Back to basics. Before I continue on any further, I feel there are a couple of things the Lord wants me to address. The first is being salvation. There is no greater gift or more important purpose of a believing wife than to seek the salvation of her husband. It can become an excellent journey for you, because as you seek the Lord on your husbands behalf, the more you will learn how to let go of your "control" and let God. The closer you will come to the Lord as you learn to trust HIM for everything, especially that of your spouse. You will find your purposed beauty and suddenly your husband will discover this deep inner beauty in you as well. Guess, what? Nothing can compare to it!
Many a times the Lord brought this verse up to me, "13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." 1 Corinthians 7:13-14. I did not always understand the importance of this verse until now. I just knew that I had to be obedient to it so many times when I wanted to give up and walk away, but now that I have held onto it and obeyed it, God has begun to bless my obedience to His word. Corinthians 7:16 goes on to say that, " How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?" (P.s here. If your unbelieving spouse doesn't want to line up with God's word he will eventually leave. The light cannot comprehend the dark and the Lord will not make you continue in your sacrifice without some kind of reward, so remain obedient and the Lord will work it out to your favor without judgement against you ) What greater gift can we help give a loved one than to obtain eternal life and all the love and blessings the Lord has to offer? What greater gift can you give to God but to allow Him to use you as a tool to captivate the one that His heart longs for? We've all been called to this kind of ministry. Once again, our sacrifice to unconditional love and obedience will always lead to great rewards. I know it can be hard to separate our need as a wife sometimes to love our husbands as a brother, but we must. Do as the bible says and win him over with your behavior and not your words. There are so many things that this command ties into and we will address, but let me try to keep this short and simple for now. I think I will follow up with a video later.
"Wives, be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they maybe won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives." 1 Peter 3:1-2.
I know, you say but you don't understand, I don't have anything to submit to, he won't take his place and do what he should be doing, or I don't have anything to respect, or I am the submissive wife. First of all there is always something to submit to, you are just going to have to shut up and do it, find something to submit to for now. I don't care if he says you don't need those red vines, put them back. I'm not kidding. I know some of you are going to go irate about this but I am telling you this is how to work things out God's way. I've done it the other way, I did it my way and the worlds way and I was losing. There is a balance and that balance has to be in trusting God at His EVERY word. I was the disrespectful wife. I didn't see myself as being disrespectful though, but to God's standards I was. My actions, my behavior, my lack of respect and love caused my husbands heart to turn hard towards God. I caused my husband to connect every blessing we ever received during our marriage to something negative. He can't even enjoy the good things that came from the Lord because of the bad memories he has connected them to. That is horrible! As a Christian woman there was nothing more horrendous than standing in the way of the cross! I felt utterly ashamed with that realization, but that is what we are doing when we don't respect and honor our husbands the way we have been commanded to. Thank God He promised me new joy and new memories! Now I know why. You have to obey and give God time to work. Again, you must keep in mind there is a great reward. God saying well done, instead of the shame that comes from giving an account to what you could have done and didn't do, because nobody was "going to tell you". You have to fight it through in prayer, not by trying to change or save your husband yourself. I am not speaking to the women that are being sexually or physically abused. There is a balance and you must seek safety for you and /or your children. Keep praying for your husband and being obedient to the Lord and you will get your testimony.
During this journey, the one where my husband said he didn't love me anymore, he was no longer attracted to me, you know, the one that brought me to my knees in devastation saying Lord, why should I continue holding on? How will he ever love me again? How can I make him attracted to me again? The Lord took me back to 1 Peter 3:1-7. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment...Instead, 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." Did you catch that? A gentle and quiet spirit is what men and God equate to beautiful. Not a nagging outraged wife. It continues, " For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their HOPE IN GOD used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands. Respecting, loving, honoring your husbands is a BIG DEAL! It ties into so many areas of your life, their life, your children's life, God's purpose and command! If you follow these you earn the right to be called the daughter of Sarah. I will discuss the honor that follows this later. An honor that causes God to move on your husband and remove other women (men) from their lives on your behalf! Hallelujah!
"The love of God in a woman who is fully committed to Christ is irresistible. You won't need to say a word to your man. Your loving actions will speak volumes!" ~ Winning Him Without Words, Lynn Donovan & Dineen Miller
How beautiful! God has given me another chance to show my husband the cross. To prove that God is who He says He is. To allow God to bring healing and change through salvation to my husband by letting Him heal and change me through the gift of salvation. I have never been so thankful! I believed, but never truly realized the extent of God's grace and mercy or the power of His salvation till now. None of us are good without it. None of us can love without it. I want to love, I want to be loved. I want God in the end to say "job well done!" I want the blessing reigning in our lives and I want to see my husband walking out his salvation.I want my husband to see Christ in me. I want to be the sweet aroma of Christ to both God the Father and my husband. I want to smell good!! lol
Let's pray....
Lord, teach me the kind of obedience You are calling me to in my marriage. Help me to be the aroma of Christ to my spouse. Be my strength in the midst of whatever life brings. In the holy and blessed name of Jesus Christ, Amen. ~ Winning Him Without Words, Lynn Donovan & Dineen Miller
Jesus you said that you are the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to my husband to show him that you are the way, the truth, and the life. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping my husband to accept Jesus as his Savior and make Him Lord of his life! In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen. John 14:6
Lord Jesus, forgive me if I have been a stumbling block in my spouse's salvation experience. I turn over my will to Your capable hands and I will trust You to save my spouse in Your time and in a way that brings You honor.
