A Moral Vision for Your Family.

Men, do you have a moral vision for your families , a zeal for the house of the Lord, a magnificent commitment to the advancement of the kingdom, an articulate dream for the mission of the church and a tenderhearted tenacity to make it real? You can't lead a godly woman without this. She is a grand being! 

There are hundreds of such men in the church today. And more are needed. When the Lord visits his church and creates a mighty army of deeply spiritual, humble, strong, Christlike men committed to the word of God and the mission of the church, the vast army of women will rejoice over the leadership of these men and enter into a joyful partnership. And that will be a grand thing. 

John Piper | Doctrine Matters

The Primary Purpose of Marriage.

Living Out God's Design (Matt & Lauren Chandler)

A Challenge for Men

It is a grand thing to be a man created in the image of God, and it is an equally grand thing to be a woman created in the image of God. But since the burden of primary responsibility lies on the men — let me challenge them mainly:

Men, do you have a moral vision for your families, a zeal for the house of the Lord, a magnificent commitment to the advancement of the kingdom, an articulate dream for the mission of the church and a tenderhearted tenacity to make it real? You can't lead a godly women without this. She is a grand being!

There are hundreds of such men in the church today. And more are needed. When the Lord visits his church and creates a mighty army of deeply spiritual, humble, strong, Christlike men committed to the Word of God and the mission of the church, the vast army of women will rejoice over the leadership of these men and enter into a joyful partnership. And that will be a grand thing. | John Piper

Source: God Created Man Male and Female: What Does It Mean to Be Complementarian?

She Desires to Be Fulfilled, Not Fixed.

"It's not my wife's issue that needs my attention, love and effort it's my wife who does. My wife doesn't need to be fixed...instead her longing for me to be invested into her life, to share in her burdens and to truly know her...needs to be fulfilled."

It's Not About the Nail from Jason Headley on Vimeo.

This video was sent to me today by a good friend. Of course men and women can both watch this video and find the humor in it, but something much deeper hit me today after watching the video and I'd like to share my thoughts with you.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give our wife is to simply invest into her and truly know her. 

I have a lot left to learn in this area. I will typically try to look at facts, analyze them and seek a solution...that's my nature, but it's not always helpful. I grew up with three women in my house. I learned a lot in those years. I also have been married for thirteen years and one thing that I have learned for certain (albeit the hard way) over that period of time is that women don't always deal in black and white. Although this is strange to me...in reality this is wonderful news, because women have the ability to see things in ways that most men never would be able to without their perspective and insight. This is without question one of the ways that my wife has been designed by God to complement me. We are truly better, together.

After watching the video above I have a new goal for my week ahead...and hopefully in the weeks to follow. I want to be more intentional about simply listening to my wife and trying to know her on deeper levels than I have in a long, long time. I'm praying that in doing so she will see that I'm invested in her as a person and not simply trying to "fix her problems" and move on to the next task on the list. She isn't a task. Spending time with my wife isn't something that I do out of duty or obligation, but instead is something I do because I love her and it brings me a great deal of pleasure. Is this selfish of me? I don't think so. When we spend time listening to our wives and we give them the freedom to simply be themselves...I think we will show them the kind of love they desire and we will eventually fill their hearts with joy in the process. They will be blessed and we will be blessed as well. That, in essence, is the point of the relationship.

God doesn't love us because we are put together and have a good handle on all our problems. Instead, he loves us because he is invested into our lives and he cares deeply about us because we are his unique and beautiful creations. He loves us in spite of our imperfections and because of his patience, long suffering and grace...over time we willingly submit to his efforts to shape and mold us into the people he created and desires for us to be. He doesn't impatiently point out our failures so he can move on to his next project. He invests into us eternally, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to us where we need to grow. If we were to love our wives in this way, I can all but guarantee we would see a difference in them as well as their responses to us.

The only question left to ask ourselves, is this:

"Are we willing to invest into the life of our wife...in the way that Christ has invested into ours?"

Ephesians 5:25-27 (ESV)

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV) - (emphasis mine)

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

Love the woman in your life well, that by your efforts God may be glorified, your wife (or girlfriend) may be honored and you may be blessed.

For His Glory,

Jason

The New Purpose of Marriage

When we choose to ignore, change or distort what God has called good (Genesis 1:31), we must brace ourselves for the consequences that will inevitably come with such a decision. This issue didn't start with "gay marriage". It started in the garden when the woman chose to circumvent her husband's headship and the man allowed her to do so. It grew with the egalitarian and feminist movements in the culture and the church and now we see the continued consequences in so-called same-sex marriage.

Don't like gay marriage? Don't get one. My gay marriage doesn't change anything about your straight marriage. We're not altering the definition of marriage; we're expanding it. These new rights don't take away yours. So don't try to deny them to us.

