Yes, Dear!

In the beginning was Eve who gave some forbidden fruit to her husband, who was with her, and he ate (Genesis 3:6). To be fair, Eve simply handed over the fruit; she didn't insist that Adam eat it. Adam decided to eat it and mankind fell. With the fall of our first parents came all sorts of marital problems.

Look at Abram and Sara. When Sara was not able to conceive, she took her maidservant and gave her to Abram to be his wife. (Yikes! No modern woman would do that!) But that was the custom of their time. Sara said “Go.” And Abram agreed. But God did not call us to follow our culture. We are called to follow Him. Abram and Sara should have trusted God’s timing and provision but they did not. Hagar and Ishmael later gave their family some serious problems.

Look at Isaac and Rebecca. Isaac loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob. Instead of loving both sons equally and fairly, they played favorites. They became a divided family.

Look at Jacob and Rachel. When she could not give birth, she developed a foul temper. She demanded from her husband, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Did Jacob comfort her? No! He instead sought solace in his other 3 wives. (Yup, read their story again. Jacob had 4 wives: Leah, and her maid Zilpah, Rachel and her maid, Bilhah.) No wonder their children could not get along.

Though these men (and women) did great things for God, their marriages were far from perfect. Why? Simply because they did not submit to one another. In doing so, they disobeyed God in their marriages.

The word submit is surely one of the most difficult and disliked words in the Bible, especially by modern women. Perhaps because submission means to be under someone else’s power, and surely, nobody want their rights and identity trampled upon. But Paul says in Ephesians, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21) It is something Paul thinks every Christian can and should do – both men and women.

The key words are, “out of reverence for Christ.” When you submit to your husband, you are submitting to Christ. When you love your wife, you are submitting to Christ. Submission doesn't mean you go along with everything your partner orders. Submission means trusting your husband to make the right decision for the good of the marriage and for the family. Submission and loving means that the husband will put his wife’s and his children’s interests first when he makes decisions, as he leads the family, God’s way. Submission is not following blindly when you're being asked to do something that violates Scripture, your conscience, or common sense. Submission is simply taking into consideration your partner’s well-being and happiness, thinking of your partner instead of yourself. We cannot do this loving on our own – because we are fallen beings, we are naturally selfish. That is why we have Christ as our model and the Holy Spirit as our strength. Wrap your marriage in prayer, with God’s Word as its anchor. Surely, you will experience marriage made in heaven.

Do You Love Me?

“I’m going fishing!” Peter said one day after the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was saying to the other disciples that he was going back to his old fishing business. (Of course at this time, this group of disciples was not aware of the Lord’s resurrection yet.) Since Peter was the leader, the rest followed him dutifully to the boat. But you know from the story found in John 21 starting at verse 2, even if they worked hard the whole night, they caught nothing.

“Have you caught anything?” a stranger called out to them at dawn on the next day. “Cast the net on the other side of the boat and you’ll catch some fish.” They did what the stranger suggested and boy! Did they catch some fish! The nets were so heavy they could not even pull the nets aboard the boat!

John said, “It is the Lord.” Peter got so excited that he jumped off and swam ashore. Jesus invited them for breakfast – perhaps prepared supernaturally. As Peter and the other disciples sat and ate with Jesus, Peter must have thought, “What a fool I am! I have been disobedient again. I have failed again.” Peter had virtually failed every test the Lord had given Him. Remember just a few days back, he denied the Lord three times. He had repented but now, he tried to go back to what he used to do instead of doing what the Lord wanted him to do. He just could not succeed. Does this sound like us?

Then Jesus asked him, not once, but three times, “Peter, do you love me more than these?” These meaning – the boat, the nets filled with the catch, the fishing business. This could have been the question our Lord Jesus Christ is asking from us. Do we love Him more than these? More than what He already gave us – our family, our homes, our business, our work, our church? Do we love our Provider more than what He had provided for us? Deep in our hearts we love Him, and yet, just like Peter, why do we serve Him poorly?

Peter was grieved after the Lord probed for the third time. “Lord, You know all things. You know I love You. Look into my heart.” Aren’t you glad that even if we fail again and again, we have an omniscient God who knows us well? But this does not give us any excuse for not serving our Master. The Lord taught Peter, not once but three times “Tend my sheep.” It seems just like Peter, we do need repetitive lessons in obedience. Do we love God? Then we should show our love through our actions, through our lives.

“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:18 NASB



Illustration taken from: The Keys to Spiritual Growth. John MacArthur. Crossway Books ©2001. pp. 108-109.

