Love: Rejoicing At Injustice

Have you ever found yourself glad when your husband was exposed as being wrong about something, especially when it was in front of your family and friends?  Like you've finally been vindicated?  Have you ever found yourself making jokes in front of those same family and friends at your husband's expense?  Did it seem, at the time, that everyone was having a great time, maybe even your husband was laughing?  But when you caught your husband's eye, you saw pain and hurt? 

This is not the love nature of God.  You can see in our main text, 1 Corinthians 13:6 that love "does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail."  We cut our husband down at the knees by making fun of him and magnifying his faults, particularly in front of others.  You are inviting others to have this negative thought as the last thing they think about your husband.  Instead, we need to be infusing their thoughts with all the positive, wonderful things about our husbands.  Lifting them up and even saying nice things about him that maybe we haven't seen in years or have never seen. Not lying, but confessing those wonderful things and allowing them to manifest in him. Our words are so powerful, they cause those things which are not, to be.  The more we say them, the more we believe them, the more they become reality.  Good or bad, this is a spiritual law.  Let's look at Mark 11:23-24 (Amp)

Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea! and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.  For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it].

And I will give you another scripture as well.   1John 5:14-15 (Amp.):

¹⁴And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us, ¹⁵and if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him.

This belongs to us.  What we say with our mouths is critical.

Now look at James 3:3-5 (Amp).

³If we set bits in the horses' mouths to make them obey us, we can turn their whole bodies about.  ⁴Likewise, look at the ships; though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the helmsman determines.  ⁵Even so the tongue is a little member, and it can boast of great things.  See how much wood or how great a forest a tiny spark can set ablaze!

With our mouth we can create greatness or we can create destruction.  James 3:9-10 goes on to say "With it (our mouth) we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God's likeness!  Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing.  These things, my brethern, ought not to be so."

Rejoicing at injustice is cursing and then we go to church and praise God. We cry and ask or even beg for help but go home and go right back to what we were doing: cursing our husband. 

What we speak will bring blessing or cursing.  Stop confessing that your husband is cursed by rejoicing at his failures.  Going back to 1Corinthians 13:6, "[Love] does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail."  Right and truth will prevail when you call start speaking it out.  How do you do that when you are bombarded with thoughts of how awful your marriage is or your husband or all the suffered wrongs you have faced?  Let's look at Phillipians 4:8:

For the rest , brethern, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and wiegh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].

So if ever we were to keep score in our marriage, it would be to keep score of all the lovely, kind and worthy of praise things in life, not the failures and injustices.

How can we continue to think on failures, weaknesses and mistakes of our husband when we are only caught up thinking on things that are pure, right, lovely, etc.?  How do you want your husband to be?  Speak out those things continually and earnestly believing that God will fulfill those things because you spoke them, believe them and earnestly believe they are true.

Here are a few examples of what we should be saying about our husband (check out November 2011 blog "Confessions Over Your Spouse" for more examples):

"My husband desires to be with me and the family.  He loves to be a help in the house."

"My husband is strengthened with all might unto all patience, endurance and joy.” (Col. 1:11)

"My husband stands perfect and complete in all the will of God.” (Col 4:12)

“Christ is glorified in my husband.” (2Thes.1:12)

The Word is the ultimate Good Report!  Speak it over your husband at every opportunity and even in front of others. They will eventually start agreeing with you and the positive report will now be the last thing they hear about your husband.  How things will start to turn around for you!

Thank the Father that the Word is being done in your husband’s life.  It's not “magic”. There is greater power in the Word than in any magic show or worldly thing.  When you speak the Word over your husband, that power becomes available to him to receive and to do a work in him. Hallelujah!

© 2011 Michelle Serna

Love: A Suffered Wrong

Love pays no attention to a suffered wrong.  Yes ladies, this is really in the Bible.  This is really the love nature of God. God doesn't keep score.  When you ask Him for forgiveness and you truly mean it, the Word says He forgets it and it’s as if it never happened.  He blots it out. 

This may seem practically impossible if you have ever been truly hurt by someone.  But "all things are possible with God." (Matthew 19:26) 

Keeping score is fun when you are playing a game and it can even be exciting when your son's soccer team is about to win, but it has absolutely no place in a marriage.  Taking account of a suffered wrong by your husband and then conveniently bringing it up and lording it over his head every time you want to win an argument is not walking in God's love and it will ultimately drive a permanent wedge between you and your husband.  "But remember when you did such and such to me?" 

Proverbs 19:11 says "Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense."  The Message Bible says in Galations 6:1-3:

 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Verses 4 and 5 of that same chapter go on to give further instruction for you.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

When we realize we are also not perfect and that we would want someone else to lovingly overlook our faults, it makes it easier for us to do the same for others.  How much more we should treat our husbands right?  He is the one who offered to share his life with you for the rest of your life.  This is not someone we see once on the street and go on with our lives.  We are to bear one another's burdens, lift them up and encourage them in their growth in Christ.

© 2011 Michelle Serna

Love Is Not Touchy

Continuing on in 1 Corinthians 12:5 we see God's love in us is not touchy.  What does it mean "touchy".  Do you ever find yourself exclaiming in unbelief at a mere suggestion made by your husband? 

Are you easily upset, irritable, quick-tempered or sensitive, or all of the above?  Then you are touchy.  How about moody? Being moody all comes down to one thing.  You are being ruled by your emotions instead of by Jesus instead of your Lord and Savior.  When you get caught up by emotion and let emotion rule your life, you are letting emotions be your lord.  You are saying you have more confidence in your emotions than you do in Jesus, the Word.

When we are ruled by emotions, we think it gives us permission to say everything we are thinking and feeling.  But the fact is, moodiness is not a characteristic of God's love.  When we are up and happy one minute and angry and irritable the next, our husbands don't know how to respond to us and frankly, don't want to be around us.  And nowhere in the Bible does it say that women are just more emotional than men so it's okay to behave like this.  If God did make women more sensitive, it was so we could be more compassionate towards others and to be able to be a help meet to our husbands, not so we could use it against them and to repel them.

We teach our kids to be kind, to share, to listen and not hurt other people's feelings and then we turn around and do the opposite when it comes to our husbands.  Actions speak louder than words and our kids are watching us.  They will not only pick up your good habits but also your bad ones.

Again, we must filter our actions and words through the Word of God in order to renew our minds and change our thinking about God's love and how to operate in it.  We can do this with the help of the Holy Spirit.  We must only ask.  The Word says He is our Helper and Counselor.  How long could you do your job without proper tools?  How well could you do it?  The Holy Spirit is the tool to help us live our lives through the word.  Love only makes being married sweeter, never sour.  Love only brings blessings, never curses.  Love only builds up, never tears down.

© 2011 Michelle Serna