Christlike
Love

 “If
you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love
those who love them” (Luke 6:32). Many Christians love those who love them and think that they
are showing the love of Christ by doing that. However, that kind of love is
part of human nature; it is common to everyone.

There is a love that
only Christians have. It comes from the Lord. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Jesus’ love for us had nothing
to do with our love or our loveliness. It had to do with His loving nature and
our need. When we share this kind of love with others, it cannot be based on
their love or loveliness.

Love
is Patient

“Be imitators of
God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God” (Eph. 5:1-2).

To live a life
of love, you must know what love is and how Jesus expressed it. Paul describes
love wonderfully in 1 Corinthians 13. I would like to highlight two very
important aspects.

“Love is
patient…” (1 Cor. 13:4). Jesus was an example of patience: “But for that very
reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus
might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe
on him and receive eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:16).

“Love is kind…”
(1 Cor. 13:4). God is also an example of kindness: “But when the kindness and
love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things
we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4).

Infinite
patience and kindness together result in mercy. “Do you show contempt for the
riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s
kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Rom. 2:4). If we are impatient with our
wives, husbands, children, parents, coworkers, or the unconverted, we are not
living a life of love.

Love
Deeply

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over
a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).  

 Love does not
overlook sin. Love sees sin, then covers it—in this case, covers lots of it. We
know that God’s love is like this, but is ours? The command is directed towards
us.  

“You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our
sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah
7:19). Deep love provides deep cover. Deep love keeps no record of wrongs (1
Cor. 13:5). It forgives others, regardless of the magnitude or quantity of
sins. It banishes sins for good. It does not remember them so that it can bring
them up later.

However,
we are not to cover our own sins: “He
who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces
them finds mercy” (Prov. 28:13).

Discerning
Love

“We know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’
But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know
something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known
by God” (1 Cor. 8:1-3).

Knowledge and love do not
necessarily go together. You can easily have one without the other.

“And
this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and
depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be
pure and blameless until the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:9-10). Paul assumes
that love is natural for believers. He prays that the love the Philippians have
would abound and that it would be accompanied by knowledge and depth of
insight. The New King James Version translates this “knowledge and all discernment.”

There
are two reasons for having discerning love:

·      
That we may approve what is excellent. If we
have love without discernment, we will end up loving (and thus approving of)
things we should not.

·      
That we may be pure and blameless.

These
reasons are closely tied, for if we approve what we should not approve, we will
not be blameless.

It
is easy to have love without discernment if you do not have a biblical
definition of love. Discerning love does not approve of sin. It recognizes
things which are neither pleasant nor good. Many people mistakenly think that
love does not allow for disapproval. They turn it into something gooey and
sweet and, consequently, sticky and messy.

How
do we obtain discerning love? We get it by desiring it and by asking God for
it. Many Christians do not desire it because having discerning love puts them
in awkward situations. Others desire discernment only so that they can be
critical.

God
tells husbands to love their wives. How are we to do that, and what does that
love look like?

Love
Her as Your Neighbor

“Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself”’”
(Matt. 22:37-39).

“Yourself” is
someone you already greatly love, and therefore is a good standard for how to
love someone else. For a start, calculate how much time you spend thinking
about yourself on an average day. Second, list all the things you do for
yourself, including bathing, eating, sleeping, and studying. Third, admit that
these things are expressions of love for yourself. Fourth, admit that you do
not love your neighbor (even your best friend) this much. Fifth, admit that
that is a violation of God’s command and needs His forgiveness. Turn to Him for
forgiveness. This will not make you loving, but it will make you clean.
From that position, you can choose to love your neighbor.

Now,
decide to love your neighbor. The
choice is yours. The power to carry it out is God’s. The love will not be an
emotional feeling, at least not at first. Yet when you choose to obey God in
this way, He provides the emotion and the means of expressing it so that it
will not be phony.

Love One Another

“Serve
one another humbly in love” (Gal. 5:13). Loving one another means loving
both ways. I serve you in love, and you serve me in love. It is a two-way give, not a one-way take.

Paul
talks about another kind of two-way practice in the same chapter: “If you keep on biting and devouring each
other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal. 5:15).
Have you ever seen two people bite and devour each other? It happens often,
especially in marriage. The result is mutual destruction.