Are You Filled?

We know and we believe and we profess in our faith the Blessed Trinity – God in three Persons. Yet, in our conversations about God we tend to emphasize the first two Persons of the Trinity more than the third. We frequently begin our prayers with the words “Our Father,” and end them with “In Jesus’ name.” How often do you hear a prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the reason for this is that “Father” and “Son” are easier to visualize; but “Spirit” (especially the King James translation “Holy Ghost”) is less personal and more mystical. But the Holy Spirit is a Person. The Spirit is God Himself, energizing, leading and communicating with us day by day.

The Spirit guides us by opening our understanding when we read the Bible (John 14:26; 16:13), interpreting its message in a new and fresh way each time we read it. The Spirit guides our prayer lives, compensating for the inadequacies we feel when we attempt to commune with God (Rom. 8:26–27).The Holy Spirit infuses the life of a Christian with spiritual energy, turning our potential for loving others into reality (Rom. 5:5), strengthening faith, cultivating assurance (Rom. 8:16). We cannot do anything, we can never be productive in our Christian life if we are not filled with the Holy Spirit.

All believers possess the Spirit (1 Cor.6:19, Rom.8:9). You do not have to ask for the Spirit. He is in you and has been in you since the time of your salvation. You just have to be “continually filled” with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:8). Being filled with the Spirit is not a one-time experience. Being filled means continually letting the Spirit of God, who is already in you, control you, to be totally under His influence.

How can that happen? You surrender your will, your mind, your body, your talents, your time, your treasures – every area of your life – to the control of the Holy Spirit. To be Spirit-filled is to be Christ-conscious. It means living every moment as if our Lord Jesus Christ is beside you. And you let Him guide your choices as you go on your everyday life.

True joy is the inevitable result of being Spirit-filled. All people like to be happy, to feel good. There is nothing wrong with that. God also wants joyous, excited and uplifted people. The problem lies in how this joy will be generated. Things of this world can bring you momentary happiness. But true joy can only be acquired if you allow the Holy Spirit to fill you. Are you filled?

References: The Keys to Spiritual Growth. John MacArthur. Lighthouse Books, 2005; and www.lifeway.com

What? Why? How?

Imagine yourself to be one of Jesus’ disciples just minutes after Jesus ascended to heaven. The past 2 months have really been an emotional roller coaster ride. After spending three years with this man, you were convinced that He is the Messiah, the Savior, but He had to be unbelievably crucified. You were still not over this depression when you found out that He had risen! Yes! Indeed! He is the Messiah! You have just spent forty wonderful days with the risen Christ! Now that you are expecting Him to finally restore the kingdom to Israel, He’s gone! You are still staring dumbfounded into the blank blue sky where Jesus was lifted up moments ago, defying the laws of gravity. Then the angels came and asked, “Why are you still staring into the sky?”

Why? Why does He have to leave again?

This is because His redemptive work is finished. He had also succeeded in changing a group of unreliable followers into fearless evangelists – those eleven men who had deserted him at death, would now proclaim Him with intense force that would reach the ends of the earth.

If you read through the Gospels, you will see that He had planned this from the beginning. He had been hinting at His departure right from the start of His ministry. (John 6:62; John 13:1; John 17:13; John 20:17) It was obvious for all but the clueless disciples. He had said during the Last Supper, “It is for your good that I am going away.” He had to depart in order to transfer His work to other bodies – our bodies – the new body of Christ. The mission that God assigned to the Son, the Son was now entrusting to the disciples – to us. Our work? The Great Commission – “Go therefore and make disciples of ALL nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…” Matthew 28:19-20 NASB

This commission was repeated in Acts1:8 “…and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” How did the fumbling disciples succeed in this seemingly difficult task? The disciples could not do the work on their own. They had to wait for the coming of the Spirit a few days after Jesus had ascended.

Our Christ had sent a helper – the Holy Spirit to work in us, so that we might succeed in this unfinished work. We are not truly left alone. He has promised in Matthew 28:21,”I am with you always, even to the end of age.” Jesus is still doing His work in this world (through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit). Only now, he teaches and works through us – the church. You can see it working throughout these past two centuries, and will continue to do so until the day of His appearing again.

We will not be able to do the work Christ commissioned us to do of we do it on our own efforts. We need to tap on the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit. We need to turn it on – with regular prayer and Bible reading and daily devotions. Only then, can we get the energy and the guidance to continue Christ’s work on earth.