did. Let me read from Deuteronomy 24:5. Here is what it says, “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married. That’s pretty radical for a country or people group who’s very lifestyle was warfare. Israel was at war constantly. Even today they have an amazing military and ever man or woman from 18-21 has to serve in the army. And here’s the Old Testament saying after the guy gets married, for one year he is released from his military duties because it is SOOOO important for him to establish ties with his wife. The third temptation is called “trivial pursuit.” That your woman becomes sort of trivial to you. Like the trophy and you bring her out ever now and again like on her birthday and anniversaries and it is ok. Instead of passionately pursuing her EVERY SINGLE DAY. And you are real trivial with that instead of real purposeful and real intentional with that. Here’s what happens men. Women see us get passionate about sports, passionate about hunting, passionate about our career and very PASSIVE towards them. And that is the wrong message to send. If you are dating, and men you sense your passion for the girl you are dating drop and sort of decline and sort of wane a little bit, that’s a red flag. Women, you have intuition and you may see this coming. If you ever sense the guy you are dating is suddenly distracted or busy and you feel sort of trivial to him, that too is a red flag and you all need to talk that out and see if that is a sign that maybe you are not compatible. Because a good healthy relationship the passion and the desire and the connectivity should increase and not decrease. So that’s just another temptation that men face. Part 10 Now like in the last segment, we are going to go to the Song of Solomon; it is amongst the books like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes then Song of Sol. These are called the WISDOM books of the Bible. But before we get into that, I want to read another scripture to you to illustrate how IMPORTANT to God your relationship is to your wife. And single guys that want to be married, maybe you are single again and thinking about going back into the dating field, everybody. Men you need to pay attention to what this verse really says. It is from 1 Peter 3 : 7, “ In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered. (New Living Translation) ” Did you catch that? If you are not jiving with God, and you feel like your prayers are not getting heard or your prayers getting answered; you might need to check your relationship with your wife. If a guy came to me or a husband feels dry spiritually and someone says, “Hey, I don’t think God is hearing my prayers” and someone says back to them, “How is your relationship with your wife.” They would think they have nothing to do with each other. Oh, yes they do!!! Oh, yes they do!!! Honor, understanding, equal partner and God’s gift to new life, if those things are not present, the Bible says your prayers are sort of like foggy, crackly and have static when they reach heaven. 1 Peter 3 : 7, that’s big time stuff. So let’s get it right men, let look at how to show and communicate love to your woman. We are going to start in Song of Solomon 1:9 and will be in the first chapter then flip to chapter 2. Now this is Solomon or the man talking to his wife, “I liken you, my darling, to a mare” Probably not good in today’s culture to call your wife a . But I will explain what he means. “I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.” That’s so powerful and this is what he means. Pharaoh had these 1000s of horses and all these stables and these wonderful horses. Well Pharaoh always had a filly or mare, she was typically a white and she was exclusively for Pharaoh. No one else could touch or ride her. When he would go out, you could see all the horses from a distance but the one that would stand out was the white mare. His filly, his pride and his joy, so when he compares her to that, cause Solomon had access to literally thousands of women, see he was the king, he says no, no, no, but you stand out. You are exclusive to me; you are highly esteemed and highly valued to me. I want to pick up this sentiment by going to chapter 2 verse 1 where she responds after he has been talking, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley.” She says I am like a lily of the valley that stands out, a rose that people notice. I feel like I am number 1, first in importance to Solomon and to everything that he has going on. And here is the first clue to how we spell love to our wives. He honors her with admiration and appreciation. She feels special. She feels value. Now understand this guy and this is the whole Genesis thing. Men are created and we keep saying this first in responsibility, that means men have to be given a little more authority, go forth and fill the earth and all those commands and spiritual leadership of the family and all that kind of stuff, first in responsibility. Women are created first in importance, because Eve was given to Adam and she was given to be his first in importance. Now understand this, in today’s culture, two things that are competing that confuse and compliment this for ladies and guys understand this. There are two sources of pressure. One is the competition they will feel, because men, think about her and Solomon. He was the king, he had people coming to him all the time, he had all this territory, he was the wisest man that ever lived. People were constantly wanting Solomon’s time and attention. But she still felt like the lily of the valley, because he admired her and appreciated