The Responsibilities of Marriage

Hello people, its Christmas season and time just flies by without us knowing. We thank God for the grace to see the last month of another year and as we prepare for the incoming year, I will encourage us to take stock of the past year and show gratitude to God.

In today’s post I pray and trust God to open up our minds and our eyes of understanding to be able to know and understand the depth of the responsibilities bestowed on us as married couples. More than for just the show of affection to one another and more than just for the man to have someone to handle the running on his life for him, we have a responsibilities to God and to our society with our lives and the way we handle our marriages.

As a wife when you accepted the call to marry the man you call your husband, what you invariably accepted is the call to be a tool in the hands of God to help make the life of that man you call husband better than you met him. The Bible calls the wife a suitable helper and what helpers do is to make that which they are to help better. Helpers makes things better.

And the man who has accepted the call to be a husband to a woman whom he call his wife has invariably accepted the call to be like Christ in the life of the woman that he has accepted as his wife; to be to her and in her life what Christ was and still is to the church. It’s not just about being the boss in her life, but about being the one who cares for her and her every need, being the one who protects her and nurtures her to perfection and then presents her to himself as a perfect bride.

This is one of the many responsibilities of marriage and its important that we understand these responsibilities well and prepare for them well in our hearts and mind before we venture into the marriage union. Marriage is beyond mere falling in love and wanting to be together. The reality of marriage begins the moment the covenant of marriage is signed and so before entering into that covenant it is important to have a very clear understanding of what you are entering into and be well prepared for it. 
If you are not ready to love a woman to the point of making her better than she was when you met her, then its just important that you know that you are not ready to be a husband to her yet. Being a husband is not about what you can get from the union but more about what you are prepared to give in to the union and what you are prepared to sacrifice for the union. It is what you give into your marriage that determines what you get from your marriage. 

Making your wife better than you met her is not achieved with force or stern discipline like you are trying to mold a child. The woman whom you wish to marry or are married to is already a grown woman so the method of impartation is quite different. This improvement we talk about is achieved through love; deep, unconditional, unrelenting love, in the manner in which Christ loves the church. A love that is strong enough to wash away impurities in a human character, love that is strong enough to turn wrong to right and still remain undented. 

As a woman, its important that you know and appreciate that marriage is not a bed of roses where you raise your feet and have everything done for you in the name of love. In Genesis 2:18 God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone and He purposed in His heart to make a suitable helper for the man He had made and realized needed a helper. And so God made the woman as a suitable, befitting helper to the man He had made. So as a woman it is important that you realize that first and foremost the purpose of your creation is to be a helper in the life of your man, so never expect your husband to be perfect, but you need to realize and understand that you are the perfection your husband needs. You are the one whom the Lord has created for him to make his life complete and good after God realized that it was not good for the man to be alone.

As a woman, wife and suitable helper, it is important that you understand as you enter into that marriage union that you are on assignment to be a suitable helper in the life of your husband such that you help make him a better man than you met him. Your marriage covenant which God stood to witness is you telling God that you are ready to be a tool in His hands in making the life of your husband better than before. If this was not your mindset when you got married to that man, then you got it all wrong from the beginning.

Making your husband better than you met him is not about forcing your opinion on him, you won’t get the job done in that manner. Its about submitting to your husband in obedience and letting God use your reverence, purity and humility as a tool in His (God) hands in making your husband better. In yourself you cannot achieve the set goal that God has assigned for you in marriage, but as a vessel in God’s hands you can achieve much. It’s all about God bringing the best out of your husband through you and not you literally changing your husband because no matter how you try it out without God you cannot succeed, you will only get frustrated which will most likely lead to a miserable marital life or divorce when the center can no longer hold.

And another responsibility of marriage is found in Malachi 2:15 and it reads, “Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” The second responsibility of marriage is the offspring the marriage produces. Are they the godly offspring that the Lord was seeking?

In as much as this cannot be generalized and I don’t have statistics to back this up, but based on my personal experience, I have come to realize that marriages that are not functioning right often produces children that are not functioning right. There are a lot of single parents who are determined and are working very hard to make sure they raise godly and responsible children and they are succeeding at it by the grace of God. But the burden would have been lighter and the work easier if there were two parents united as one with the fear of God and the power of God in them to raise godly offspring that the Lord seeks.

In order not to make this post too lengthy, I will stop here. In my next few posts, we will take a look at the impact of our marriage on the lives of our children and search from the word of God on this issues. Until then remain blessed. 

I Think You Need to Learn from my Mistake

Hello people how are you doing, I trust you are doing great and I bless God because I am doing great too.

In my post today I want to share a personal story that I think we can learn from. I had shared about unity as a secret to success in marriage in my last post and just along that line, I remembered my own personal experience on the issue.

When we first got married my husband and I wrote down a list of things we wanted God to do for us as early as possible in our marital life. We had this long list of furniture and gadgets we wanted to own and so I began to pray on this list. Just a small fraction of what was on that list materialized within the time frame we wanted them done. We didn’t go far at all with our request list.

About two years ago as I was searching through stacks of old papers and documents in one of my cabinets, I came across the same request list that we had written about thirteen year ago that I was praying about. I smiled when I realized that all that was on the list had actually been done and achieved in bigger measure and we never even realized it. I showed my husband the list and was about to start going on about how good and faithful God is, when he made a comment that halted my excitement. He said it took us about ten years to get the manifestation of what we wrote on the list, and I began to think. That statement really dulled my excitement, but then it occurred to me that it wasn’t God’s fault that we had the delay, it was our fault. The years we had spent fighting each other rather than working together, the years we had been living together yet separated at heart didn’t count.

