July 02, 2008
”The odds are staggering, two-thirds of all marriages end in divorce. However, when a couple prays together the odds are 1 in 10,000!” - Dr. Phil
Husbands, it is simply the responsibility of your position of authority to lead your wife in prayer. Don’t be timid about it. Be a man! Speak words of blessing over your wife. To be a husband means to “cultivate.” When you sow the “Seed” into your marriage, she will incubate the seed and return a harvest unto you.
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June 14, 2008
We’re living in treacherous times. Hidden and unpredictable dangers are everywhere around us. In the world today, we face the constant threat of terrorism, which is the use of violence and intimidation against established authorities. We attempt to appease tyrants in hostile nations who are bartering with our enemies for nuclear weapons. Politicians are misusing their entrusted powers to further their own personal ambitions. Even ecclesiastical figures see themselves more as attorneys prosecuting God’s justice, rather than serving as agents of His divine grace. We are surrounded by anarchists and schemers, polluting their own bodies with perversions, slandering celestial powers, and behaving with total contempt of what is right. They are “shepherds who feed only themselves” (Jude 12).
Although the abuses are certainly global, what hits more at home for most of us is the misunderstood and misused purpose of authority in the lives of husbands and fathers. Absentee fatherhood is a cultural epidemic which has repercussions that cannot be measured merely by statistics. Its impact is lived out in the lives of young men turning to uncontrolled violence or in young women by the molestation of their dignity. Countless fatherless boys, lacking a model of manhood, never grow into masculinity, but denying their natural state, they choose to become effeminate (Romans 1:27). Many fatherless girls, missing a true gentleman’s affirmation, misuse their physical beauty to attract any male attention, no matter how abusive and improper it may be. Wives, longing for the security and comfort of a strong man in the household, become repulsed by their weak, emotive, whining, “momma’s-boy” husbands. Some are figuratively “wearing the pants” of a man, fearful of exposing themselves to this world without some line of defense.
There is a combative enmity between the woman and the enemy of our souls, namely, satan (Genesis 3:15). Without the model of authority of a godly man—whether it be a father or a husband—women are exposed to harassment and helplessness.
I know this isn’t politically correct in our time of feministic idealism, but I believe that men must renew our commitment as men to step into our proper roles in order to fulfill God’s plan for the family—not to return to the old ideas of male chauvinism, or to adopt the Latin ideas of machismo, but to become servant leaders to our wives, to our children, to the church, and to the community at large.
Feminism is much like communism. It is an extreme reaction to the abuse of an authoritative system “run amok.”
It is imperative that men step up to their God-assigned positions of authority—not to oppress, manipulate, control, or subvert—but to serve. It is time for men to redefine the perception of manliness.
This will not be an easy task in our day of beer-gutted buffoons who function as the leading examples on television commercials, humoring the always-more-intelligent women of the household. It will be a challenge to overcome the idealized male role model as a metro-sexual, pretty boy with effeminate traits. As society emasculates men, we must literally “gird up our loins” to defend our created purpose.
I am not espousing a male dictator whose idea of strength is to beat a woman or oppress his subservients. I’m talking about a man who leads by the strength of his character and protects by the courage of his convictions.
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