The startling rise in public approval for gay marriage depends on such simple appeals to intuition. Look at all these happy gay couples. Why not invite them to join the party and get married? It's not like straight couples have done such a good job of commending the institution. Besides, what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business alone.

To our highly individualistic Western culture, only libertarian arguments make any sense, even to many Christians. Personally we might say homosexuality is a sin; but what right do we have to impose our values on anyone else? If they aren't harming anyone else, then who can deny their gay marriages equal protection under the law?

Such questions have put Christians and other religious and even secular moral conservatives on the defensive. So it's surprising that Liza Mundy in her new cover story for The Atlantic, "The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss," would threaten to forfeit the tactical advantage of supposed neutrality. She argues that gay marriages tend to be happier and more intimate, so straights can learn from them. Mundy even acknowledges the critics may be correct after all that gay marriage will change marriage for everyone. All to the better, Mundy writes: "by providing a new model for how two people can live together equitably, same-sex marriage could help haul matrimony more fully into the 21st century."

What Changes?

What exactly does she mean by these changes for the better? She means most basically that gay marriages erode differences between the sexes. There are no gendered roles and responsibilities. Men who love caring for babies and doing the laundry should do what feels right. Women who don't like to cook should work late instead. She believes that when we unshackle marriage from traditional expectations, we'll make it more appealing to the growing number of young adults who forsake the institution altogether or delay it much later than previous generations. And same-sex couples are already making marriage cooler, she says, leading to "nuptial fever" and a rush to the altar.

Read the full article [HERE]

The Essence of Male and Female Corruptness

"The essence of sin is self-reliance and self-exaltation. First in rebellion against God, and then in exploitation of each other."

So what is really described in the curse of Genesis 3:16 is the ugly conflict between the male and female that has marked so much of human history. Maleness as God created it has been [distorted] and corrupted by sin. Femaleness as God created it has been depraved and corrupted by sin. The essence of sin is self-reliance and self-exaltation. First in rebellion against God, and then in exploitation of each other.

So the essence of corrupted maleness is the self-aggrandizing effort to subdue and control and exploit women for its own private desires. And the essence of corrupted femaleness is the self-aggrandizing effort to subdue and control and exploit men for its own private desires. And the difference is found mainly in the different weaknesses that we can exploit in one another.


The Different Weaknesses Exploited in One Another

As a rule men have more brute strength than women and so they can rape and abuse and threaten and sit around and snap their finger. It's fashionable to say those sorts of things today. But it's just as true that women are sinners. We are in God's image, male and female; and we are depraved, male and female. Women may not have as much brute strength as men, but she knows ways to subdue him. She can very often run circles around him with her words and where her words fail, she knows the weakness of his lust.

If you have any doubts about the power of sinful woman to control sinful man, just reflect for a moment on the number one marketing force in the world—the female body. She can sell anything because she knows the universal weakness of man and how to control him with it. The exploitation of women by sinful men is conspicuous because it is often harsh and violent. But a moment's reflection will show you that the exploitation of men by sinful women is just as pervasive in our society. The difference is that our sinful society sanctions the one perversity and not the other.

(Note: There are societies that do just the opposite.)



John Piper - Manhood and Womanhood: Conflict and Confusion After the Fall

More is at Stake Than We Know

I encourage you to be like a dolphin in the sea of our egalitarian, gender-leveling culture. Don’t
be like a jellyfish. The ocean of secularism that we swim in (including much of the church) drifts
toward minimizing serious differences between manhood and womanhood. The culture swings
back and forth as to whether women are mainly sex objects or senior vice presidents. But rarely
does it ponder the biblical vision that men are called to humbly lead and protect and provide, and
women are called to come in alongside with their unique gifts and strengths and help the men
carry through the vision.

I pray that you will be stirred up by Ruth and Boaz to pursue mature manhood and womanhood.
More is at stake than we know. God has made marriage the showcase of his covenant love
where the husband models Christ and the wife models the Church (Ephesians 5:21–33).

John Piper - Pursue Mature Manhood and Womanhood

The Mystery of Marriage

Take the mystery of marriage. In Genesis 2:24, right after the account of how woman was created, Moses (the writer of Genesis) says, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Now when the apostle Paul quotes this verse in Ephesians 5:31, he says, “This is a great mystery, and I say it refers to Christ and the church.” And, with that as his clue, he unfolds the meaning of marriage: it’s a symbol of Christ’s love for the church represented in the husband’s loving headship toward his wife; and it’s a symbol of the church's glad submission to Christ represented in the wife’s relation to her husband. | John Piper - Male and Female He Created Them in the Image of God