John 1.1 states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” These two beings decided to make humankind similar to Them: And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
So human beings are made in the image of the God family. Not just physically or in cognitive capacity, but in our full potential. “Behold! What glorious love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God!” (I John 3.1). “But we all, with uncovered faces beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Our capacity, our potential, is to be like God the Father and God His Son, to be God beings.
God created man and woman: “And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man. For this reason (that is, for the sake of the union) shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife—and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2: 23-24). Here see that God ordained the institution of marriage. He gave Adam a wife and him as a husband to her.
Perhaps the best description of all the reasons why we are to undertake marriage is found in Ephesians 5: 21-33.
God designed marriage because we are destined to be in a close relationship with the God family. Isaiah 54:5 states that our maker is our husband. Marriage, sex, and procreation are fundamental to God’s design for us. Marriage is a model, and it is a womb for the development of God-beings. This is a divinely instituted and sacred thing. It is a God-plane relationship. Marriage is the heart of the Body of Christ. Marriages create families and families create communities.
However, it is not God’s intention that all of us have exactly the same experience or have the same function. “Now you are the body of Christ, and you are all individual members” (Ephesians 5:27). God is cultivating a garden. A healthy garden has biodiversity. It has diverse types of plants that are growing at different rates that were planted at various times. And so, too, does the body of Christ.
Sadly, marriage is breaking down in the world and we can see very readily the results. Decline. Isolation. Violence. Essentially physical and emotional desolation. What are we to do then? Does our treatment of our wife hinder our prayers? Is the effectiveness of the Church hindered by our marriage relationships?
“Likewise, you husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, as with a weaker vessel, giving them honor as women, and as joint heirs of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be cut off” (I Peter 3.7). Married men are to master husbandry. Boys and young men who are not married, can prepare, and build an understanding of what a husband’s role as defined by God is.
A husband’s role is expansive. Three basic concepts are:
- We are to provide physically. We should be a productive resource. We should be giving economic substance. We should be a well-spring of well-being.
- We are to provide shelter emotionally. We must be kind, stable and considerate.
- We are to lead spiritually. That includes knowledge, obedience to God, and providing focus.
The men we see in the world are being destroyed and we in the Church are affected. It is a sad state for mankind to observe, particularly in the western world, what men have become. It’s easy to be domineering and simultaneously lack grit and substance. It’s also easy, conversely, to be soft, but unkind. What is your attitude toward your wife? God says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, But emptied Himself, and was made in the likeness of men, and took the form of a servant; And being found in the manner of man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
Christ gave His life for us. Husbands are asked to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the Church. He died so that they/we could flourish. How do you evaluate your spiritual health? Christ did nothing except what the Father taught, and by the Father’s power. “Then Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you yourselves shall know that I AM, and that I do nothing of Myself. But as the Father taught Me, these things I speak”‘ (John 8:28). Conversely, The Father manifested His will through Christ. “All things came into being through Him [ Christ], and not even one thing that was created came into being without Him” (John 1.3).
If that’s the relationship we are trying to exemplify, that implies how a husband should be viewing and measuring his progress. The principle is that the work of a husband is to produce fruit through his wife! Unless she is actively contesting you, then how she is flourishing is perhaps the greatest measure of a husband’s spiritual progress! That’s not just for husbands. That’s for all people who are husbanding resources. So, whether you are husbanding as a husband, as a father, as a brother, as an employer, as a teacher; in many different ways we husband. How we express the godly nature to other people, to help them grow with outgoing concern, is a wonderful way to see how you’re really progressing.
We do have access to the Holy Spirit, the very power of God. Through repentance and baptism, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christ has given us …” all things pertaining to life . . . and the precious promise that we can escape our corruption and partake in the divine nature,” (2 Peter 1: 3-4). In Hebrews 10:16 we read, . . .”I will give My laws into their hearts, and I will inscribe them in their minds; And their sins and lawlessness I will not remember ever again.’ ” Therefore, brethren, having confidence to enter into the true holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which He consecrated for us through the veil (that is, His flesh), And having a great High Priest over the house of God, Let us approach God with a true heart, with full conviction of faith, our hearts having been purified from a wicked conscience, and our bodies having been washed with pure water. Let us hold fast without wavering to the hope that we profess, for He Who promised is faithful; And let us be concerned about one another, and be stirring up one another unto love and good works;” (Hebrews 10:19-24).
We are without excuse. We must build the Holy Spirit into our marriages. Ask God to show you your flaws. Change and bear fruit.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 reads: “Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. And all things are from God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation; Which is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; and He has entrusted to us this message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; and God, is exhorting you through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, ‘Be reconciled to God.’ For He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
So, husbands, put down the baggage of sin and utilize the power of God’s Holy Spirit to bear fruit. Be husbands of God’s new creation and let’s see what God accomplishes through us.
Staff