Matthew 18:19

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

Matthew 19:4

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.’”

The passages above says if two of you on earth agree about anything and ask, it will be done for you by God, but what happens if two don’t agree? That simply means their request will be on hold until they agree. There are some request that needs to be presented to God in agreement and one of such request are the request that originates from marriage. The Bible tells us that “for this reason a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will be one flesh” any request coming from this source must come in agreement before God. The two who have become one flesh must come in agreement to make a request before God. Until the agreement is reached and presented in its proper form, the request is put on hold and unattended to. And that was what delayed the answers to the prayer list drafted by my husband and I. We drafted the request in agreement, and presented it in agreement and afterward the unity between us broke down and we stopped to be in agreement with each other and God put our request on hold till we sorted out our differences and reunited.

Its like when you have a joint account and the mandate on that account is that both must sign before disbursement/withdrawal is made. So you cannot receive any payment on any cheque presented on a joint account unless the two required signatures are on the cheque leave. So if you have only one signature on your request document, you request will be returned to you to go get the second signature. That is how the issue of marriage is.

If you probably feel God is blessing you alone in a marriage and you think you don’t need any agreement with your spouse, I can tell you for free that you are shortchanging yourself. The Bible tells us that one would chase a thousand, but two will chase tens of thousands, so you would be achieving more when in agreement with your spouse than you would have achieved alone. And its not just a simple addition of just a double portion but its coming in geometric multiplication, so you would achieve more together than alone and at the end of the day you would shortchange yourself on your lone struggle.

The devil has conveniently helped us to boost our pride while subtly looting us of our inheritance in God and so we focus more on the wrong done to us by our spouses and the need to avenge ourselves of this wrong than to pursue peace and unity with our spouses and let God right the wrongs in our marriage and handle the wrongs done against us by our spouses in ways He knows best. 

Its not important who is wrong or right in your marriage, the important thing is that you understand that while being single you had a personal account in heaven, you could approach God as a single person, pray to God and have Him answer your prayers based on your personal account in heaven. But when marriage sets in, your account status changes, your account is automatically merged with that of your spouse and in heaven you are no longer two separate individuals but one both in flesh and in spirit maintaining a single account in heaven. So when you are presenting a request before God its one account bearing two signatures. That request needs to be presented in agreement with your spouse for it to receive express attention from God.

One of the ways you can still make use of your personal account in heaven is when you are praying for your spouse and you are praying for your salvation or his/hers. But it is important that you understand and appreciate that your account status in heaven has changed once married and to make withdrawal from heaven’s store house you need to obtain the agreement of your spouse.

What my husband and I experienced on the issue of our prayer request is being experienced by countless marriages today and so it is important that couples do all that they can to maintain the unity of their marriage and approach all matters as a unit and not as separate entities. When they do, they have better success in all they set their hearts to do. Ecclesiastes 4:9 says two are better than one because they have good returns for their labor. 

"The Marriage Handbook" is a collection of more than 200 of my previous blog posts on marriage issues. It is a must have for married couples today and those intending to marry, as it helps you know and understand the principles of God in every area of your marital life, and how to apply these principles and make them work for you. You don't have to struggle through your marriage because God is willing to help you through it and when God is in it, the best awaits you. To get the hard copy of "The Marriage Handbook" please click here and to get the Ebook, please click here

There is so much being said nowadays about tithing and giving to the house of God. While some are confused about giving, some think its just the men of God using the Bible to take undue advantage of worshipers. What does it mean to give to God? What are the acceptable ways of giving to God? How do we give God a sacrifice that pleases God? These are questions that you will find answers to in the book "The Sacrifice that Pleases the Lord." It's worth just a token for the value of information it contains. To get a copy of "The Sacrifice that Pleases the Lord" click here and to get Ebook, please click here

"Gleanings from the Throne of God" is the first book I ever wrote and has been the favorite of a lot of people who have read it. It contains an understanding of the mind of God on a lot of issues that bothers around our everyday life. This book is Christianity made easy. When you understand why God made His rules for mankind, then following those rules is not as difficult any longer. "Gleanings from the Throne of God" contains the present day explanation to the things of God as found in the Bible in ways that you find easy to relate with. Do you desire a walk with God? Then "Gleanings from the Throne of God" is the book for you.  To get a copy of "Gleanings from the Throne of God" click here, and for the ebook click here.

The Making of a Successful Marriage

Welcome to the last month of the year 2017. It’s a year that personally I can’t complain about. I have taken stock and I can say will all confidence that God has been very good to me. I have not gotten all that I want from God but I have gotten more than enough to be grateful for and if God has brought me this far, I know He can and will take me through the full length. So I am thanking God and I believe you are too.

One thing I always do with God is that I love to ask Him questions. You know our little children love to ask any and every question so much that they get on your nerves with continuous questions about the same thing over and over again? Well that is how I am with God; I just want to know why and when and how of everything that concerns me.

Just like everyone else I did think that God was being fair when He instructed the wives to submit to their husbands in everything as unto the Lord. I assumed that it was lesser task for the men to love their wives than for the wives to submit their husbands, more so when you have a husband who is so unloving and lacks regard for your person as a wife and as a woman. God said in Jeremiah 33:3 that we should call on Him and He will answer us and show us great and unsearchable things that we do not know, so I took God on His words and I began to ask questions to know why He would say that women should submit to their husbands knowing the mindset of the men He created and how badly some men treat their wives. And up till now God has not changed the rules or updated them considering the trend in the world today.

