🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎In marriage, Christian spouses are called to live the Christlife.
🌹The command to husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5:25) is obviously beyond any unsaved man. It takes living the Christlife to love one’s wife so supremely and on a constant basis. But God asks this of Christian husbands because the eternal life deposited in them and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit have given them the enablement to live the Christlife.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎CHRISTIAN WIVES TO LIVE THE CHRISTLIFE
How about Christian wives? Are they also required to live the Christlife? Of course, they are!
🛐The command to submit to their husbands in all things, as the Church does to Christ, says it all. The Church is the Body of Christ and is ready to go to any extent to obey Him. Christian wives have eternal life and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and so they have the enablement to live the Christlife in marriage by submitting themselves joyfully and cheerfully to their husbands in all things, just as the Church does to Christ.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎GOD NEVER ASKS BEYOND YOUR ABILITY
It is never in God’s character to ask anyone to do what is beyond their strength or ability. God’s respective commands to Christian husbands and wives simply show how well-equipped they are to do what He commands.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
What does it mean to live the “Christlife”? Simply put, it is to radiate the character of Christ. It is to spontaneously ooze, emit, and exude the very personality of Christ from the depths of your inner man.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎LIVING THE OPPOSITE LIFE
Sometime ago, I heard of three top Christian leaders who divorced their wives. A man preaches like a machine but divorces his wife brazenly and without qualms, not caring about the negative impact it would have on their children, the Christian community where they live, the name of the Lord, etc., and goes on preaching and “presiding” over “his church.” Is that a demonstration of the Christlife? Most definitely not! It is apparently a manifestation of the uncrucified self and its insatiable ego. Are we judging? No. We are simply analysing a dangerous precedent so that such bad examples will not be emulated.
🎼A preacher punches and beats his wife and yet preaches, and the miraculous takes place. Yes, the miraculous takes place, but don’t be deceived, because that is simply a manifestation of the gift of the Spirit. The Corinthian church was well-endowed with spiritual gifts, yet our anchor Scripture shows that they were carnal and lived like the ordinary, unchurched people around them.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎HOW DO YOU STEP INTO LIVING THE CHRISTLIFE? Here’s how:
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎(1) BE DONE WITH SIN (Romans 6:1–14)
Christ did not die for you to continue committing sin, confessing it, and going back to sin in an endless cycle. He died and resurrected for you to be dead to sin and alive to God:
“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:11)
♎Recognise this truth, embrace it, and the instincts to sin will automatically die and wither from your flesh and life. Sit down, read, and meditate on Romans 6:1–14, and make it your breath and blood.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎A STRANGE CHRISTIANITY
Many born-again believers have ignorantly embraced a strange form of Christianity that is completely tolerant of sin. Some even say, “So-and-so is my besetting sin.” But what does the Scripture say?
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1 John 3:9)
🛡️The power to stop committing sin is received by obeying Romans 6:1–14. Acknowledge that you have been crucified with Christ and resurrected with Him, and you will begin to walk in the newness of life, and sin shall no more have dominion over you! (Romans 6:14)
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎(2) PUT OFF
To live the Christlife, you must personally and privately do some “putting off.” No one is going to force you. You will do it if, indeed, Heaven is your goal and you are desperate about not missing it. When you have this disposition, you will not treat any sin with kid gloves or call any sin “my besetting sin.”
🛐You don’t treat serpents with kid gloves or call them “my besetting snakes,” do you? Instead, you furiously and mercilessly kill them with the cruelest instrument you can lay your hands on. That is the attitude that will keep you above sin. And that is why God tells you to “murder” every inclination to sin that is still lurking inside your life:
“So put to death and deprive of power the evil longings of your earthly body [with its sensual, self-centered instincts]—immorality, impurity, sinful passion, evil desire, and greed, which is [a kind of] idolatry [because it replaces your devotion to God].” (Colossians 3:5, AMP)
🎼The act of “putting off” is spiritual undressing and bathing. You put off the dirty and stinking garments of evil habits that you have worn for years and take a shower. Let’s read one more Scripture on putting off:
“But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.” (Colossians 3:8, KJV)
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎(3) PUT ON
To put on is spiritual grooming and dressing. So we are commanded:
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering.” (Colossians 3:12)
🛡️We all love big and well-stocked wardrobes. God also wants us to have large spiritual wardrobes. So here are more spiritual clothes to put on:
“5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.” (2 Peter 1:5–7)
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎(4) THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
To manifest the Christlife, you must yield your life to the Holy Spirit to bear the sweet fruit of the Spirit in you:
“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22–23)
🎼The truth is that you cannot take the trouble to PUT OFF, PUT ON, AND BEAR THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT and not become an extraordinarily amazing spouse in your marriage.
🛡️🛐🌹🎼♎CONCLUSION: LIVE THE CRUCIFIED LIFE
The reason many Christian spouses do not reflect the Christlife is that, like the Corinthians, they profess salvation but still harbour and hide the works of the flesh. That is why a man or woman can be a leader in the church but still find extramarital affairs very desirable and highly interesting. It does not smell or stink to him or her. But what does the Scripture say? Please read:
“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” (Galatians 5:24)
♎Those who live the Christlife have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. You can do the same by faith by keying into the finished work of Christ on the cross. Then you will be able to victoriously say, like St. Paul:
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
🛡️ Once you’re on the spiritual level of living the crucified life, you will happily dwell with your spouse exactly as God commands, because self is dead, and you personally want only the will of God in your life, marriage, and family.🎼♎
💕♥️🩷Tonight’s Bedroom Assignment:
Re-read this devotional together just before bedtime and discuss it with open and sincere hearts.
✝️Altar Call: Jesus Christ is calling you! Come to Him today in genuine repentance. Believe in Him and be saved!
🌡️🧪⚗️Scientific Info To Boost Your Marriage:
“Overworking lowers a married couple’s sex life by causing physical exhaustion, high stress, and emotional distance. These factors drain sexual desire and create barriers to intimacy.”
🎷🪘🎙️🪗 HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE LORD!