Later
in the passage there is another two-way teaching: “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Gal.
5:26). And in chapter 6, a strong command: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law
of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

Here,
then, are the choices:

·      
You bite and devour me, and I bite and devour
you. You provoke and envy me, and I provoke and envy you.

·      
I serve you in love, and you serve me in love. I
carry your burdens, and you carry mine.

“We
love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his
brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has
seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:19-20).

One
of the good things I learned as an officer in the U.S. Navy was that authority
and responsibility must go together in equal proportions. A person with
authority but no responsibility will exercise that authority arbitrarily. He
will order people around with no objective other than establishing his own power.
Conversely, a person with responsibility for a task but no authority to help
him accomplish it will only be frustrated.

Before
I apply this concept to Christian husbands, I want to discuss and hopefully
dissolve a common misconception. Because the Scripture tells wives, children,
and servants to obey, some Christians have inferred that it is the job of
husbands, fathers, and masters to command. This is an inference only and
is, therefore, invalid. The Bible contains no
direct teaching nor implication that husbands, fathers, and masters are to
be commanders. The Bible does not teach a chain of command. It teaches a chain
of obedience and submission. The
Bible teaches that servants are to be submissive to their masters, wives are to
be submissive to their husbands, and children are to submit to their parents.

The
difficulty is that we have mistakenly assumed that if these people are to be
submissive, then the husband, the father, the master, or the government is to
be the boss. Not so! When God speaks to the people on the top, He never
tells them to be the boss.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to
be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them;
and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. But you
are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the
youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater,
the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at
the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:24-27)

Now
look at the commands specifically addressed to husbands:

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. (Col. 3:19)

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or
wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Eph. 5:25-27)

Husbands, in the same way be
considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you
of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Pet.
3:7).

There
is no commanding here—only sacrifice. Husbands are responsible to love
their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church, and for the same
reason—to make her beautiful. We are to love our wives in order to make them lovely, not because they are lovely. A woman needs love the most
when she is unlovely. It is the husband’s responsibility to give that love. The Bible teaches fathers and
masters to follow the same pattern of respect, consideration, and sacrifice.

The husband is the
head of the wife. That does not mean he is boss or dictator. It means he is the
example, the provider, the lover, the
means of security, and the source of wise, responsible decision-making. If this
does not describe you as a husband, find a husband who fits this description
and ask him for help.

Husbands
are responsible to protect and care for their wives, and, although the Bible’s
emphasis is on responsibility rather than authority, God has given husbands the
authority to carry out the responsibilities He has assigned to them. For
example, in Numbers 13, God gave them the authority to confirm or nullify vows
or rash promises made by their wives, even if the vows were made before
marriage. The chapter ends with these words: “These are the regulations the LORD gave Moses concerning relationships
between a man and his wife, and between a father and his young daughter still
living in his house” (Num. 30:16).

However, what tends
to happen is that the husband demands authority and, a lot of times, refuses
the responsibility that comes with it. The wife ends up with the responsibility
and no authority. This puts her in a hard position and may tempt her to reject
teaching that indicates that a wife needs to be submissive. Husbands must
fulfill the God-given responsibilities that come with their authority, or they
are setting their wives up for a hard time.

God made men incomplete, so He made women
to be their helpers. This incompleteness is apparent in men’s need for respect.
Every man needs respect, from the time he was born and for his entire life.
That is why God requires women to respect their husbands. Men want to have
authority and respect. This is not wrong. But responsibility comes with
authority, and many men have abdicated this responsibility. Authority without
responsibility makes men tyrants. If they pass the responsibility to their
wives but do not delegate the corresponding authority to them, those wives cannot carry out the responsibility that
their husbands will not.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last
days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive,
disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,
treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God— having a form of
godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people” (2
Timothy 3:1-5).

A young woman told me once that she loved herself and that
was a good thing. She did not like it for the Bible to have it listed as a bad
thing.

How can we tell it is a bad thing? The other words in the
list from 2 Timothy are characteristics of loving yourself. They are subsets
of loving yourself. Let’s look at them.