God being faithful and true to His words gave me the answers to my questions and now I have a better understanding of the instructions and laws of God in marriage. For a man to progress in life and enjoy the fullness of God for his life some key values are very essentially. First as a married man UNITY in his marriage is a prerequisite to success in all other areas of his life. Unity in his marriage leads to peace of mind which enables him/her to focus for success and pursue goals without distractions.

The all-knowing God who knows the end from the beginning made the laws of marriage such that it fosters unity and encourages the peace that the man and his wife needs to have all round success in every area of their lives. When you rebel against the laws of God in your marriage for whatever reason, you jeopardize the unity of your marriage and compromise the peace of your home and in turn forfeit the successful life that God has earmarked for you.

Going against the law of God for your marriage and encouraging people to do the same is like a sin of rebellion against God. But I know that a lot of women who have had to endure a lot under the heavy yoke of a bad marriage would wonder why and how submission in marriage would encourage unity when they don’t even have peace with all they have sacrificed for the marriage? To this category of women I will say that no challenge is a waste and know for sure that what you are going through when committed to God has an expiry date when you have learned from the hands of God what He has purposed for you to learn through that challenge.

When you submit to your husband as unto God as an act pleasing to God, the Lord is bound to turn the situation around in your favor. If He did it for me, He will do more for you because He is not a partial God. When you submit to your husband like God wants you to and you are a prayerful wife, God will turn your husband’s heart to love you like he should. And in the same manner when a man loves his wife in the way and manner God wants him to, it’s just a matter of time before God turns the heart of his wife to submit to him like she should such that the unity that brings success will reign in their lives. It’s important to know and understand that just one of the spouse in a marriage working it right and working it out with God is enough to turn a bad marriage into a good one. 

You might wonder what the connection between UNITY in marriage and SUCCESS in life is. Well I have shared it on this blog over and over again and I will share it again now. This secret is found in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, vs 9 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.” This is just as straightforward as it is, they have a good return for their work. So when two work together they have better yield than if one is working alone. Then we also find in Genesis 11:6 which reads, “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’” This is the secret that the enemy of your destiny is mindful of and so he will stop at nothing to ensure that you and your spouse do not speak as one people with one language because he knows that if you do, nothing you plan to do will be impossible for you. And so in order to live above impossibility you need to ensure that you do all that you can with the help of God to ensure the unity of your marriage which is a key to your success in life. This is the time that we need to get smarter than the devil.

The UNITY that brings ultimate success is the unity between a husband and his wife because from the beginning of time God had made them one in flesh and spirit. There are no other two people that should be more united speaking as one people with the same language as the husband and his wife that God Himself joined together. The unity of these two with God watching over them breaks every barrier to success in their lives.

Now that we understand the role of unity in the success of our lives the next thing we need to really understand is relationship between love and unity and submission and unity. When you SUBMIT to your husband and not just merely respecting or esteeming him, you wake up the love in him for you. Your act of submission digs up the love of your husband for you. When you submit, it’s just natural that along with that submission is respect and obedience, and when you submit to your husband thereby obeying and respecting him you are invariably making him the king of your life. Your husband being a king confers on you the status of his queen. If you are the wife of a king then without any question or argument or analysis, you are a queen of his life. If there is no curse in place or external evil forces having a field day in your marriage, in a natural world a man tends to love a wife who submits to him, obeys him and respects him and is able to show some level of intelligence in the marriage. So as a wife who is praying, if you want your husband to love you then make him the king of your life, submit to him, obey him and respect him and see if you will not dig out the love in him for you.  

In the same way, when a man loves his wife unconditionally and sacrificially in the manner with which Christ loves the church he makes her his queen. I am a woman and I can say for a greater percentage of women that we will submit more to a husband who loves us and shows that he loves us than a husband who does not care about us. So the more a man shows unconditional love to his wife, the more he makes her submit to him. The more you make your wife a queen in your life, the more you become the king in her life. A man who loves his wife unconditionally earns the respect and obedience of his wife.

So putting this together, when a man loves his wife sacrificially and the wife submits to her husband in everything, they please each other. When they are pleasing each other, they are at peace with each other and when they are at peace with each other there is unity between them because they will agree on almost everything. When they cultivate that unity diligently, they are sowing seeds to their success. Don’t try to envy these category of people because they are not lucky like so many want to believe they are, they have worked hard to attain the level of comfort they are enjoying in their marital lives. They have identified some important keys to success and they are working hard to attain them.

But you and your spouse can enjoy what those that are assumed to be lucky are enjoying when you start to fight for the peace of your marriage by obeying the instructions of God for your marriage. After all the Bible says we should fight the good fight of faith. 

The Husbands Need to Do the Right Things First

So again we continue in the topic of discussion that we started from two previous post. I pray and I hope that we have been blessed by what we have read and learned from this series so far.

In today’s post we will consider another abuse of submission that needs to be looked into, and this is when a man unduly demands submission from his wife. This is a situation when a husband has absolutely forgotten that he has more responsibilities to his wife to love her like himself and like Christ loves the church, love and care for her unconditionally, respect and hold her in esteem so that nothing will hinder his prayers.

