5 Ways Wives Can Encourage Their Husbands

Jared Wilson again...

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.

-- Proverbs 31:10-12

1. Praise Him Verbally

Private nagging and public nitpicking are common temptations for wives of husbands who are sinners, by which I mean wives, but a wife ought to know that this is Chinese water torture on his heart. Most men carry around in their souls the question "Do I have what it takes?" The gospel answers this question, "No, but Jesus does, and what's his is yours." This is the only acceptable way to answer in the "negative." When you nitpick and nag, you give mouthpiece to the accuser who wants your husband to know not only does he not have what it takes, he is worthless because of it. So find ways to constructively criticize and help him repent, but more than that, tell him what you like about him, how you find him attractive or admirable, how you respect him or are impressed by him. Outdo him in showing honor (Rom. 12:10).

2. Submit to His Leadership

This is not a call to be a doormat, but in my pastoral experience I encounter many a wife who says she wants her husband to lead her but then makes it clear in some way that this will only occur when she agrees with his decision. There's few things more demoralizing than a demand to lead with no commitment to follow. Instead, if your husband is not leading you into sin, your followship of your husband is a reflection of your trust in God. Peter writes:

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. (1 Peter 3:5-6)

3. Reject Relational Legalism

If your husband always feels as though he is only in your good graces when he has performed to your standards or met your expectations, he will not see you as his lover, friend, or partner, but as his boss. Do you know how deeply you want to feel approved of despite your flaws, sins, and failures, that your husband would know the real you and love that you? He wants the same thing, even if he never expresses it.

4. Take an Interest

It's not always that your husband doesn't like to talk. It's just that perhaps he's learned that your favorite subjects are things he doesn't have much to say about. Communicating with you in ways that edify and engage you is his command to obey with joy; communicating with him in ways that edify and engage him is yours. This might mean asking him questions about sports or hobbies or movies or power tools. Or maybe it doesn't mean talking but sitting on the couch to watch the game with him or invading his "man cave"* with your presence but not your agenda.

5. Make Love to Him

This is not universally true, but it is generally true: The number one way a husband feels encouraged is when his wife has sex with him. I put it last because it's likely the touchiest point (no pun intended), but it is (again, generally speaking) top of the list. If you're thinking, "Well, for some husbands maybe, but not mine," ask him. For most men, sexual intimacy is directly wired to feelings of encouragement, confidence, approval, attractiveness, and self-esteem. The things that you likely need in order to feel open to sexual intimacy are the things he typically feels afterwards -- closeness, respect, approval. I know it's weird that God set it up that way, but I think he did so that we would serve each other graciously with our bodies, learning to put each other first in a neat little "No, after you" kind of dance. In any event, one of the chief ways -- if not the chief way -- you can build up your husband is by bedding down with him.

Carolyn Mahaney's chapter "Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Wife Needs to Know" in the Piper/Taylor book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ is excellent on this subject. You can download the entire book for free here.

5 Ways Husbands Can Sanctify Their Wives

Jared Wilson writes...

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
-- Ephesians 5:25-27

1. Put Her First
Sacrifice is in view here, as is the understanding of "sanctify" in the sense of "setting apart for special use," as in consecration. Husbands honor their wives not among others, but before and above others.

2. "Gospel" Her
Yes, I know it's not a verb, but you get my meaning here. The passage says Jesus sanctifies the church by "washing" her with the water of the word. The understanding of "sanctify" as "cleanse" is in view here, and a husband who wants to sanctify his wife will share with her the word of God, speak to her the word of God, remind her who she is in Christ, forgive her sins, give her the opportunity to forgive his in word-driven repentance, and in general make sure she is gently, lovingly covered in the Scriptures.

3. Protect Her
Husbands will present their wives in some way to the Lord when that roll is called up yonder as an evidence of their own faithfulness to him. Do we want to be proven true children of God, full of faith in Jesus and his gospel? Then we will show the fruit of faithful husbanding, which is a wife "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." No, we cannot sanctify our wives the way the Spirit does, and no, neither our salvation nor our wife's salvation is contingent upon our perfect husbanding (thank God!), but manhood is responsibility-taking, and this means taking the responsibility to shield our wives from sin and its temptations, accusations, attacks, unnecessary burdens, hurtful expectations and assumptions, and the like. This can mean everything from taking on housework so she gets to rest or go out with friends to warding off or rebuking people who take advantage of her. It also means no verbal, emotional, or physical abuse. It means no pornography or sexual exploitation. It means treating her and ensuring treatment of her that is gentle, loving, and edifying.

4. Serve Her
How did Jesus the King position himself over the church as its head? By becoming its servant, sacrificing to the point of death in loving service to her betterment.

5. Lead Her
This encompasses all of the above and more. Male headship requires repetitious repentance, deep humility, desperate God-reliance, and a high, passionate commitment to the grace of God for the glory of God, not the gratification of self for the glory of self. Lead, don't push. Set an example in speech and conduct. Show yourself flawed but trustworthy but God as failproof. Refuse to make excuses or pass the buck. Shoulder the burdens and take responsibility.