her. But there is competition in today’s world isn’t there guys. There’s your hobbies, your sports, there are your buddies, there is your career and there is yourself and she has to feel first in importance. Understand this too; our culture communicates messages to and women that are very devaluing to them. Look at a magazine and on TV and what it tells women who are wired to want to feel important, and the culture says to do that you have to your body, you got to dress scantily clad, you have to look a certain way, you have to weigh less than what is actually healthy medically. That pressure men, your woman is not oblivious to and she is not immune to it. That is why because of the competition and the pressure of culture, we have to go to her and make her feel first in importance. It’s not like this, the guy says, “I gave her a ring, I don’t need to tell her anything!” Yes we do!!! Because she will constantly need reassurance that she is your mare. That she is your lily of the valley. That is the way she is wired and God wired us to give that unique feeling of love. This means men if you are going to be late getting home from work, you call her. You can’t appreciate this because you think I’m busy, I ‘m doing my thing or I am the man. She is thinking have I dropped in importance. It’s not that you won’t get held up at work or you can’t help a friend, but call and communicate importance to her. Include her in gatherings. Ask her to go with you even if it is all guys. When she finds out it is all guys she may not want to go but include her, that she has that importance. That she is that pare, that lily. And guys when we make commitments we have to keep them. We can’t break them. Because that subtle fear that Satan will introduce of maybe there’s something else that has slipped in and taken your place of first in importance. A great way to do this and we don’t understand this is the power of symbols, the power of symbols. No guy says things like, “Hey guys, come over here and see what all the groomsmen are wearing in my wedding.” Guys, we don’t do that. “Hey, look at my tux, doesn’t it look great!” No, we don’t do that. She DOES!!! She does with the wedding dress. She does with the ring. Those symbols are so, so, so, hugely important. In Hallmark shopping for a card, and this is what a lady said a couple aisles over from a lady in line, “My husband told me to go over there and find a card that I liked. And that would be the one from him!” Then she goes, “I guess I ought to be thankful.” CLUELESS!!! We really are guys, we are just absolutely clueless. We cannot underestimate the power of those symbols. And here’s the truth for ladies. It’s not so much the expense of the gift or the expense of the symbol or the expense of the evening. It’s really the factor of the amount of the thoughtfulness that you put into it. That’s what she is looking for, she wants to say, “Wow, he really put a lot of thought into this, he really appreciates me.” Here’s a great example. It might be Valentines Day, date night, or a birthday and the guy says, “Hey baby, I am going to take you to dinner tomorrow night. We are just going to get out of the house and celebrate and have a good time.” She is getting all excited. And then the guy says, “Well, where do you want to go eat?” And the lady says, “I don’t really care, you pick.” That should be our first clue men. But it isn’t because we are so logical. B follows A and C follows B. And we are thinking, well I want to honor her and why doesn’t she pick so we say, “No baby, really, you pick.” And she says, No, I really don’t care, you pick.” And then being men, we get real practical and start thinking, “Well there’s a seafood buffet down at the diner tomorrow night, you want to go?” and she is like, “No, let’s go somewhere else.” And we men are like grumble, grumble, “ #$%@, you suddenly have an opinion, what is that?” Because here’s what she is thinking. He has put no thought and no effort into that and I don’t feel very valued by going to the diner and having a seafood buffet. Men, catch a clue. It’s not natural, but it is what will speak to her heart. She wants to feel special. You know and in this series we been comparing Christ, the husband sort of represents Christ, and the wife represents the church. If you read scripture in the New Testament, and you read how special and how important the church is to Christ, and that’s why I tell people it is so important to get into church, and why church has to be so important to us, but if you read through scripture and see how central and important it is to what Jesus is up to in the world. Jesus makes the church feel special. He admires it. He appreciates it. He created it. Women are wired that way. And it is a reflection of Christ’s appreciation for the church. Solomon goes on and he is going to start talking in verse 14 and he says, “ My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, ” Solomon is so wise and why this is so good, wisest guy in the world and he knew how to treat a woman. The second way we communicate our love to women is this. He, Solomon, values OPENNESS and TRANSPARANCY. If you read the last segment, guys are shoulder-to-shoulder, guys around the campfire and women are face-to-face. And he says, “show me your face.” I want to connect with you. Women are wired to connect. They want to connect with their man; they want to feel a part. That’s why the face-to-face communication is so important. My pastor says, “I learned this the hard way. When I was in college, I was an extreme, extreme introvert. My world was my head, I solved