Be A 525 Man – Part 2

15 Sunday Feb 2015

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Be a Man, How to love your wife, love, relationship, Valentine's Day

As we were discussing in my post prior this, this is no easy task. To love, as Christ loved the church, is a very tall order. We discussed much of what that looks like in the other post and today there is more.

1. He broke the chains of oppression that binds the broken. Again, this a reference to Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18. This applies to us in that we are called to make sure that our families, who may come from diverse and very broken backgrounds, are set free from the past patterns and hang-ups that destroyed previous generations. You can call it breaking the generational curses if you want. The only way they can soar like eagles is by having those chains to the past cut away. We must do that for our wives. We must get to know them so well that we know them better than they know themselves and then be the men God has called us to be in their lives – living by example is a powerful tool that has chain-breaking power beyond what the world can understand.

2. He set the prisoners free. Sometimes the chains can be cut but the prisoner still remains in his or her cell. They are free but they live like an inmate. The stone may have been rolled away but the person who has been given new life still remains in the cave. This requires that we lead them out. We let them know that the past is not important – Paul tells us this in a way that has really stuck with me…

“…this one thing I do, forgetting what lays behind me and reaching forward to what lies ahead…” Phil 3:13

So, leaving the past in the past is important. When God forgives it, He forgets it. We must do the same and help the ones we love to be set free and then walk in that freedom.

3. He was compassionate. Are you? The challenge for too many of us is that we are fixers more than we are listeners. We want people to get to the point so that we can go about making it better. Sometimes we won’t be able to make it better by anything we do, unless we just choose to be there and listen, comfort and listen some more. Maybe we just need to hold the one’s we love till our arms stop working. This is real compassion.

4. Jesus was authentic. He cried with the people He loved because He was being real – they hurt, so therefore, He hurt with them. Do you? It’s ok to feel their pain to the point it makes you cry.

5. He was giving. His time was a gift and so is yours. If you give them enough quantity of time, there will be plenty of quality time to go around.

6. He went out of his way for one person. Lazarus, the woman at the well and the maniac of Gadares are all such examples. As men, we need to be willing to go out of the way for the woman in our lives that we swore before God to love and to cherish.

7. He cared about the children. This should go without saying but it can’t. If they don’t see us loving them, keeping our word to them and giving ourselves to them, how are they ever going to learn what is supposed to be or even look like? From what they see on TV? I certainly hope not. We need to be the example by being present in their lives – teaching them, playing with them, blessing them, giving them our time, our lives and our hearts.

8. He gave those He loved beauty for ashes. For a woman, beauty can be seen in the security she feels knowing that the one she gave her life to is there for her. She is more beautiful when she has confidence in her man that she is the most important thing in his life and she knows that she can trust him with her heart. The ashes is what the world leaves behind when it is done using you up. A good husband replaces those ashes with the beauty of his heart that he places in the hands of his wife for life.

There is more but I am going to stop here and ask you a question – Does any of this describe you? If it does, then great. If it doesn’t, then be assured that there is hope as long as you are still breathing and you can turn it all around. Jesus gave us an impossible standard to fully meet but He also gave us His Holy Spirit that can empower us to do the impossible. If you will simply choose one or two of these characteristics today and commit the next week to focus walking it out – you will be amazed at the response. Then the following week, pick out one more and so on.

Let me give you a word of caution here: Your goal is to just give without regard to whether she notices or does anything in return. Your relationship may be in such turmoil that she doesn’t notice yet. That’s ok. Just keep giving and remember it’s not about you, this is a command from Jesus Christ and part of the marriage covenant you made before God Almighty.

I want you to pass this message on to as many others this Valentine’s Day Season. When we love our wives as Christ loved the church, giving our lives to them and for them, breathing after them, then we not only honor them, we honor God. He gave us an incredible gift, a wife, that is precious beyond words. Our lives need to be dedicated to cherishing that gift. Are you up for this challenge, men? It will change your life more than just about anything else you can do.

Be a 525 Man today!

Praise Him!
Cliff
2 Timothy 4:2,5

P.S.

One of the reasons I researched and wrote this was so I could come to a better understanding what Jesus expected of me. I do not pretend to be all that these posts say to be. My goal is to become the man that God intended me to be and when He blesses me with the opportunity again (Yes, I have been married and it failed. If I had known and acted then as I know to do today, I believe things would have been very different.) to receive the gift of a wife, I can seek to be a 525 Man myself by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, as you look at the last two days worth of posts and see the incredibly high standard that Jesus has set for us I want you to become inspired by it. Inspired to strive for it. Jesus would never ask us to do anything that He didn’t also enable and empower us to achieve. Imagine what our world would be like today if more men became like the example depicted in these posts. I believe it would turn the world upside down. I believe families would be restored. I believe our children would have a future altogether different than the one they currently see being played out before them. I look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts on all of this. Happy Valentines Day!

Be A 525 Man!

