One of the most important aspects of a church is discipleship. My belief is not unfounded, it's Jesus' last commandment given to His disciple's and it's also Paul's instructions, not mine. In Titus Paul gives Titus some pretty clear explanations on how to set up the church: 1. Appoint Elders 2. Establish discipleship and as a result of teaching that accords with sound doctrine you'll have Christians living godly lives because their faith will not waiver.
One of the first things an older woman trains a younger woman to do is how to love their husbands. (Titus 2:4) When our pastor explained what Paul meant by "love" in his original language it translated to this: "fond of, respond and enjoy your man, be in awe of". We've talked about loving your husband quite a bit. It's time to move on to the next piece of self-denial.
There's many times throughout Paul's writing that he calls us to be imitators of Christ. He submitted to God's plan and loved us so much that He laid down His life for His bride.
Ahhhh. Submission. The sssssss word.
How does the world see submission? Unequal slaves, beat into obedience. I wish I were kidding. Remember Day 14 when I talked about how GOD see's us? We share in an equal inheritance to His kingdom. Our unique gifts are used for HIS GLORY. Just to make sure you remember, this is what I said:
Despite the obvious differences, men and women are equal inheritors to the kingdom of God. When women are fully satisfied in God and our souls are at peace because of our faith in Christ, we can come beside our husbands and use our strength to help hold him up while he fulfills his role as leaders in our home, because we know God sees us as equals with different roles. We are one flesh, with different gifts, working together to glorify God.I wrote about submission in the past and I know it won't be the last. I'd suggest checking out the first one for background knowledge sake...
We'll be spending quite a bit of time discussing Titus 2:3-5 and Ephesians 5:22-33 in the next few days. In Ephesians 22 the FIRST thing Paul tells wives to do is submit.
"Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." (vs.22-24)Why do passages like these and word 'submit' scare us so much? Well, because we're selfish sinners (see The Story of Submission, go back to day 1 in why we need the gospel, and day 7 when I first introduced the idea of selfishness). To submit means to give of our own life for someone else. And that is scary, because it goes against everything we want and what the world is telling us. DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD. Transform your mind according to God's Word. Deny yourself and make your inner desire to immediately submit to God's sovereignty in your life as well as train your heart to be willing to reflexively submit everything to your husband.
(Does all this sound familiar?) Like I said, there's a reason behind it all, and if you're just joining us, I encourage you to go back to...
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