problems, and I thought things out.” Introvert just means that you get energized by being alone, and by your thoughts. “I am more extraverted now because I married an extravert.” We will be riding in the car, you know shoulder-to-shoulder, and things would be quiet. And that is ok for guys. We are spending time, that’s companionship. It’s what we are wired for. But that’s not ok for a woman to always have shoulder-to-shoulder. She needs some face-to-face, and the woman would say while we are driving thinking everything is cool, life is great, “Hey, what are you thinking,” And our minds go, “Whoaaaaaaaa, invasion, invasion, invasion.” And we men are freaking out thinking no one has asked me that before. But she wants to connect. Women want to connect. They value transparency. They value openness, ok. This is what women think of men. We are like islands and they are paddling around us looking for some place to come ashore and to connect with us. And we got to do that. Men we are compartmentalized. Many we separate things. Work, home, sports they are all separated. Women are integrated. It’s all connected. It is like Christmas tree lights. If one goes out, they all go out. Women are like that. We are clueless. We are like, “am I going to have to check everyone of those lights to figure out how to get this thing to come back on.” Yeah you are same thing with your lady. What happened at work will effect home. What happens at home will affect work. They are integrated and that’s why this openness and getting things out in the open and being transparent, and communication and being open and honest are so important. Now men we are totally clueless on this, we are just sort of weird. We can have a fight with our woman at 10 and we are ready to make up 30 minutes later. She might not be ready to makeup until 10 PM a week later. She’s wired that way because she wants to connect. And you can’t fake a connection. That’s why she is wired that way because God wants that connection to be strong, and that openness and transparency and that face-to-face to be present. If it were just men we would be shoulder-to-shoulder and that wouldn’t be as connected as it can be when we are face-to-face. This means guys, you got to share feelings and you got to ask her about hers. Your girl can ask you how was your day and you can answer in 2 ways, you can say, “It was good, I had a meeting with my boss in the morning, lunch with my partner and spent the afternoon on a project with 4 co-workers,” and she will go like uuugg. Men, that is not sharing that is giving information. Then I could have said, “It was good. I had a meeting with my boss discussing how to invoke their new training program and he was very interested in my ideas, then I had lunch with Jeff and we talked about a situation with his and it sort of convicted me on the importance of our , and then I had a meeting with some guys on the new project, and Bob is so passionate about…” Suddenly that’s not sharing information, that’s connecting. Men, it’s different. Then you ask her about hers. And you let her tell you her heart. Share those stories. And here’s the number one way to be open and transparent with your wives. Pray with her. PRAY WITH HER. I know so many men say, “I can’t pray with …” You can get naked with her but you can’t pray with her? Pray with her, because you bare your soul before God. Bare your soul before God and it will connect. Now listen, body language is important. Face-to-face. Don’t say in a blasé manner, “Yeah honey, how was dayyyy.” Don’t do this. You know where we get this, Jesus Christ. Because people could come to Jesus, coming to Jesus would be like your wife coming to you, and people could tell Jesus ANYTHING! And he would listen, and he would hear, and he would respond. Christianity for Dummies Chapter 4 Go to Church Christianity for Dummies Chapter 3 Sin and Repentence Christianity for Dummies Chapter 2 Salvation Christianity for Dummies Prologue and Chapter 1 Praying In the Heat of the Night Testimony Chapter 4 Judging and Gossiping , Commitment and Covenant For All Part 15, 16 and End Commitment and Covenant For All Part 13 and 14 , Commitment and Covenant For Men Part 11 and 12 Commitment and Covenant For Men Part 9 and 10 , Commitment and Covenant For Women Part 8 Commitment and Covenant For Women Part 7 , Commitment and Covenant For Women Part 5 6 Commitment and Covenant Relationships Part 4 , Commitment and Covenant Relationships Part 3 Commitment and Covenant Relationships Part 1 2 , Walk the Walk Self Esteemand the 8Cow Wife , I am a Christianx2026So What Now Communicating According to the Scriptures , Friend vs Spouse Christ in the cells of our body , The LoveHate list |
||||||
6/8/2008 11:40 am |
Very good....I just wished you used bigger print..lol ‘HE will rule them with an iron scepter.’... He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.... On HIS robe and on HIS thigh HE has this name written:... KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."
| |||||
6/8/2008 10:02 am |
I appreciate when they are religious although I prefer spiritual. Who knows? It just might turn out that they like Led Zeppelin too. I was with a woman once and it was nothing but God this, God that all day. I couldn't even listen to my music. Now C'mon. Where do you draw the line? I'd rather live alone. Good day. P.S. Now get ready for the biggest blog ever(Yours) and pay attention to this. As far as pre-marital rsquosex is concerned, who buys the cow without trying the milk? We are NOT in 36 AD anymore.
|
Half a Boy/Half a Man? Some women like us that way.
|