In Christ

As I was thinking and reflecting on the believer's security in Christ yesterday, my thoughts turned to Ephesians chapter 1.  Honestly, if you call yourself a Christian and you can read this chapter and not be moved in thankfulness to worship "to the praise of His glory", you may need to either examine yourself spiritually and/or physically - in both cases you may be dead!  

Today Justin Taylor shows what I mean; he writes:

It’s well known that Ephesians 1:3-14 is one long sentence in Greek. The following is from the ESV but I’ve made some of the pronouns more explicit to highlight the way in which Paul sees the Christian life—from before the foundation of the world to eternity—as bound up with the idea of union with Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love God predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

In Christ we have redemption through Christ’s blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

In Christ we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

In Christ you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Christ, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Are there two more beautiful words to know, hear, speak, and feel than "In Christ"?  For the believer, there is not.  Christ is our hope, and in Christ we are secure.

"Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.  Here's my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

Love in the Truth.

Am I Secure in Christ?

Jared Wilson:


When I reflect on God's promise of eternal security for those in Christ, I go to these common Scriptures and posit these questions of conviction.

John 6:39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 

1. How perfect is the Father's will?
2. How good is Jesus at his job?
3. Does the word "nothing" mean nothing, or does it mean "some"?

John 6:40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

4. What does "eternal" mean?
5. What does Jesus' promise about the last day mean for "everyone who believes"?

Romans 8:28-30 
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

6. How does "predestined" jibe with insecurity?
7. If God commits to glorify those he justifies, why do we think he won't?
8. Is justification really justification? Does it mean what it says?

1 Corinthians 1:8-9 
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. 

9. How long does God commit to keep us blameless?
10. Is security dependent on our faithfulness or God's? And how faithful is God?

Hebrews 7:25 
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

11. Does "completely" mean "partly" or "temporarily"?

Hebrews 13:5
[H[e has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

John 10:28 
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 

12. Does "never" mean "never"?
13. Does "no one" mean "no one"?

Hebrews 10:10
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

14. How long does Christ's sacrifice last?
15. How much does Christ's sacrifice cover?

Titus 1:2
. . . in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began

16. What kind of life did God promise?
17. When did he promise it?
18. Are God's promises reliable?
19. Wouldn't denying his promise of eternal life be tantamount to calling him a liar?

Finally:
20. Is your sin more powerful than Christ's blood? Is your weakness more powerful than God's might? Are you the nut he can't crack?

If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God's giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives, and that, if He has commenced to work in us by His grace, He will never leave it unfinished.

-- Charles Spurgeon

Love in the Truth.

We Praise What We Care About

I have been preaching through the Psalms for most of this year at my Church.  This week, we finish our look into Psalm 103.  It is a stunning ode to the love of God that after reading if you're not praising, you should check to ensure your heart is beating!  While doing some research (I use the term loosely as I was reading blogs!), I stopped by The Gospel-Driven Church and found this gem by Jared Wilson.

Worship of God is enjoyment of God. We have no problem laughing at something funny, smiling at something pretty, "mmmm"-ing something delicious, humming something catchy, or cheering something exciting in the stadium, but when we get into church on Sunday mornings, we have trouble worshiping because we don't know and enjoy God the same way we know and enjoy jokes, pictures, food, songs, or sports.

In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis writes:

But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses [Romeo praising Juliet and vice versa], readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. . . . Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. . . . I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: 'Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?' The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.

We praise what we care about.

I couldn't have said it better myself, thanks Jared.

...random thought...every time I say (write) that name, I get a craving for Subway!

Love in the Truth.

Steps to Grace-Driven Sex

Jared Wilson has a great post on...well the title gives you the answer. "Within the marital covenant, sexual intimacy can be a joyous, mutually satisfying, and mutually encouraging gift. But many husbands and wives don't know how to "get there." That is how it begins; you can read the rest for yourself.

It is not always an easy subject to talk about, but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it should not be that way. Like Z, I thought this portion of the article was most helpful:

Talk – Men are not wired very well for context clues, and because a woman's body has ebbs and flows to what she may find desirable, arousing, etc., men often feel lost. (e.g. That thing "worked" the last time, didn't it? Why isn't it working now?) Meanwhile his wife feels he doesn't know her at all. Look, men may not ask for directions, but they'll accept them if given lovingly. Most men really do want to please and satisfy their wives and find pleasure themselves in doing so. It is odd that many women will want to talk about everything on their mind but this one thing. It's okay to ask for something, to guide a man's hands, etc. And while, of course, it would be great if he just already knew exactly what you wanted/needed, nobody gets good at something without practice and direction. Given enough of that over time, a man of average intelligence and interest will learn how to satisfy his wife. Don't give up; give instructions.

Love in the Truth.