I was reading Genesis one day and something I had not seen before struck me. “In the beginning God created,” I read in Genesis 1:1. Before learning of His holiness, the first two attributes we learn about God is that He is creative, and He is a God of order. Everything He does is with purpose and intention.
Second Timothy 1:9-10 says: He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
I also love quoting Romans 8:28, which reminds us that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”. Again, God is a God of purpose and order.
Today’s prayer focus is for fathers to model after God and take their position as Godly leaders in their home. For folks who do not believe in the patriarchy, this is a difficult order to swallow, but for folks who believe in God and in Scripture as the truth, this is what 1 Corinthians 11:3 says:
“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Let me put this is a simple diagram to help us: God > Christ > Husband > Wife > Children
There are a lot of things I do not like, but that does not make them wrong. The truth is that God calls men to be the head of their families. For women with some feminist thinking like me, this makes me want to roll my eyes. However, when I consider that my eye rolling is not towards men, but towards God’s divine order, I can quickly adjust my attitude. To respect man as the Godly leader in his home is to revere God and to trust in His purpose.
Men, let’s have “real talk” for a moment. I truly believe that one of the reasons we (as women) have a hard time with this is because sometimes we hear the Scriptures quoted and used by men only to assert their authority over us. Some of my male friends, for instance, have jokingly told me to "submit, woman", and again, I roll my eyes at their ignorance and childish ways. First, because I am not married so... I do not have to "submit". However, it annoys me to hear them say that. These are supposed to be adult, mature, Christian men and it is almost as if they embrace the authority part, but not the God-given responsibilities that come along with such divinely-appointed leadership.
This is perhaps why I love that today’s focus is not just about fathers or husbands taking their rightful position as leaders of their homes, but also about their responsibility to model godliness for their families. I am convinced that if a husband and father submits to Christ and leads the way, wives, mothers and women will willingly follow.
Ephesians 5:22-33:
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
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