Tag Archives: behaviour

WORDLESS WITNESS

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WORDLESS WITNESS

Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes.

Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. (1 Peter 3: 1-6)

Peter, what are you asking? Once again he turned the standard of the world on its head!

It is well known that more women than men are inclined to respond to the gospel. How many spiritual ‘widows’ are there in churches all over the world? That means that homes are divided right down the middle over the fundamental issue of ‘who do you worship?’ People either worship the Creator God or they are self-made and worship their creator. This is the Great Divide between heaven and hell – not the hell of fire and brimstone but the hell of disunity which comes from divided loyalties.

How are wives meant to handle the situation, especially in the first century when women became unequally yoked with their husbands through faith in Jesus? This was not an unequal yoke by choice but by circumstances.

Paul warned believers about deliberately becoming involved in an unequal yoke with unbelievers:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Cor. 6: 14)

It’s one thing to make a foolish choice before marriage and then live to regret the consequences. It’s another to find the household split through one member’s decision to follow Jesus. What is a wife to do in such circumstances?

Peter’s counsel is both wise and productive. Many a wife in such a situation thinks that preaching to her husband is the way to go. Unfortunately, it seldom works that way. It usually has the opposite effect on an unbelieving husband. Remember that the one who does not believe in Jesus is God’s enemy (Romans 5: 10). The more the wife bangs him with the Bible, the more resistant he becomes and the worse the conflict in the home.

Preaching won’t do it and dressing like a princess won’t do it either. Peter certainly did not advise Christian wives to dress like frumps! Perhaps she might even want to do that to get even with him or to turn him off physically when he doesn’t treat her with love.  Dressing up may arouse the husband’s sensual desires but it will not touch his heart. The wife may adorn herself outwardly to please her husband but it will bring him no nearer to believing in Jesus.

What kind of behaviour will break through his defences and touch his heart? The same kind of behaviour Peter counselled slaves to exhibit towards harsh and cruel slave-owners. Submit to him, whatever his demands until he recognises in you a supernatural grace that only God through His Spirit can produce. Preaching, dressing up or even resisting him will not do what a humble and gentle attitude will.

Jesus’s attitude and behaviour in the face of injustice brought life out of death. Imagine what a wife’s willing submission to her husband would do. If he were cruel or unreasonable, it would expose his wickedness against her purity of heart.

Peter’s counsel to believing wives is simple. Be like Sarah who willingly and quietly submitted to Abraham as head of the household. Be quiet and live it! Is that easy? No! Is it right? Yes! Why? Because God says it’s the way that works. It’s wisdom – doing what works.

The ways of the world and the ways of God’s kingdom are completely opposite to each other. The worldly way is to force other people to do what you want whether they like it or not. Use whatever it takes to make them do things your way. It may work by controlling your husband’s behaviour, but it only makes his heart harder and more resistant to the truth especially if you use the Bible as a weapon against him!

The kingdom’s way is to submit without a word, even if the demands are unjust. Absorb the wrong until the conscience of the wrongdoer is so activated that he is awakened to the truth through the example of his wife. You never know. He might just be won over by your being like Jesus. An example is better than a thousand words.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE POWER TO TRANSFORM

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THE POWER TO TRANSFORM

“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behaviour: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.'” Luke 6:31-34.

Jesus was brilliant!

What an amazingly simple, yet powerfully effective prescription for creating harmony in the world! But it takes far more than the disposition of ordinary humans to do that.

We humans have far more inclination to destroy that to build and to sustain. Watching television is enough to convince us of that. How many TV programmes and movies and books and news stories are about destruction? And we thrive on them all! Watching or reading about everyday stuff is tame and boring. We like murder and war and bloodshed.

Jesus challenged His hearers, and He challenges us today. Try living this way for a month and see what it does to your depression; your stress; even your anxieties and fears. How many of the issues you have with others will melt away? How much suspicion, mistrust, dislike, offenses will dissipate? How much peace will you experience in the place of inner turmoil?

Just imagine how far the ripples will go out from the pebble you drop in the pond! You have issues with your husband? Try doing for him what you are always nagging him to do for you. Your wife refuses to be your servant? Try lovingly serving her without expecting any reward. The outcome beggars imagination. Homes would be transformed from war zones to havens.

Jesus put His finger on the nerve centre of our problems – selfishness! What if we dethroned ourselves, just for a month, put Him back on the throne of our lives where He belongs, let God be the centre of the universe, not us, and practised these simple ways to create harmony, not chaos, around us? Jesus said our behaviour would be as visible as a candle in a dark room.

None of these things are difficult to do, but we have strong resistance from inside because they are foreign to our natural disposition. That is the reason why we need a supernatural solution to our problem of selfishness. It may take sheer grit and will power to do what we are not disposed to doing, but it will not last. We will soon be back to our old ways because every kind thought or act would be cutting across our real selves.

What Jesus was describing is “kingdom” living and He said that it takes a “birth” from above to understand and live the way God does. This kind of “power” makes no sense to the person who is used to living by the sword. Is that why the disciples switched off when Jesus spoke about His death? It made no sense to them then that the way to overcome the world system of power through force was to absorb the evil without retaliation until that power could do no more to Him.

Nothing about God’s kingdom makes sense to the person who is still dark inside. The disposition of darkness only understands the power that pushes others around. Jesus was advocating a new kind of power, the power to subdue one’s own heart to the advantage of others. The power of love. What the world calls “power”, He called weakness. What He called “power”, the world called weakness, foolishness, but it turned out to be the most powerful event in the history of the world – the cross!

The cross changes things for the better like nothing else can. Force can change the world – for the worse. But the cross changes lives.

Has it changed yours?

BLIND SPOTS!

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Blind spots!

Most motor vehicles have blind spots – those places in the rear view mirror where a vehicle behind you is obscured for a moment or on the sides of the windscreen that block your vision of an oncoming vehicle. If you are not vigilant, a blind spot can be the cause of a serious accident.

We can also have blind spots in our characters or behaviour patterns, flaws of which we are unaware but which cause offense to other people; habits, attitudes, character traits, moods or reactions or responses to people or situations.

These blinds spots very often reveal themselves in the way we treat others. The things we don’t like in others are often a reflection of what is in our own lives. We may be moody, critical, sarcastic or angry and be unaware of the way our words or behaviour affect others. We don’t see any wrong in the way we treat other people and we go on our merry way leaving a trail of emotional injury behind us.

Listen to what Jesus taught His disciples: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5

How can we discover and deal with our blind spots so that we can foster harmony in our families, in the church and with friends and work colleagues? I can think of at least three ways to deal with our blinds spots.

Firstly, we need to be honest. If we refuse to acknowledge our faults, we are fooling no-one but ourselves. God’s grace will come to us when we are honest with Him.

Secondly, we need humility, before God and men. Pride refuses to acknowledge our faults and do something about them. Humility allows God to change us.

Thirdly, we need accountability, a loving, caring person who will help us monitor our progress. If we are really serious with God, dealing with blind spots will go a long way towards building unity in our families and in the body of Christ.