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by Cliff Robertson Jr in Intro

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Tags

God, How to love your wife, love, relationship

The standard has been set. The bar has been raised. Men, we have been called out by a man named Paul who came from Tarsus. Will you answer the call or will you wimp out? We need to man up and be the “525 Man” our families and wives need us to be and the Bible calls us to be.

The Word of God tells us through the Apostle Paul,

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” Ephesians 5:25

Men, he is talking about you and me. We are called to love our wives as Christ loved the church. We have all heard the meaning of the word love that comes from the Greek word “Agape” which means a love-feast, to love with all we have. But I found the word in Hebrew for love, “Agab” to be equally compelling – “To breath after…” Think about that for a moment and it’s implications. We could go on for days about nothing but that. In fact, why don’t you consider what it would mean to be so closely tied to your wife that you breathed after her.

In scuba diving, you learn to “Buddy Breath”. This skill is necessary when you are diving and you or your partner “BUDDY” run out of air. What you do is one person breaths in through their regulator and then hands it to the other person so that they can breath. Each buddy has a firm grip on the buoyancy compensator of the other, so that you don’t float away. In this case, you are literally breathing after the person you are with. You are face to face, looking your partner in the eye. You have a firm grip on that person, your life depends on them not getting away. Just as they have a firm grip on you, because they don’t want you to get away from them. This is how we are to love and breath after our spouses – just like our lives depended on it.

So when we look at this and the statement “even as Christ loved the church…”, what does this mean today and how do we apply it today? Well, the passage is actually pretty clear – “… and gave himself for it.” The word gave means to surrender, yield up, entrust… We need to look a little closer to see exactly what Christ did for us, His church.

1. He came down off His throne, set down His royal crown and robe and became human. He began as a child in great humility. This means that maybe we need to get down off our high-horse and be humble. To seek to understand more than to be understood. To listen and truly care about the worries, concerns and cares of the people we are to care for.

2. He modeled purity. We didn’t want to go there, did we? Yes, that means what you think it means. We must be men who are open and honest and transparent. That means when we are alone, we model purity. When we are in public, we look away when the opportunity to lust presents itself. To think on a woman in a lustful manner is very similar to actually doing the act physically. We have to be better than that and we can only do that by seeking after Christ and being empowered by the Holy Spirit.

3. He modeled obedience to God. Obedience needs to become our obsession. We must seek the word of God and to walk it out. This isn’t easy guys but it is oh so necessary. How can we expect to have the life we have dreamed about and God has planned for us if we are not willing to live the life He has outlined in His word?

4. He led. Too often, we wimp out and abdicate our responsibility here. We are called to lead and lead we must – even when it means we have to give up something we would prefer to be doing. Our Buddy, who is breathing after us, is just too important, not to mention the family that usually comes along with it.

5. He taught. He was able to teach because He knew the word of God. Do you know the word of God? If not, begin today but don’t wait to begin teaching till after you have learned it all. You will never learn it all. Just begin with something simple. Maybe you choose to pick up a daily devotional and take today’s lesson and read the passage and the story that goes with it. Then, think about how it might apply to your life and the lives of your family and share that. It doesn’t have to be complicated or extensive. The word of God will do for you and them what you could never do on your own.

6. He provided. We know the story of the 5000 being fed with the few loaves and everything left over. He took what He had, asked God to bless and look how far it went??? What we will often miss in our own lives is we think we need to work endless hours and miss all the family stuff so that we can be adequate providers. But the truth is, our family really wants us more than they want anything we can provide and if we will just take what we have, give it to God to bless, He will do for us what we could never do for ourselves. God is in the multiplication business still today.

7. He kept His word to them. Whatever Jesus said He was going to do, He did. How many times have we been guilty of telling our spouses or kids something and not doing it. I have to tell you I was really bad about this. Men, we must be men of our word. It is better to say nothing than to commit to something we are unsure we can do. Our word and the keeping of it is something our family needs to be able to lean on without exception.

8. He empowered His Church. Jesus Christ promised that when he left to go back to the Father He would send them a Comforter, the Holy Spirit. He wanted to make sure they had all the things they needed. As husbands and fathers, we need to be empowering to our wives and children. They need to know that we are there for them and with them. They need to know that when things get tough, we have their backs. If we are busy teaching and instilling them with the things of God, this can give them a Holy Confidence that the rest of the world can’t touch. In order to do this, we need to make sure that we have that same confidence. We do this by becoming students of the Word of God and spend real quality time with God in prayer.

9. He healed the brokenhearted. This is found in Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18. As husbands and fathers, we know that there are going to be times when bad things happen. Our wife is going to lose someone close to them. Our kids are going to get their hearts broken in one of a multitude of ways. We need to be that person they can come to and talk to and we need to be really good listeners. We need to learn when to just hold them and let them cry. We need to know when to speak the life-affirming words of Jesus to them and over them. We need to be men of prayer with them and for them. Yes, pray right there and then with them in their pain. Cry out to God for them when they can’t. They will never forget it and God will always hear it.

We are going to continue this blog post tomorrow. I look forward to any comments or stories you may have to share.

Praise Him!
Cliff
2 Timothy 4:2,5