I heard the case of this young couple in which the wife got an opportunity to go work and live in Canada and just because the husband was not the one presented with such an opportunity he insisted his wife could not go, all because he was exercising his authority as head over his wife. Now before you think there is nothing wrong with such, please read some of his excuses. 1). He felt he should be the one with such a privilege and not his wife; 2). He said such an opportunity accrued to the wife because she came from a family wealthier than his. In summary he should be earning more than his wife and so he doesn’t want her to take the offer so she doesn’t earn more than him and then lord over him.

This is not a case in isolation, we have so many men who have caged their wives and prevented them from reaching greater height owing to their own insecurity and unwarranted fears and all they hold on to is that the word of God says the wife should submit to her husband. What these men have totally forgotten is that the same word of God says the wife is the suitable helper to her husband, so how is this wife expected to help her husband when she has been robbed of the ability and opportunity to grow and develop herself and her God given talent such that she will be ready and available to help her husband when he needs such help all owing to the selfishness and insecurity of her husband?

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one because if one falls the other can lift him up and these Bible passages applies more to the married couples than any other two on the face of the earth. But when you have not allowed your wife to develop her strength, how can she lift you up when you are down? Isn’t it huge disaster when the two are down at the same time and no one to lift both up? The one whom the Lord has assigned to help you when the need arise has been robbed of her ability to help owing to your insensitivity and insecurity. And then she would be blamed for your fall to which she knows nothing about. I sincerely pray and hope that the Lord will open our eyes of understanding to see beyond baseless traditions and norms that pulls down rather than build up.

Proverbs 31:11-12 says of a wife of noble character that her husband has full confidence in her and so he lacks nothing of value and that she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life and we read on from verse 13 to 28 of the same proverbs 31 why her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. And what we read there is the entrepreneurial capabilities of this wife of noble character, her high grade moral values and her application of divine wisdom. Her strength in merchandise are chief of the qualities that endears her husband to her. And where in the Bible do we find a submissive wife being someone whose wings are clipped just so her husband can trample her underfoot in the name of submission? This I am still looking for and am yet to find.

We also have men who would insist that their wives work and then submit her salary into his bank account in the name of submission. Though the Bible says the wife should submit to her husband in everything and that does not exclude her money, but the truth of the matter is that only a greedy man would allow his wife work and deprive her of her wages. Even the Bible says a laborer is worthy of his wages. A man who works and earn income should be proud of the fruits of his labor and not grab and accrue to himself what he has not worked for. The Bible says a man should love his wife as himself, so I want to ask such man as this that if he worked and then is deprived of his income would he be pleased or happy? If he wouldn’t be, then why is he depriving his wife of her income and hiding under the guise of submission.

What God instructs the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church; the love of Jesus for the church is a sacrificial love, the love that gives and not the love that takes what it has not earned. Christ as the head of the church provides for the church, that is why we pray in the name of Jesus and expect answers. A husband is to work and provide for his wife (1 Timothy 5:8) and not the wife working to provide for her husband. And so I hope a man who has good understanding of the word of God will also understand its application.

If a husband is financially down and genuinely needing his wife's financial assistance, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But a man should be able to live up to his responsibility as the head of the home by also being the head in providing for his family’s needs.

Going back to the story of these two young couples in which the wife was gifted with the opportunity of travelling to Canada to live and work; to the glory of God, a counselor was invited to counsel them on the issue. The young man was asked if he truly loved his wife to which he answered yes. He was also asked that if he was the one given the opportunity to travel to Canada to live and work while his wife remained in Nigeria would he take up the offer, he also answered to the affirmative and said yes. Then he was asked if he felt his wife would be unfaithful to him with this opportunity that she has been given and he said he was sure his wife wouldn’t be unfaithful to him and he knew she would not exhibit any form of pride over the fact that she was earning more than him in income. So he was then asked why he wanted to deprive her of the opportunity that she has been gifted with and he couldn’t say a word.

The woman of God who spoke to them then made him realize that this opportunity could be a once in a life time opportunity for the two of them as nothing was stopping the wife from going to Canada, getting a job and be able to save and fund his own relocation too in due course since she had schooled in Canada before coming to Nigeria to settle down and he also did a good course in the university with a bright future ahead of him.

With the help of the Holy Spirit she was able to persuade the husband to let his wife travel and to the glory of God the wife has settled down in Canada, gotten a good job and she is able to send enough money to her husband to help him build up his account for post graduate degree in Canada. He has in fact paid visits to his wife and child as the wife was pregnant before leaving Nigeria and they are now both happy and better off.

Pride destroys more than it should be allowed to destroy in our lives if we are not sensitive enough to know when to nip it in the bud. In capping up this three post series on submission I want to say this, the instruction to the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, God wants the husband to love his wife as himself, and likewise the wife is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord in everything. As a wife you don’t need your husband to love you first before submitting to him because when you get to the throne of judgment you can’t give God the excuse of your husband not loving you as a reason to fail. And in the same manner, as a husband, you don’t need your wife to submit to you first before you love her like God wants you to because at the judgment throne you cannot give lack of submission from your wife as a reason for disobeying God’s instruction on your life to love your wife like you should.

In truth I know of a wife who had submitted all, even her income to her husband and she is better off today, and I say with all confidence that whatever you do in obedience to the word of God, you will never have any regrets doing it whether you are the wife or husband.    

That is not Submission

Hello people how are you doing, I trust you are doing great. I am doing fine too.

