The Resolution for Men Read online

  When you demonstrate the value of people by the way you serve others, your children will follow suit. If you do, they’ll tend to embrace a lifestyle of generosity and self-sacrifice as being normal and second nature.

  Teach your kids to think beyond themselves and find fulfillment in loving others through word and deed. Invite your kids to volunteer with you at church or at a charitable event. Help widows in your community or feed the homeless. This will grow their faith quicker than anything, as well as their understanding of how to love others, since experience is the most effective teacher.

  You are the shepherd of your home. You are the main role model. When you love and serve, your children will learn to love and serve. When you guard your eyes, your mouth, and your mind, they are more likely to do the same. And when you pray for them regularly—for wisdom, for strength, for their hearts to be open to God and His Word—the Holy Spirit will take pleasure in helping you be the father and leader who shapes their lives today and impacts their world tomorrow.

  Loving, protecting, serving, integrated with regular times of spiritual grounding—that’s how men become the leaders in their homes, the champions of their wives, the heroes of their children, and the fruitful sons of their heavenly Father.

  It takes strength. It takes courage. Lots of prayer and some unpopular stances. But you’ll be able to look back on a family blessed by the initiative you invested and the priorities you kept in place. No man is perfect, but every man can be courageous.

  Every man can lead his home with God’s Word, God’s presence, and God’s help.

  COURAGEOUS CHALLENGE

  Begin the habit this week of reading at least one chapter of God’s Word every day.

  MEMORY VERSE

  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)

  Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

  Hebrews 13:4

  CHAPTER 6

  RESOLVE TO LOVE YOUR WIFE

  I WILL be faithful to my wife, to love and honor her, and be willing to lay down my life for her as Jesus Christ did for me.

  A man of resolution needs to be faithful to his wife and to lead her with Christlike love. He should know that the greatest love, strongest marriages, and best sex are all found in the will of God and begin with the presence of God.

  God alone designed the marvelous mystery of marriage. He owns the copyright and created it to be the most romantic, satisfying, and intimate relationship on earth. And when a man and his wife obey what God tells them to do, they will have significant breakthroughs in their marriage and more fully enjoy it and one another.

  We’re about to go deep now, so mentally hang on because you don’t want to miss this. Even if you’re unmarried, this could serve you well in the future.

  Our journey to become godly husbands starts with the idea of holiness. When something is holy, think of it as being incredibly special and infinitely valuable. Holy things are set apart from common, ordinary use and kept separately in their special place of honor. Holy things are exceptional and incomparable.

  God is holy. He has set Himself apart from His creation and from anything that is unholy. Part of His holiness is that there is nothing else like Him. He is infinitely higher than everything else. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,” He says, “so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

  But not only is God holy. Everything He does is holy. His Spirit is the Holy Spirit. His Word is like no other book, so it is called the Holy Scriptures or the Holy Bible. When we worship Him, we celebrate how immeasurably unique He is. King David said, “There is no one like you, O LORD, and there is no God but you” (1 Chronicles 17:20 NIV).

  He is holy. He is set apart.

  And that’s not all He has “set apart.”

  In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was special because they were God’s holy people, set apart for His own purposes. Moses said, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6 NIV).

  Some people wonder why God gave Israel so many specific instructions and detailed commands in the Old Testament law. He wasn’t trying to limit their freedom. He was actually setting them apart from all other nations by teaching them how to be better in every area of their lives. Healthy in what they ate and how they handled disease. Pure in how they dressed themselves and behaved sexually. Honorable in how they treated their wives and raised their children. He wanted their lives to be holy so that they would become more like Him—priceless, pure, and special.

  Considering the holiness of God also reveals why Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was so significant. Think about it. Jesus alone is God’s holy Son. He alone lived a sinless, holy life. And on the cross He shed His blood as a holy sacrifice—the only sacrifice acceptable enough to satisfy the righteous judgment of a holy God, so that we as unholy sinners could be completely forgiven and walk with Him. God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

  See what holiness does? It makes things unique, like no other. It sets them apart. It keeps special things special.

  Throughout the Scriptures, the great sin against anything that was considered holy was when it was mistreated and made worthless or common. After everything God had done to deliver His people and help them become holy, He hated when they forgot His mercy, rejected His standards, and shamefully lived like the world—when they squandered their priceless value and sinned against their bodies, their marriages, and their families. Their sin was wrong not merely because they damaged and demeaned themselves, but more importantly because they dishonored the surpassing worth of God. Any sin in us reveals that God is not as holy to us as He should be.