• Lovers of money – loving
  yourself
• Boastful – loving yourself
• Proud – loving yourself
• Abusive – certainly not
  loving your neighbor as yourself
• Disobedient to parents –
  loving yourself
• Unholy – loving yourself
• Without love (to others) –
  loving yourself
• Unforgiving – loving
  yourself
• Slanderous – not loving
  others as you love yourself
• Without self-control –
  loving yourself
• Brutal – not loving others
  as you love yourself
• Not lovers of the good –
  loving yourself
• Treacherous – not loving
  others as you love yourself
• Rash – loving yourself
• Conceited – loving
  yourself
• Lovers of pleasure –
  loving yourself

In addition to this list, there are a few other words in the
Bible that describe loving yourself.

·      
Anger: almost all anger is based on loving
yourself too much.

·      
Bitterness is based on loving yourself too much.

This post coordinates with today’s reading in the To
the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,
please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul tells him to flee
and pursue. In his second letter, he says the same: flee and pursue.
Let’s take a look at these letters:

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some
people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves
with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness” (1 Tim.
6:10-11).

“Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness,
faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure
heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

It is very simple: we are to run away from love of
and eagerness for money and the evil desires of youth. We are to run after
righteousness, godliness, faith, endurance, love, gentleness, and peace. In
both cases, fleeing and pursuing, we are running in the same
direction.

This post coordinates with today’s reading in the To
the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,
please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

Men and women are made different in order to complement
each other, not to offend each other. We are attracted by the differences
between us, and yet we don’t understand the differences. Singing in harmony is
harder to do than singing in unison, but it is beautiful. What often happens is
spouses give up and try to sing in unison—usually by the man making the woman
bend to him. A woman wants a sexual relationship where her partner is tender
and gentle. The man is looking for a sexual partner who is as instantaneously
responsive as he is. This is where homosexual relationships come from; they
have abandoned all attempts at successful harmony.

God made us different because He wants us to be complementary,
not identical. When we find a difference, instead of griping about it, say, “I
am the complement to that difference.” God made these differences, and He wants
them to be there. He wants that harmony. He is in the business of enabling real
men and real women to work together and live together. My inability to
sing in harmony is not a reflection on Him; it’s a reflection on me. We
husbands and wives need to get to work at complementing each other by being
different, not by being the same. Our goal is not unity in conformity; it is
unity in harmony.

Another
difference between men and women is the view of the relationship itself. Man
was not created for woman, but woman for man (1 Cor. 11:9). The husband’s
attitude toward the wife is not the same as her attitude toward him, and it
cannot and should not be. She was created for him. Her focus is on him. He was
not created for her. The man’s focus is on the goal, and the woman comes in to
aid him in that. She is not the focus; she is a support and helper for the
focus.

Courtship
is done on the woman’s terms, where everything is relationship-centered. The
man’s goal is to establish a marriage relationship with her, so for the time
being their focuses are aligned. Then they get married, and the husband
gets on with his life. Now he doesn’t want to sit and talk to her all the time.
Courtship is an unreal world; we can’t live like that forever. That’s why
romance novels are so popular; women are trying to live all of life in the
courtship stage. Men are not built to be that way forever. Realize that it
is not that he doesn’t love you anymore. God has given him other work to
do, and He has given him you to help him accomplish that work.

This
has to do with direction, not priorities. Every Christian husband and
father ought to have his wife and children as his #1 earthly priority. But that
does not mean the family is what he thinks about all the time. My work is
related to my wife indirectly (supply her needs, pay the bills, etc.), but her
work is directly focused on me (e.g., making the dinner that I will come home
and eat, washing the clothes I wear). Her day is built around me and is
directly related to me.

The
wife can think that because her husband does not think about her the same way
she thinks about him, he doesn’t care about her. She’s wrong, but she’s also
partly right. It is true that he doesn’t care in the same way she does—he’s not
supposed to. Our roles are different. If we accept that, then we can be happy
in God’s design. If we chafe at it, it will be destructive. Wives are called to
help their husbands, and they can find fulfillment in that. Husbands cannot
find fulfillment in the same way, because they were not created to be
house-husbands. Just because you can do something (e.g., be a successful
career woman) does not mean you should do it. You can pound nails with a
crescent wrench, but what does it do to the wrench? The question is not what
can you do, but what were you created to do? If we both operate the way
we are created to, things run very smoothly, and we both find fulfillment.