So we continue in our discussion on when submission goes wrong and today we will look at those who feel enslaved by submission; those who feel that they are not getting the yields of submission and rather than their husbands loving and respecting them in return for their sacrifice of submission, they feel enslaved in their own home by the one who is to make them feel loved and wanted.

The first thing I want us to understand is that there is a difference between submission and respect. Submission is when you yield yourself to the authority of your husband, it is obedience to your husband’s authority. It is sitting when your husband says sit and it is standing when your husband says stand.

But on the other hand respect means to hold your husband in high esteem, it is giving your husband good regard. So you can actually respect your husband without truly submitting to him. You can wash your husband’s cloths, cook his food, make his bed, and collect his briefcase from him when he returns from work, yet you are not submitting to him. If your husband tells you to go left and you go right and still do all that you do for him in respect, you are not submitting to your husband, therefore you are not fulfilling God’s instruction for your life as a wife.

From these analysis we now understand that you can respect your husband without submitting to him but in most cases, you cannot submit to your husband without respecting him. The mere fact that you submit to your husband is a sign of respect for him as the God ordained head over your life.

Now it is important to note that submission without prayers is so very wrong. It is when a woman who does not have a relationship with God submits to her husband of her own ability outside of God that the husband tends to treat her badly. When you submit to your husband, do so prayerfully, then your submission will carry with it the power that brings about good returns. Submission without God is like one who has the substance but lack the power. It is the power that makes the substance effective. 

It is important to understand that you cannot apply God’s word in your life without a relationship with God and hold God responsible when the returns are not coming like they should. The Bible tells us that flesh and blood cannot please God, you need a relationship with God in order to have God fight your course for you when you are obeying His word for your life. 

When I speak with people about marriage and I share my marital experience, a lot of people say that my faith is on another level and not everyone has the grace that I have. But in truth I don’t have any special grace other than the fact that I have cultivated and developed a deep relationship with Jesus and I am sure that as long as I remain in His word and in His will, He will fight my course for me, so I will remain in His will and do as His word tells me to do and expect nothing than a positive result for my obedience because more than me or my ability God remains faithful. So my marriage is working and I am submitting to my husband like I should not by my might or ability but by the spirit of God that dwells in me and when God is leading my actions the only result to expect is a positive one. 
God created my husband, He formed my husband in his mother's womb, God understands my husband in and out, He knows what to do to please my husband and what to do to anger him. He knows what I can say and do that will either make my husband happy, joyful, angry or irritated. So I have developed a relationship with God and He who knows my husband well is the one leading me then I can be confident that He (God) will lead me to do only things that will make my husband happy, joyful and pleased with me such that he (my husband) will love me more. And He (God) will also lead me to avoid those things that will trigger anger and irritation in my husband. Now tell me that with God's leading is it possible to have a bad marriage? This is not just achievable by me, but by every woman who has allowed God lead her life and her actions. 

If you will enjoy marriage and in fact enjoy every area of your life, a deep loving relationship with God is very vital and key. As for me Jesus is my life, and He is my everything; it is in Him that I live and move and have my being. God has the success of our marriages at heart and the success of our total well-being is so very important to God and if this be the case, you should understand that when God says a woman should submit to her husband in everything it is the ultimate success of your marriage that God has in focus; that is His goal of your marriage and when submission seems tough or you are not getting the desired result from your effort, then it's important to surrender that effort to God and let Him (God) lead you through it to success. Submission without God is a huge task. And we need to be able to know and understand the difference between submission and respect. Maybe that is where we are getting it all wrong.  

When you have a relationship with God, it is almost impossible to live a life of regret in any area of your life least of all submission to your husband as His word instructs. If you don’t have Jesus in your life, it’s important you accept Him now and experience a total turn around in your life and start to enjoy a good life and a good marriage life.

So adding what we learned in the last post with today’s post we understand submission to your husband does not amount to consenting to any wrong doing proposed to you by your husband. While you maintain your uprightness with God, you do so with high regard for your husband. Do not be confrontational with your husband, do not be argumentative with him about issues that contradict your stand in God. When submission is leading you away from God you need to pray and seek God’s intervention in the matter, the Lord who sees the heart will not make you fall, fail or falter. You also need to understand that there is a difference between submission and respect. What God asked of the wife to her husband is submission and not respect. Submission is obedience; check what you are giving in your marriage, is it mere respect or submission which is obedience. Because it is submission (obedience) the Lord asked you to give, it is submission the Lord will reward.

Before I sign out, I want to share a true life story just to encourage someone. A very submission and loving wife had a small misunderstanding with her husband which was beginning to grow into an argument. While the wife was trying to politely explain her reason for taking an action to her husband and was trying to correct his assumption on which he had made some wrong conclusions thereby accusing her wrongly, the husband threatened to slap her if she didn’t keep quiet.

The wife was very bruised emotionally and didn’t say a word, she just couldn't understand why her husband would threaten to beat her without even giving her a chance to an explanation, but still she put her emotions under check. She kept quiet and didn’t say a word to the husband again. But that didn’t stop her from getting her husband’s food ready for him and at least make sure she ran the errands she was meant to run for him. After all done, she got into bed covered herself up with her duvet and cried in her heart to her God. While praying she slept off.

By the next morning she woke up and went about her business doing her house chores. When her husband woke, he tried to make peace without apologizing and the wife just avoided him like a plague to drive home her anger yet without any confrontation and no spoken words. But when the husband’s conscience could not hold it any longer he called her and apologized to her for his wrong doing and begging for her forgiveness and then she forgave him that ended the issue.