  The word profane means to treat something holy as if it is unholy, removing it from its special position of honor, taking it outside its protective boundaries, mistreating it as common and ordinary. Imagine a soldier washing his car with the American flag, or a woman mud wrestling in her wedding dress. That’s a form of profanity. When God says something is holy, He commands us to guard and protect it. If we mistreat it—if we profane it—we bring painful, devastating consequences on ourselves.

  Holiness. It’s not just a form of good behavior. It’s a new way of looking at your wife.

  And here’s why.

  Holy Matrimony

  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 honor. If you belittle her or treat her in harsh, unloving ways, you are not just acting badly. You are profaning the treasure God has given you.

  Because your wife is holy. Uniquely yours.

  This one reason is really why adultery is such an abominable sin. Being unfaithful to your wife profanes the beauty of marriage, the sacredness of sex, the covenant of love, and the holiness of God all at the same time. God in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New Testament have approved and endorsed only one sexual relationship—one man and one woman who are married to one another. He is not limiting a man’s enjoyment of sex. He is protecting it. He is keeping it pure, holy, and special.

  Because, yes, even sex is holy within your marriage.

  Sex is God’s priceless wedding gift for a man and his wife to enjoy after they have covenanted their lives together in marriage. And it is to be shared with no one else—not even in fantasy or imagination.

  No movie, pornographic site, or adulterous affair could ever come close to the
level of romance and pure passion God desires to be enjoyed within a healthy marriage. Described vividly in the Old Testament book of Song of Solomon, God’s design for sex within marriage is pure, permissible, and honorable. It leaves a man and his wife satisfied, liberated, and unashamed. It begins with committed love, transitions into exhilarating joy, and then ends with sweet peace. No other sexual relationship outside of marriage comes with the same benefits or the same unpolluted and healthy results in the end.

  Most men in our culture don’t get this. They don’t understand how special and unique God has designed sex to be. They allow themselves to develop sexual feelings for other people—sometimes multiple people—and in many cases choose to act on their lust. But to God, sex is very holy and is to be kept holy. And if we dishonor Him and our wives by not treating it as such, we will get what everyone else gets who mishandles God’s gift—guilt, dysfunction, emptiness, and all kinds of shameful consequences. If, however, we view sex as a holy, priceless, exclusive treasure, we will honor God and more fully enjoy our wives.

  That’s because anything you do that profanes your wife not only hurts her but also hurts you, since the Scripture says she is “one flesh” with you (Matthew 19:6). Part of you. Failing to honor her harms your ability to live out your true purpose as a married man.

  God created your marriage to be a living portrait on earth to reveal the loving relationship of Jesus Christ with His Bride, the church—those whom He has declared “holy” unto Him (Ephesians 1:4). Therefore, your role as the husband in marriage is to be like a giant neon sign that says, “Look at my relationship with my wife! This is what the sacrificial, unconditional love of Jesus Christ for His Bride looks like!”

  So by treating your wife as holy, and sex as holy, and everything about your marriage as holy, you place yourself and your spouse on a path that leads to blessing, friendship, respect, satisfaction, fulfillment, and togetherness.

  You experience what it really means to be in holy matrimony.

  “To Love and Honor Her”

  With your wife’s “holy” standing as a starting point, you can begin a change in your relationship that puts you not only in line with God’s purposes for your marriage but also in an ideal position to bless your wife with your love and honor.

  In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the apostle Paul says:

  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . Husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. (vv. 25, 28–29)

  God’s calling for you as a husband was not to marry the woman you love, but to love the woman you married. And that can be a tall order sometimes. The task laid upon husbands to love their wives is actually more demanding than the task placed upon wives to “submit” to their husbands. Why? Because of who we’re told to model our love after—Jesus Christ and His sacrificial death.

  The example God gives husbands to follow is simply the most courageous and sacrificial act ever done in all human history.

  Christ’s love for the church is without limit. When Jesus died for His bride, she was dirty and sinful. She was acting like His enemy. Yet He still chose to love her and lay down His life for her—not in a quick, easy death but by allowing Himself to be mocked and beaten, then nailed to a Roman cross. Jesus, the one who deserved to suffer the least for human sin, paid the highest price to meet His bride’s deepest need.

  That’s courageous love.

