Marriage reflects . . .

Exodus 1; Job 18; Luke 4; 1 Corinthians 5

The Bible is filled with metaphors and symbols. One of them is particularly significant in these days because of increased divorce rates and a great deal of promiscuity . . .

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22–24)

 Because submission is wrongly interpreted (to mean doormat), many people miss what this is saying. It is not about him/boss and her/slave, not at all. Look again: marriage is God’s illustration of the relationship between Jesus Christ and His people. He asks for His Bride, the church, to follow the leading of Jesus. The man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church and the wife is to respect her husband and follow his lead. Sin in both sides creates a lot of problems, but rather than get into the issue of submission, I’m thinking of the other ways that marriage illustrates the relationship of God and His people.

The Lord is faithful to us and expects our faithfulness. In marriage, fidelity is expected. If I ran around on my hubby, my actions would illustrate those who worship and follow other gods instead of the true God.

For this reason, and because it causes so much pain to those involved, God condemns fornication and adultery. Even non-Christians know (by the pain) that such behavior is not the best way to live. Today’s reading in 1 Corinthians describes the will of God concerning those who pay no attention to the importance of being faithful:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (1 Corinthians 5:1–2)

This church may have thought that tolerating such a person is the ‘loving thing’ to do, but that is not love as God loves. He cares about us to a far greater degree than tolerating our sin. He died for it. He purges it. He knows that sin leads to death. It separates us from Him and from each other. He tells the church at Corinth that sin in their midst is serious, even more serious than the same sin in those who are not believers. After all, the people who do not know Christ cannot be expected to behave in a godly way, but those who belong to Him are called and equipped to live a higher standard:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. (1 Corinthians 5:9–11)

The rest of the passage instructs the church to put unrepentant sinners out of their midst. They are like yeast and will permeate and affect everyone. Without fellowship and their support, that person will experience spiritual defeat and must fully repent or risks losing life itself.

Revelation 2:19ff records a letter to a church also guilty, this time because of a woman who was “teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” The Lord “gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.” As a result, He “will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead.”

This is the seriousness of violating the will of God. If I or anyone else believes in Him but mocks Him by ignoring how I’m supposed to live, I stand on a slippery slope.

We live in a world that tolerates sin, not because it is ‘loving’ but because it opens the door for those who tolerate it to do the same things. Much of what God calls sin has become so commonplace that even Christians are no longer upset to see it all around us. At the same time, I need to remember that the Lord equips His people for victory over sin. He also wants us to tell the world about Him so that everyone can also be victorious. Without Jesus, and without obedience, I have no message about the wonderful plan of God.

Relying on Christ alone

John Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This may be noble for public service, but it does not work when it comes to serving God. We are made in His image and are nothing more than reflections, depending on Him for all that we are. We come to Him empty-handed and the best we can do is ask Him to give us what is needed to serve Him.

One of my seminary professors emphasizes that we are created to be dependent, to receive what we need from outside of ourselves. Personally, I don’t like feeling needy, but know that he is correct. Besides, depending on myself rather than on God quickly becomes idolatry.

Jesus hints at this need for God in what He said to the woman at the well . . .  

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10–14)

I can meet my need myself, or depend on others to help me, but by depending on Jesus, I am eternally satisfied. Not only that, I am declaring His worth rather than my own. Another way to say “declare His worth” is “worship.”

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23–24)

Worshiping God in spirit and in truth goes far deeper than anything I can give God. I need Him to fill me with His Spirit, to enable me, to open my eyes to truth. Even for worship, I am helpless without Him and totally dependent.

Those who wrote the psalms realized their dependency on God too. They expressed it many ways. This is one of my favorites . . .

Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:23–26)

Some laugh at Christians who pray about everything, but Jesus tells us to say “Give us this day our daily bread” so is that any different from praying for wisdom to write an exam, or grace to visit a friend in the hospital, or even for His help to find a parking place? In the kingdom of God, “I’ll do it myself” expresses immaturity.

Of course, the ultimate need of life is to stand justified before God. The Bible is clear on this one; we do not deserve it and cannot earn it. Jesus illustrates with this story of one man who offered what he thought God wanted, and another who realized that he had nothing to offer . . .

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:10–14)

Accepting dependency is a lifelong learning curve. From youth, most of us “seek our independence” but as a Christian, I have realized this is a form of idolatry for it winds up with me relying on me rather than Christ. Yet even a cursory comparison of my credentials and abilities with His and I see the folly of my independence and the wisdom of relying on Him for everything.

Image Bearers

We got up at 4:30 am and were in Chicago by noon, then Charlotte, NC by mid-afternoon. The airports were busy, even too much for a people-watcher like me. However, I couldn’t miss the leather jacket on the fellow in front of me at an immigration line. I could not see his face, but by the picture on the back, I didn’t want to.
 

My first thought was that we are all created to image God. Like some mirrors, some give very good reflections. Others are more like those mirrors in the fun house sending back grotesque and distorted images. Some are covered with grime and the image is almost impossible to see. As I was thinking these things, my husband said, “That fellow is sending quite the message.”

While it is usually not a good idea to judge a book by its cover, people do judge us by our outward appearance. We are also evaluated by how we behave, our habits and preferences, and the way we talk. In all of this, I know that God wants me to be an adequate expression of Him.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Giving God glory isn’t something done for God. He cannot be any more glorious than He already is. How I can do it is by proclaiming His glory, and for that, He invites me to point out and praise all that He has done. All creation does it. Consider the stars and even Venus shining in the evening sky. . .

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

I don’t have a “heavenly” body, but He also wants me to also glorify Him with the one I do have. He says, “For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:20) This means living a holy life that honors Him in all that I do.

This includes my speech too, for God says that “the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” (Psalm 50:23) Besides honoring God by verbal thanksgiving, this also opens my life to seeing more of what God is doing. That is, when I glorify Him, He shows me more of His glory.

Besides that, when I honor Him, He shows others more of His glory also. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

The man in the leather jacket wore images of evil things and emblems of a debauched lifestyle. I hope that he will someday discover the noble calling for which he was created, get rid of that awful jacket, and reflect the glory of the God who created him.

Last night, after posting this, I laid in bed thinking this is not right. I am just as poor an image-bearer when I put down another person as if I know everything about him by his jacket. Shame on me.