This to me is a better approach to problem solving between a husband and a wife. Sometimes being quiet and not responding carries more weight than the word you speak and this woman does not special grace or greater anointing to keep quiet in the face of trouble in her marriage, it's just self discipline and allowing the Lord lead her actions. I am sharing this story so we understand that these things are not so tough if only one of the two involved can just put their emotions in check and embrace God. Nothing works as effective as the intervention of God.   

When Submission Goes Wrong

Hello people, I trust you are doing very great. This year is rounding up and indeed we are grateful to be alive to praise the living God. I want to apologize that my next series of blog post will not be accompanied by its voice version owing to the fact that editing the voice version takes a lot of time and delays the blog post. But by the grace of God, I will resume the voice when there is less pressure.

Today’s post is what I want to title “When Submission Goes Wrong.” There are a lot of wives who say they have submitted and regretted doing so as they have lost all that they worked for to submission with absolutely no returns to them. They are worse off after submission than they were before submitting. To these ones submission is more of a curse than a blessing.

Some other category of wives say they have submitted to their husbands, and rather than the husband loving and respecting them in return, he has turned back to treat them like a glorified housemaid rather than a suitable helper that God has provided for him that should be loved and respected like God has instructed the man.

Then we have men who now take undue advantage of that God given instruction to the wives to manipulate their wives and force control over them. Men who would ask their wives to work and submit her salary in his account as her head all because God says the wife should submit to her husband. They have absolutely forgotten that God who gave the wife the instruction to submit also gave the husband the instruction to love and respect his wife as himself and as Christ loves the church. Like the word of one of my big sisters in the Lord, submission in marriage has been grossly bastardized.

So we will be looking at these issues and trust God to open our hearts and eyes of understanding that we might be able to differentiate between the true instructions of God in marriage and the lies of the devil. We will learn also from some true life issues that we will use to understand these things better. This discussion will take more than just a blog post, so I will encourage you to follow the series.

In today’s post we will discuss the issues of the wives who grossly regret submission in marriage owing to the fact that they submitted all and then lost all. The first thing we need to understand is that God’s law is perfect, and when you follow the law of the Lord through the help of the Holy Spirit you cannot and will not have any regret. The Bible says flesh and blood cannot please God so we need the Spirit of God in us to enable us do the will of God for our lives.

Submission in marriage is not slavery, and submission in marriage does not translate to the fact that the wife should lose her brain in the bid to submit to her husband. If a wife didn’t need a brain and she only needs to think and rationalize issues through the brain of her husband, then God would have created the woman brainless. But He didn’t create women brainless because our intelligent contribution in marriage is very vital to the success of that marriage.

One important thing that needs to be highlighted and emphasized in marriage is that there is a difference between reluctant obedience/compliance to the husband’s instruction and a willful consent to the husband’s instruction. God who sees the heart and mind judges all based on the heart and mind. We as humans are limited to seeing only actions, but God sees and understands the intent of the heart and the motive behind every action and so because He does not as we see, He doesn’t judge as we judge.

These analysis is what was behind God defending Sarah in her submission Genesis 12:10-17 and in Genesis 20, and then judging and killing Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. There is a difference between agreeing with your husband on a course of action such that you buy into the idea and you think his idea is good for execution from when you don’t buy into the idea and not agreeing with what he wants you to do, but you pray and do it anyway because God says you should submit.    
Submission in marriage is not a ticket to sin. When your husband's instruction is a sin, then as a child of God who has developed a relationship with God, you need to run to God in prayer and seek his intervention in the matter before going ahead to join your husband in sin. If you don't hear from God go ahead and submit, but not without first letting God know that the action does not have your willful consent in it. This is the difference between Sarah and Sapphira. But when your husband instructs you to sin and you don't see the action as sin or he has been able to convince you to buying into the idea then it is no longer submission, it has become an agreement to sin, you and your husband have become partners in crime. If the consequences of those actions begin to manifest don't blame it on submission, own up to your sin and seek God for forgiveness. 
If your husband comes home to let you in on a fraudulent deal he did in his office and then you both rejoiced for the money that came and even thanked God for it, then you are both partners in crime. If he gives you part of that money and you took it and spent it that is not submission any more.   

Let me use a simple example to illustrate what I am trying to get across: A young couple are faced with a pregnancy they didn’t want or plan for. The economic situation at that time was very tough and they already had two children they were struggling to take care of and now the wife is pregnant again. In one case scenario, the husband was able to convince the wife that they should abort the pregnancy and they can properly plan for a baby when they are more economically buoyant and have enough for a new baby. So the wife thought it through and even though she was scared of the thought of having an abortion she still understood and agreed that they can’t afford to have the baby at that time. The husband succeeded in resting her fears that he would stand by her side all through the process and there was nothing to fear. He promised to take her to a very good hospital to get the abortion done and so she fully agreed and he drove her to the hospital and they went for the abortion. In this case there was full agreement between the husband and the wife for an abortion to take place and abortion eventually took place. This is not a case of a wife submitting to her husband, but a case of a wife being in agreement with her husband to do wrong. If God would judge this case, both the husband and wife are culpable and both are punishable. The wife cannot claim submission in this case before God, even if she claims submission before man. 