  It’s true that many husbands, in the face of a dramatic emergency, might choose to die for their wives. But Christ calls us to a deeper, more costly kind of death: “If anyone would come after me,” He says, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:24 NIV). It’s not about being willing to die for her in a blaze of glory, but rather to sacrifice our lives every day for her. As husbands, we are called to put to death our own selfish desires to meet our wife’s deepest needs. To say “no” to what we want so we can say “yes” to what she needs.

  That is Christlike love and leadership.

  Our daily behavior around our wives cannot be based upon their actions or our feelings, because neither of those is always good. It should instead be founded on a higher standard. Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Christ is the master of love and is commanding us to learn specifically from Him. To love like He loves. To revolutionize how we treat our wives by loving them the most when they deserve it the least. Does that exemplify your love for your wife?

  Do you typically only express kindness and affection to her when you feel like she’s earned it? Or do you faithfully love her when she least deserves it?

  Does your love for her weaken when she lets you down? Or does it stay rock solid in the midst of marital storms?

  Do you love her relentlessly and unconditionally? Or is there something she could do that would cause you to give up on her and abandon your marriage? If you can name something—anything—then your love is not unconditional.

  Society teaches us to love the lovable when we feel like it. They believe when people are obnoxious, ugly, irresponsible, or hurtful, it’s all right to drop them off at the nearest exit. This kind of love says to follow the feelings of your heart. “I’ve fallen in love with you; let’s get married.” But then later, “I’ve fallen out of love with you; I want a divorce.”

  Marriage, however, is a God-ordained covenant that invites you to love an imperfect, sinful person with the love of Christ. Because that’s how He loves you. His love finds every reason to start but finds no reason to stop. Paul said:

  I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

  Your wife should feel that secure in your love.

  If your marriage fails—or is failing—it likely comes down to one key reason: you have not loved your wife like Christ loves the church. Most marriage problems are usually the result of a wife’s wounded reaction to poor leadership and lack of love from her husband. A man wants to love a woman who deeply respects and appreciates him, but the kind of man that a woman appreciates and respects is one who sacrificially loves her, who patiently honors her, who lays down his life for her. On a daily basis.

  So how do we do that? The standard Jesus set for us seems far too hard to do, far too high to reach. That’s because it is. The key to loving like Jesus is to understand that we cannot do it on our own. God Himself must become our never-ending Source of love. And He is more than able to do it—to be through us what we cannot be ourselves.

  His love for us is based upon God’s choice, commitment, and unchanging character, not on us. God loves us not because we are lovable but because He is so loving. Nothing we do can generate more love from Him or take His love away from us—because it was never based upon us to begin with.

  Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9 NIV). When we surrender ourselves to His lordship and let Him rule our lives, His Holy Spirit becomes our endless supply, pouring out the unconditional love of God into our hearts (Romans 5:5). Then the fruit of His Spirit—beginning with “love” (Galatians 5:22–23)—permeates our thoughts and attitudes, then dictates how we act and react to one another.

  When a husband or wife follows the example of Jesus, amazing things begin to happen. We disconnect from our mate’s imperfections and plug into God’s unchanging nature. Instead of “I love you because . . .” we can honestly say, “I love you, period. I love you when you’re beautiful to me and when you’re not. I love you when you treat me well and when you don’t. And I’m daily relying on God’s unconditional love to pour through my life into you. For be
tter or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part—that’s how much I love you.”

  What would happen in the next year if God’s unconditional love became the foundation of your marriage? What if you began to pray, “Lord, love her through me!” It would make you more honoring. It would make you more loving. And it would make you more faithful.

  “I Will Be Faithful”

  Because marriage is so holy, and because of what it represents, and 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 the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:8).

  When a man commits adultery, every area of his life—body, soul, and spirit—experiences the harmful consequences. God has placed the exciting fire of sexual intimacy within the protective fireplace of the marriage bed, not only because He wants us to keep it holy, but also to keep us from getting burned. When taken outside of our marriage, the fire of sex will consume us and destroy the most precious things in our lives.

  That’s why God can say, “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, and his reproach will not be wiped away” (Proverbs 6:32–33 NKJV).

  Let’s face it. Most men who 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 in 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 the 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 fulfillment that is not from his wife. And before he knows it, he has baby-stepped his way into an addiction or an adulterous pit, unintentionally devastating his marriage, his spiritual walk, and the respect of his kids. He looks up one day to see a fool in the mirror and wonders how he got there.