Pour a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit into me each morning to empower me to live my faith authentically before my spouse. Reveal to me the truth of 1 Peter 3:1 and how my words can bring healing or how they can hinder. Let me learn to love my husband with Your love. Let him find Your love irresistible. Remind me daily that You are relentlessly pursuing my spouse and will never give up. Teach me to pray effectively for my spouse, asking for salvation and protection from evil. I ask in the life changing name of Jesus, Amen. ~ Winning Him Without Words, Lynn Donovan & Dineen Miller
"let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water." Hebrews 10:22
Father, I thank You my husband has a heart to draw near to You, and as he does, You draw near to him. Give him the things that are necessary for his life when he submits himself to you in prayer.(A Wife's Prayer, Pamela Hines)
Thank you Father for allowing my husband to come close to You. Help him lay aside the sin and weights of this world and seek Your face in prayer daily. You said You would forgive his sin and heal the land if he humbles himself and prays. Heal the land of my husband's life, my life, and the land of our marriage. Psalm 109:4, Hebrews 12:1, 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Romans 15:13
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I pray now that You, the God of all hope, will fill my husband with faith and hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (The Power To Change Your Marriage, Stormie Omartian)
2 Thessalonians 3:5
5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
I pray you would direct his heart into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. (The Power To Change Your Marriage, Stormie Omartian)
To be continued.....
Rachael - I just came across your blog after reading your comments on "Unequally Yoked". I am so moved by your testimony and am believing in God to rebuild the ruins of my marriage.
ReplyDeleteI began my journey in May when my husband told me (after 15 years of marriage) that he didn't know if he ever loved me and went to stay with a co-worker (female). He did agree to counseling and is back home. Shortly before he made his declaration he had reunited with an old friend (female) and they began texting and calling.
While our counselor (Christian) has concluded our sessions and things do seem to be improving, my husband continues to have this "friendship" with this other woman and has lied to me about the amount of time they talk. I have spent many hours in prayer for me, my husband, our marriage, our family, and this other woman. I have recently begun to pray that God would help me to give my husband over to Him completely as well as to make Him my husband. I am thankful for what He has done in our marriage, but still believe He is not done. And overall, I am thankful for this path, as it has brought me to my knees. It took my head knowledge & transfered it to my heart, which is exactly what needed to happen very long ago.
Some days I feel very strongly there is a battle going on within my husband. Some days I let my "old self" get the best of me & I become angry with my husband about the past and find myself "short" with him. Some days I remember to cling to God with everything I have and nothing seems to bother me. And I find that it's blogs like your's, prayer & good Christian friends that help me to cling to Him. Thank you for your words.
Dear Anna,
DeleteMy heart goes out to you. I only touched part of your pain. The lord greatly intervened and removed the other woman from my husbands work before I ever knew what was going on. Don't beat yourself up, you are human. As Dineen writes in one of her prayers in Winning Him without words, you are not responsible for the results. Jesus is responsible for bringing every soul to God the Father. You know what? He won't fail. Go back to this book and highlight, mark the prayers and personalize them. Read pg 51 & 65 especially for yourself. Even now as I go through it to share with you the prayers just jump out at me with so much power! God's word is alive! I have posted a prayer on the Unequally Yoked, make that yours as well. Counselors are helpful at times, but be careful to what you allow yourself to listen to. I went to a couple and most of them could not direct me according to God's truth. I have had more positive results with listening to Him speak and lead me to the resources I need to overcome. I am still battling a spirit of lust and adultery in my husband. He thinks he is being smooth and sneaky (not my husband), but I am not ignorant of Satan's devices and a vision I had last week showed me why it is important for me to continue not becoming complacent in my praying. I don't want my husband like yours, to continue on that path, looking/replacing another female into the situation. I will not quite praying and seeking the Lord until I know he has been completely delivered and is filled with the Spirit of God and following His path. Thank you for sharing! It encourages me to keep writing and sharing my journey. I will post more, and I will post another video sharing my most recent vision and I think I will continue in depth about true spiritual warfare. In the meantime please check out this website http://www.rejoiceministries.org/ and keep pleading the blood of Jesus over your marriage, your spouse, and yourself, both mind and emotions. As you do you will become keener about what is of the Lord is what is not. Put the blood of Jesus between your spouse and the other woman. Pray God will severe that relationship and all evil communication. Pray the Lord will remove all opportunity for infidelity. Just praise God for being faithful. Knowing that He is and will do all that He said He will do. Turn your eyes to Him and keep them there. Obviously the Lord is working and has a plan for your marriage because your husband is with you. Now lets see it through to complete deliverance. Let the Lord be your strength and in the end you will have your reward and you will be rewarded for seeing your husband delivered from sin and eternal judgement. The Lord desires all of us to be planted oaks of righteousness for His splendor. Confess that verse over your husband as well. :) I am here for you. I am praying with you. God Bless You in the Mighty Name of JESUS!