Most men, when they get married, have all the qualifications
of a new husband, i.e., they are dumb. As a new husband, I found out that I
could offend my wife and have not the slightest idea of how I did it. (It
certainly wasn’t malicious.) I was naïve, but I wasn’t stupid, so I could
eventually figure out what was wrong and put things right.

Let’s take a scenario. Suppose the husband comes into the
kitchen and says something. Whatever he says, the wife is offended by it. He
wanders out, and she sits there being hurt, hurt, hurt, initially. Then she
grows resentful. She holds a private grand jury and finds out he’s indicted.
And convicted. And hanged by the neck until dead.

Later on, the husband comes back into the house and learns
he’s in trouble. What the wife had done was say, “I couldn’t have said what he
said unless I had x motive. So he must have had this awful motive to say that.”
The husband is not just accused of what he said, but why he said
it.

Then they get to talking about it, and she finds out he that
did not have that awful motive, or any bad motive at all. Meanwhile, she’s
hanged him by the neck until dead, and she intends to hold it against him until
he repents—and he can’t repent, because he has no clue what to repent of. When
you add these instances up over the years, you get very hurt wives and husbands
who are increasingly irritated at the wives who resent them so much.

There
is always a middle ground. We need to meet each other there and adjust.
Generally, men don’t adapt to their wives as much as women adapt to their
husbands. The men need to do more bending. Give to each other in the areas you
need. Frequently, both spouses are reticent to give in the area the other
needs. All good marriages must meet in the middle. Men need to do
more bending to meet in the middle, and women need to do less judging of
motives.

(To be continued.)

In Elihu’s final comments to Job in Job 37, there must have
been a storm brewing. It must have been a great one like some many of us have
experienced on the Great Plains. It is exciting reading.

Elihu said,

“At this my heart pounds and leaps from its place.”

As soon as Elihu finished speaking, “the Lord answered Job
out of the storm.”

Elihu had a very good view of God. Because many of us have
identified with Job, it might profit us to read Elihu’s comments in Job 32-37.

This post coordinates with today’s reading in the To
the Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,
please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

Women are much more sexual than men. For men, sexuality is
reduced to sex itself. The feminine conception of sex is the big picture, past
when the kid graduates from college. The male conception is not the big picture
at all. Civilization depends on the men submitting their sexual cycle to the
woman’s. If women submitted their sexuality to the men’s, we would have a world
full of nothing but pirates and biker gangs. Men must submit to their wives in
this respect if there is to be any kind of stability at all. It is only when
men submit this way that the family becomes possible. If the man removes
himself, you no longer have a family the way God designed.

Men who sleep around have a problem controlling their sexual
desires. Women who are promiscuous are not in it for the sex; they are in it
for the security, and they are using the only commodity they have that can get
men to pay attention. Promiscuous women are lonely, frightened women.
Promiscuous men have trouble with self-control. The problems are utterly
different.          

Men are also attracted differently than women are.
Picture a grocery store magazine aisle: on the racks are cooking magazines,
homemaking magazines, quilting magazines, gun magazines, motorcycle magazines,
and automobile magazines. The men’s magazines are filled with pictures of
women—not only the magazines like Playboy, but also the motorcycle, gun,
and automobile magazines. The women’s magazines are also filled with pictures
of women. The men’s magazines are filled with attractive women, and the women’s
magazines are filled with articles telling them how to become
attractive.       

My point is this: nobody likes to look at a man. Women are
not attracted by sight like men are. Men don’t seem to realize this. They think
the woman is turned on by looking at him like he is to her. Forget it! Have you
ever seen a married couple where the woman is tall, stately, and beautiful, and
the man is short and dumpy and bald? How did that ever happen? He was
attracted by her appearance, and she was attracted to his kindness, his love,
and his attention.        

You need to understand how your spouse operates, or you will
misunderstand their temptations. For men, the foremost factor in the sexual
relationship is physical. For women, the foremost thing is emotional attachment
and/or security. He is seduced physically first, then emotionally; she is
seduced emotionally first, then physically. Men have to exercise physical
self-control. With women, it’s an issue of emotional security. Protect your
sons by teaching them self-control. Protect your daughters by giving them lots
of security and affection and a good relationship with you. Then when some guy
offers them pseudo-security in exchange for a physical relationship, they will
not be tempted to fall for it.