But in another scenario; the husband claimed he didn't want another baby and even though the wife understood her husband’s reluctance, she pleads with him that abortion is a sin before God and even though she didn't want a baby at that time also and she knew that economically they couldn't afford another baby in the family, she acknowledges that God was more powerful than their problems. But with all her pleading to her husband, he still insisted that she gets an abortion. Then she goes to God in prayers asking God to come into the situation and take control. She prays that God should soften her husband’s heart to accept the situation they are faced with while not fighting her husband or insisting on her own way, she prayed God will come through for her. 
If this woman eventually got the abortion in submission to her husband's instruction, the blood of that child would be on her husband’s head because God sees her heart and knows her intention and motive. 

This is where we differentiate submission from willful consent. No wife will get a gallon of acid and bath herself with it because her husband asked her to and she is following the Bible in submission. If you as a wife see that your husband is going wrong, the Bible isn’t saying you should join him in wrong doing just so that you submit. What God expects is that you bring such daring situation to Him in prayers without being confrontational with your husband and He (God) will do in that situation what you cannot do.

I have shared my story on this blog so many times and when I was going through my own experiences they seemed tough at that time, but today that I am made to speak life to marriages through this blog I understand better what the Lord had in mind when He made me go through the tough experiences of that time.

When I got married I was earning more than 10times what my husband earned then and he demanded control of my income which I didn’t like. I struggle with that kind of submission but I carried my case to God. The Lord re-enforced His word to me that I should submit which I didn’t have a choice but to obey. Today my husband earns more than 10times what I earned then, and I am a full-time housewife now earning no income. If I had not obeyed the word of God then, I would have had myself to blame if my husband treated me badly now that he earns more because he would be justified in himself for repaying me back in my own coin.

I appreciate that we can’t generalize marriage issues and it’s important to treat and handle each marriage issue in its own merit like my big sister in the Lord would always say. Unity in marriage is very vital, and you need to be in agreement with your husband for marriage to succeed and for you to enjoy the dividends of marriage, but don't agree on wrong doing; don't agree to sin and don't agree in doing evil before God; don't be a willful accomplice in sinning and then hold God and His law responsible for your sins. As a wife you are not designed by God to agree to your husband's sins and wrong doings in the name of submission, but you are his suitable helper to help him become better and become all that God has designed and destined him to be by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. 
When you don't agree with your husband on issues don't go confrontational with your him but just pray and when things don't go the way you think they should go, just let them be. God expects that you bring all the issues of your life to Him to solve for you, He understands that you can't handle them alone. When submission is tough, pray but don’t go confrontational. Ask the Lord for His intervention and leading. Don’t compromise your stand in God because you want to submit, yet don't be a nagging and quarrelsome wife because of your belief. Let the purity and reverence of your life be a tool in the hands of God in drawing your husband to Himself.  

In the second scenario of the story of the pregnant wife that I shared earlier, the wife who was reluctant to have the abortion but asked the Lord for His intervention had God's intervention because God came through for her. The Lord softened the heart of the husband and he agreed that his wife should have the child as their third and last child. On the day the wife was to have their baby, the husband got a call from the company he had applied to several months earlier, while at the labor ward with his wife expecting the arrival of their second son and third child, for him to come collect the appointment letter for a job he had applied for but didn’t believe they would take him. That job changed their financial status and they in fact had a fourth child and still grew in wealth.

Reluctant submission is very different willful agreement, do not let your husband talk you into disobeying the will of God for your life. The devil is crafty and can use anyone, even your husband to derail you, don’t fall for it. Let your light so shine that it draws your husband to Jesus. When your husband is leading you off from the will of God, don’t be confrontational, let it not lead to an argument, hold your peace and pray, God will show up. 

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Being the Head is a Big Responsibility

To Listen to the voice version of this post, please click on the link below
https://soundcloud.com/aderinsola-obasa/being-the-head-is-a-huge-responsibility

Hello wonderful people, I trust you are doing great today. I am doing great too and I bless the Lord for your lives and mine.

We can’t exhaust learning, and learning on marriage issues is just so important. And so we will try to learn from a story that I will share in today’s post.

There is this beautiful young lady married to a wonderful husband. She happens to be the breadwinner of her family and she bears the financial burden of the family. She pays the children’s school fees, pays the house rent, pays the utility bills in the house and pays for the nanny that cares of the children; all thanks to her good paying job. Although the husband works and earns less in income compared to the wife, he contributes nothing to the upkeep of the home. And to now make it a little more interesting, the husband’s younger brother leaves with them with his live-in girlfriend and he lives large as a king in a home at the expense of his brother’s wife where neither he nor his brother who is the husband and head of the home contributes no money to the running of the home.

But something happened one day that eventually made this wife come to me. The wife bought a wi-fi modem to use in the house should in case she has some leftover office work to do in the house. And the husband demanded to use the wi-fi to download films and some applications on his phone to which she obliged him and on the second day he requested the wi-fi again at which point she refused and that issue turned from an argument to a fight and she was beaten black and blue by her husband. The husband who contributes nothing in the home destroyed a handful of their home appliances in rage.

I am sure a normal person would simply tell the wife to pack her things and depart from the one sided marriage but we will not look at this issue from a human perspective, we will go back to the word of God and see what God says in His word.  

Ephesians 5:22-25 says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as the Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The other part of that passage Ephesians 5:25-29 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and care for it, just as Christ does the church.”

Like I said earlier, it’s important that we don’t look at this issue from the human perspective but from the outlook of the word of God if we want the intervention of God in the situation and all other situations we might be going through.

