Sun, 24 Sep 2017 09:23:08 +0000
By Pastor Japser Mutale
I WILL be faithful to my wife, to love, respect and honour her, and be willing to lay down my life for my wife as Jesus Christ did for me 2000 years ago.
God’s calling for you as a husband was not to marry the woman you love, but to love the woman you married. When you got married, you were declaring your wife holy unto you. That doesn’t mean she’s perfect. But you set her apart in your eyes above all the other women on the face of the earth.
She became your prized possession for you to cherish, love, and protect for the rest of your life. And it is your responsibility to guard and keep her in that holy place of honour. If you belittle her or treat her harshly, unloving ways, you are not just acting badly. You are profaning the treasure God has given you.
Because marriage is holy, and because of what it represents, because you are commanded to love your wife unconditionally like Jesus, you should never sin against God and your marriage by committing adultery. It is God’s will for us to abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thessalonians 4 :3). If you reject this command, you are not “rejecting man but God who gives His Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:8)
Let’s face the truth Church. Most men fall into adultery do not originally set out to do so. They don’t lose their marriages in a day. It starts off innocently, with small compromises that eventually became tolerated over time. A man gets too busy and isn’t spending time with God and His Word.
He gets worn out at work, then into a disagreement with his wife, and they go to bed angry. She begins to withdraw emotionally and physically, treating him with increasing disrespect. Then the Devil provides him opportunities to lust after other women – whether over internet or perhaps one woman in particular with whom he shares the frustrations he’s having in his marriage.
Soon he begins to pursue sexual fulfilment that is not from his wife. And before he knows it, he has a baby – stepped his way into an addiction or an adulterous pit, unintentionally devastating his marriage, his spiritual walk, and the respect of his kids.
Here are the ten action points for staying faithful in your heart and in your marriage-for keeping your wife holy in your sight,
- Stay in close fellowship with God. Nothing is more powerful than an intimate, obedient relationship with God to satisfy the longing of your heart and help you overcome any temptation. Plugging into the vine of Christ empowers you to bear much fruit and avoid sin. A man who stays in God’s Word daily and cries out to Him in prayer will have stronger discernment, greater love for his wife, and the grace to resist temptation. Stay close!
- Stay in close fellowship with your wife. Maintain a fierce loyalty to her by putting new habits into place that draw you together. Call her from work. Turn off the TV and talk with her at night. Work through problems instead of avoiding them. Apologise often and forgive without hesitation. Take her out on a date as often as you can. Go through the Love Dare book. Speak highly of her in public. Attend a marriage enrichment weekend together. Always be a student of books or seminars that can help you have a stronger marriage. Pray together. Laugh together. Love together. Bloom her with your love!
- Avoid lust and pornography like the plague. Jesus said if a man looks at a woman with lust for her, he has already committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5;27-28). Instead we must be like Job, who made a “covenant” with his eyes that he would not look lustfully at other woman (Job31:1), because lust is never satisfied and leads only to more lust and dissatisfaction. One of its biggest traps, of course, is pornography, which is all too available on the Internet and is currently perverting minds, darkening hearts, and weakening marriages by the millions. Viewing pornography is like eating out of a sewer. The only person you should see undressed before your eyes or in your imagination is your wife. Period.
- Never let your guard down. Solomon (the wisest man in the Bible), Samson (the strongest man in the Bible), and David (the man after God’s own heart) all fell the same way: women and sex. And if it could happen to them when they let their guards down, it can happen to you too. Whether you’ve been married for two weeks or forty years, you should always be on guards, maintaining a healthy fear of God and disgust with evil. Don’t trust your flesh to do the right thing because it is sure to betray you. Be aware that when you are fearful, frustrated, or fatigued, you are most vulnerable. Avoid tempting situations rather than trying to resist temptation. Set wise standards as to what media you will view. Avoid being alone in a room or in a car with another woman. Purity comes only to those who truly want it and tenaciously guard it.
- Lead your heart. Your heart will naturally chase after whoever looks good or appeals to you at the moment. So even though you should always treat women with respect, you must keep any woman other than your wife at a healthy emotional distance. Foolish men today are reconnecting with old girlfriends on social networking sites, not guarding their heart, and then betraying their marriages.
- Seriously consider the consequences. Solomon, son of King David and Bathsheba, grew up knowing and seeing how his parents “one-night” stand eventually led to murder of Bathsheba’s husband, the death of their illegitimate child, the immoral life of David’s son Absalom, the loss of 20, 000 men in battle, and shame to the people of God. The immediate thrill of illicit sexual excitement is always followed by devastating, long-lasting consequences. Then the adulterer will conclude that those short minutes of pleasure were not worth the years of pain afterward. That’s when the “Affair to Remember” becomes the “Fornication I Can’t Forget.”
- Run for the hills. The Bible commands us to “flee immorality” (1 Corinthians6:18). Only a fool says, “I can handle temptation without sinning.” The wise man says,”I’m not going anywhere near it” Whether it be a female co-worker with flirty eyes, the TV in a hotel room, or an unfiltered Internet site, if it even barely starts to trip you up, get away from it as fast as you can. Establish some hard and fast rules, like,” No television or computer viewing after your wife’s in bed.” If you are falling, get rid of whatever’s tripping you up. Guard what’s holy and priceless!
- Lock shields with other men. Proverbs18:1 says that when a man gets alone and away from others, he tends to do two unhealthy things: he “seeks his own desire,” and he“quarrels against all sound wisdom.” Since we are in a moral battle, we need other soldiers around us, men who can help us become better and stronger. By working together and being honest, men can help each other with their struggles, encourage their daily walk, warn against doing stupid things, and then provide counsel toward becoming more successful in marriage. Find some good men around you and start meeting for workouts, breakfast, Bible study, or prayer together.”As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs27:17NIV).
- Don’t let divorce become an option. Adultery can obviously lead to a divorce, but Jesus pointed out how divorce can lead to adultery.”It was said, ”Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her certificate of divorce; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, expect for the reason of unchastely, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorces woman commits adultery”(Matthew5:31-32). Many couples get a divorce because they’re not happy. But selfishness is never satisfied. Marriage is about love, not happiness-love that is unselfish and “does not seek its own”(1Corinthians13:5). If your relationship is not what it should be, How willing are you to get help to avoid divorce? What if it costs time and money for counselling or marriage conference? Be willing to sacrifice and invest in it. God can resurrect any marriage if a couple will just die ti themselves.
- Have better sex with your wife more often. God’s solution to sexual immorality is marriage (1Corinthians7:1-5). Meeting one another’s sexual needs helps us avoid Satan’s temptations toward immorality.
But remember that your level of enjoyment during sex is more about what is going on in your heart, mind, and spirit than in your body.
Too often we don’t prepare ourselves emotionally, spiritually and relationally for sex, then we wonder why the act itself is only marginally satisfying. Since the sexual relationship is founded upon your commitment, love, and intimacy, it is important to get all three of these things right before you are physically together. For now Shalom as you resolve to love your wife.
For prayers kindly contact me on jasper.mutale@yahoo.com or 0966487131