The first instruction on marriage is to the wife and that instruction says a wife should submit to her husband as unto the Lord. Without adding or subtracting from this instruction what God expects from a wife is to submit totally and in everything to her husband. Again, the dictionary defines that word submit as “to give over or yield to the power or authority of another.” So if God says a wife should submit to her husband, what God is saying without adding or subtracting from that instruction is that a wife must yield herself to the authority of her husband. A word synonymous in meaning to the word submit is the word obey. So we can understand the instruction of God to be that a wife must obey her husband in everything.  

Applying this instruction to the issue on ground, I advised the woman in this situation and would advise all other women similar situation that if her husband asked her for her wi-fi modem, in the spirit of obedience to the instruction of God to her as a wife she should give it to him. Not because he deserves it, but because she is obeying the word of God for her life.

If she does this, first she would have averted the violence that followed her refusal and she would have a ground to go to God in prayer seeking Him to fight her battles for her. If she can trust God to wake her up in the morning and sustain her through the day she can as well trust Him to right all the wrongs of her marriage.

One interesting thing that I believe God will make happen with her obedience is that the wi-fi data will not be exhausted until she is able to adequately complete the assignment for which she acquired the modem. That is why we are able to call God a miracle working God. God is the source of that modem, and God will be the sustaining factor of her supply. 

But I find a mistake this woman is making and which a lot of other women are making which eventually leads to frustration in marriage. Do not assume the role of the head in any capacity in your marriage, not even in financial matters when you are earning more than your husband. The Lord has made your husband the head of the home and everything he needs to be the head, God is making them available for him, if and when necessary according to the ability of the husband to tap into God’s provision and grace for his life. God will not give anyone an assignment to do for him without adequately equipping that person for the assignment. 

The assignment for the wife is to assist and not to lead even when she is earning more. Assist and build a reserve but do not lead in the spending for the home. In truth we find it in Proverbs 31:10-31 that a wife of noble character provide for her family and supports her husband. Even in her providing for the home which I encourage so well, her assignment is to support and assist but not lead.

God didn’t assign the wife to be the breadwinner for her family and to be paying house rent and children’s school fees. These are responsibilities for the leader to do, when the husband genuinely needs help the wife can come in and help. But when she makes it a habit of carrying the breadwinner role, she will give her husband room to sit lazy, it will not be long before frustration sets in because God has not called you to that role and responsibility in marriage. 
When the wife is spending for the home, initially the husband might still strive to be the head in financial matters of the home, but over time he wouldn't see the need for striving anymore because his wife would pay the bills anyway. Even when he has the money, he will not be compelled to take up the task because his wife is already doing it and there isn't any issue. And so we as wives need to be careful not to start what we know we will complain about much later. 

When your husband needs your financial assistance, there absolutely is nothing wrong in assisting him financially because that is what you are in life for and the Bible confirms in Ecclesiastes 4:9 that two are better than one because they have a good returns for their labor. But woe to him who labors alone. Neither you nor your husband would do well alone, but you two would have a better returns on effort when you both put in your effort, but in this equation the husband is to take the lead and the wife is to assist and not the other way round.

Another important area that a wife should help her husband is to pray for him. Seek the face of God to realize into his life all that he needs to succeed as the head of the home and not to just continue to pump money doing what you have not been assigned to do rather than praying. Your husband needs more of your prayers than your money, he just doesn’t know it. When you pray more for him, heaven will open for him and he will be able to fulfill his mandate in the marriage, but when you continue to spend your money he already has the respite and would not see the need to strive more. He would concluded within himself that his wife is capable of solving the problem so why should he bother. Which is the very wrong approach. Supporting your husband is good, but don’t take up his responsibility as your own. It will wear you out.

With due repeat to the men, it is a big act of irresponsibility for a man to leave his wife to carry the financial load of the family when he still alive and well. A man who does that has absolutely no moral justification to accrue to himself the right to be head of his family. He shouldn’t even attempt to claim that title whether or not God called him so, because the Living God who says the man is the head of his wife also says that a man who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8).

And then we find in Malachi 2:13 and 1 Peter 3:7 that God says he will not pay attention to the prayers of a man who has broken faith with his wife, who does not treat her with love and respect. What God expects of a husband to his wife is that he makes her a priority in all areas of their relationship together as husband and wife just like Christ has made the church His priority and not exploit her in the foolishness of playing smart. What such a man is doing in foolishness is that he is hindering answers to his own prayers and when God has stopped to pay attention to a man’s prayers how does such a man prosper?

Invariably what the man is doing to himself is placing himself under his wife rather than above her which is his rightful place and then he wants to force headship over his wife. Such is not done. Leadership is responsibility. The power that accrues to leadership also holds with it more responsibility. So beating your wife to submission does not get the job done, you are in fact heaping more curse on your life when you are violent with your wife because God says he hates a violent man (Malachi 2:16). Rather you love your wife to submission. A woman should not be the breadwinner of the family, its like a husband selling his right to be the head over his wife.

A man who lack the means to provide for his family should approach the throne of God and seek the face of God over his financial problems. Deuteronomy 15:4 says, “There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving to you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,” and so we see that the blessing of the Lord is richly available to those who seek it diligently. The Lord who has asked you to provide for your family does not expect you to accomplish that assignment without Him, Philippians 4:6 says with prayer and thanksgiving we should make our request known to God and then Philippians 4:19 tells us that God will provide all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus and not your wife. So look up to God to provide for you all that you need to be a befitting head over your wife in all things. 

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